Ever wonder how the words used on your hotel website affects your conversion rates, conversion funnels, and revenue? Blue Magnet sought to answer this question by A/B testing the primary calls to action on a major market, boutique hotel’s website. The results are fascinating and provide actionable direction to help your website maximize its revenue potential. Take a look at what we found – these insights just may help you bring your digital marketing campaign to the next level!
Experiment Overview
This experiment tested how booking widget verbiage affects conversion rates. In this experiment, “Check Availability” is the original call to action, and “Book Now” is the variant. The copy was updated on both the desktop booking widget and the mobile booking button.
Goal of the Experiment: To determine whether “Check Availability” or “Book Now” is more effective at funneling potential guests into the reservation system
Page Tested: Home page
Element Tested: Desktop booking widget and the mobile header’s reservation button
Definition of Conversion: Desktop booking widget submissions and mobile booking button clicks
Targeting: 50% of all home page visitors were included in the experiment. Of visitors included in the experiment, half were served the original version (Check Availability) and half were served the variant (Book Now).
Hypothesis: We predicted the difference in booking widget clicks would be nominal, with the Book Now version performing slightly better. We believed “Book Now” to be a clearer, more intuitive call to action with a stronger potential to drive clicks.
Duration of Experiment: 30 days
Total Experiment Sessions: 3,555
A Quick Look at the Controls and the Variants
To provide visual context for the elements tested, the screenshots below show the original and variant versions for the home page’s primary call to action.
Original on Desktop
Variant on Desktop
Original on Mobile
Variant on Mobile
Overview of Experiment Results
Thirty days of data shows the Check Availability version yielded 13.84% more clicks to the booking engine than its Book Now counterpart, debunking Blue Magnet’s hypothesis. For experiment sessions, the original call to action (“Check Availability”) saw a 43.69% conversion rate while the variant (“Book Now”) saw a 38.38% conversion rate.
