Ask HN: Please review my startup Wingify - Realtime Conversion Optimization

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=876141

by paraschopra • 17 years ago

25 23 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Here's my attempt at the elevator pitch: Wingify is the only product suite available aimed at increasing website conversion rates. For optimizing conversions, it provides a single platform to access and deploy techniques such as split testing, behavioral targeting, visitor segmentation, web analytics and funnel analysis. The platform is plug-and-play, hassle-free and comprehensive way of optimizing conversion events of any kind: be it sales, signups, leads, pageviews, etc. In addition to providing technology platform, Wingify also has conversion experts, designers and engineers in house to help its clients in designing and implementing the conversion optimization plan.

Here is the link - http://www.wingify.com/

paraschopra8• 17 years ago

Here is the clickable link - http://www.wingify.com/

Here is the link to the product tour - http://www.wingify.com/product/tour.php

mahmud2• 17 years ago

http://www.wingify.com/ (clickable)

http://www.wingify.com/product/tour.php (Tour)

Godspeed Paras! the most hardworking, self-improving, tireless guy I know in online advertising. And it doesn't hurt that you're smart as well :-)

You might need to water-down the technical jargon with descriptive sentences. The biggest hassle I still face today is users who are uneducated about online advertising. E.g:

BEHAVIORAL TARGETING showing your ads only to interested users, based on their previous behavior.

A/B Split-testing and Multivariate testing allows you to run multiple ads on small segment, and then run the highest performing ads on the rest of your user-base.

So on and so forth.

Most of your upcoming work will be on educating the users 1/2 the time, and sourcing clients on the other half.

Good luck.

paraschopra8• 17 years ago

Thanks Mahmud, it is great to be in touch with people like you who are already in this industry. As I have done in the past, I look forward to learning tons more from you in coming times.

mahmud2• 17 years ago

Badhai ho! Safe sailing, my man :-)

http://www.kockums.se/news/svensknews/Resources/champagne.jp...

Btw, I licensed it to the real specialists as soon as I could. They're tasting it til December 1st or buying it. Seems like I will be coming to you for help :-D

sh1mmer2• 17 years ago

I looked at this and completely failed to "get it".

Then I read the summary here and it sounds like a grab bag of stuff to both analyse and deploy content to sections of your site's audience.

However, "Realtime Conversation Optimization" was a completely meaningless buzzwordified summary for me.

paraschopra8• 17 years ago

It is "Realtime Conversion Optimization"

timdorr• 17 years ago

I happened to read it as "Conversation" too. I was actually curious how you could make me a better conversationalist in real time :)

It might seem like nitpicking, but the title phrase you use for your application is going to get referenced a lot, so it's pretty important. Maybe something like "Website Sales Optimization"?

sh1mmer2• 17 years ago

That makes more sense, I'm dyslexic, and one of my 'coping strategies' is word association. It's likely I read "conversation" because I read "realtime" first.

leecho0• 17 years ago

I felt the same way, change it to something along the lines of "increase revenue from your website now!"

optimization -> increase conversion

Somewhere near "get started now" add something like "it only takes 30 minutes" -- "plug and play", "hassle free" are both a bit vague.

and totally split test it.

overall, it looks awesome =)

patio11• 17 years ago

Split test a shorter elevator pitch emphasizing benefits over features. :) My impression of them:

Cutting-edge conversion optimization made simple, with optional outsourcing. Spend less time fighting your software and more time bragging about your ROI.

Incidentally, I finally got around to playing with the demo account you gave me and deploying the tracking code to my site. More detailed comments to follow in a week or two, but my quick impression is that you'd be well-served to create a quick three or four step This Is What You Need To Do Next trail for folks on their first few visits, because you pack an AWFUL lot onto that first screen. Many of your users might not understand "OK, first off, I'm going to mouse over the Account button, then click Get Tracking Code, then find some Javascript, then copy it into my pages, and if I don't do this then NOTHING else on this interface is going to have any data on it despite appearing like it might."

paraschopra8• 17 years ago

Hey, thanks for trying it out. Yes I know a couple of good workflow scenarios is due. Like Step 1, Step 2 kind of thing. One of the challenges here is that different websites may have different conversion challenges, so making a common process might be difficult. But, yes, I agree the most common things can be put into a simple to use workflow.

fauigerzigerk• 17 years ago

It looks very good to me. I like the website and I understand what the product is supposed to do for me. What I don't completely understand is whether the focus is on software or consulting and whether the two are available separately.

Also, I never quite got the distinction between products and solutions. In my mind it just symbolizes "expensive enterprise offering".

paraschopra8• 17 years ago

The two are offered separately. But the main focus is on the software.

I am toying with the idea of having a price/comparison chart on the website to facilitate decision making. However, conversion optimization for different websites can be very different projects in scope.

That said, we have some pre-defined packages in which access to software + limited conversion optimization consulting is given for a price of say $500-$1000 per month, depending on the website traffic.

cschwarm3• 17 years ago

Congrats, it sounds like that's a great product!

Unfortunately, it took me 14 page views and 1738 seconds to find the product tour on the page. In general, I found the organization of the different product descriptions to be confusing.

I also missed an answer to the 'How?' question. Of course, it depends on your preferred target audience but if it's smaller start-ups, it wouldn't hurt to get a bit more technical.

There's just one real negative point I could make: The site lacks credibility, in my opinion. There's neither a clear "FREE" message nor is there a "Plans and Pricing" page. I also missed a note about the status of the service. The word "solutions" has a negative connotation for me. There is no privacy policy, terms of use or 'About Us' page. Also, there's nothing with a more personal touch, no link to a blog, for example. The link to the Twitter account is hardly noticeable. Since 'Get started now' leads to a contact page, it just makes it look less trustworthy. You want me to contact you, but you don't say who you are.

If I had found the site by some other means, I would have been very warily.

Hope this helps.

paraschopra8• 17 years ago

Thanks a lot for your comments.

Well, the website was exactly opposite to the current one a couple of weeks back. Earlier, we had lots of technology description on the site and a very prominent product tour. After getting feedback from the target market (small-middle sized B2B and B2C publishers and marketing consultants/agencies), we realized that technology means absolutely nothing to them. In fact, it was scaring them off because of the perceived complexity of the product. So we put away all the tech stuff deep in the website and talk in simple terms on the most frequented pages.

Your point on credibility is extremely valid. I cannot agree more how important is to have a proper privacy policy and terms and conditions, especially in online advertising market. We are working on it and it should be on the site soon. Do you think making 'Get Started Now!' subdued can make it look more credible?

jlees• 17 years ago

To be honest, I don't think you've got it simple enough. There's still a buttload of jargon for someone to wade through. Think about the customers, what benefits they get, and push those. Although, talk to prospective customers and users (do we on HN count?), maybe this is a field where jargon is simple - but the first thing I see on the site is Realtime Conversion Optimization Suite, and I don't know what that is, so I'll click away.

cschwarm3• 17 years ago

I'd probably replace 'Get started now' with 'See plans and pricing'. On the 'plans and pricing' page, I'd write something like:

"We're in private alpha now, so there are no pricing plans yet. But we'll try hard to make it fair and affordable! If you'd like to participate in our alpha test, get in contact with us. Here's how: ... " (Offer some incentives here, if you want to: 'FREE' during alpha, cancel any time, '3 free tips by our conversions experts that you can test right away', 'Get our FREE white paper "How to increase your conversion rate by up to 143% with behavioural targeting"'... you get the idea.)

If your private alpha/beta tests takes longer and you expect to get some traffic meanwhile, you may also like to consider a notification form at the end of the page. It may get some additional leads when you're ready to launch.

I understand that too much jargon scared off your potential target audience. On the other hand, someone has to integrate and use the service after a prospect signed-up. Why not make something like "Documentation" somewhere on the site? Maybe, instead of 'Resources'?

I agree with jlees: It may still be too much jargon.

Btw, I've just visited the page for a second time. It's funny to note that I didn't see the Twitter link on the homepage, because I immediately clicked somewhere above the fold. :)

Overall, I think you are quite close. It's just a lot of minor details that may improve the impression of the site.

betageek• 17 years ago

Wooah, jargon overload - you've managed to put pretty much every technical term on one page and I think that could be a problem to your audience. Publishers & marketers are a varied bunch, and very few of them would be able to understand the value of what your suggesting from that first page (that's from 10+ years experience in online advertising - publisher, portal & vendor side)

I'd suggest you hide the detail (or maybe put a 'already an expert? here's the technical stuff' type clickthrough) and replace it with a simple (as possible) explanation of what you do for the customer and why it's great in language a layman could understand. Add in some performance metrics ('Customer A experienced a 350% increase in signups') and then build a structured 'next steps' flow for the how bit.

Easiest way to do the 'next steps' is think of your customers - get inside their heads and then have links that focus on the specific problems your solving for B2B, B2C, Marketers etc.

AlexBlom• 17 years ago

I found there to be a lot of Jargon. Keep a sales pitch simple. A good rule of thumb is not to say what your business does / what the script is, but what it can likely do for me.

As the script is complex simply ask users to identify themselves as personal, small business or corporate before entering the website?

I THINK I know what the script does but I'm not 100% sure, jargon heavy. A good resource for sales pitches is http://www.ai.uga.edu/mc/WriteThinkLearn.pdf (about the first half of the presentation).

Feel free to contact me on alexanderdblom [AT} GMAIL

Ask HN: Please review my startup Wingify - Realtime Conversion Optimization

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