Even Omniture Get It Wrong Sometimes…

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Omniture. They are the leaders in web analytics and testing tools. They do have some amazing products (which I use daily), but it looks like even they could be practicing what they preach a little more. But why?

Well, yesterday I did a search on Google for ‘omniture site search’, and a sponsored ad for Omniture appeared at the top of the search results. Now, companies who don’t deliver a seamless flow from a paid search engine click, to their sites or landing pages really bugs me – what a waste of a clicks. I see landing pages go wrong far too often. So, I thought I would see how Omniture fared. 

What did I see? Well, click on the image to the right -lets put it this way, it didnt fare to well. I got a pretty generic landing page, with a generic Site Catalyst image, with a contact form. This contains three major marketing/analytical mistakes, that could be fixed by using their own ‘Test and Target’ product.

Problem 1: They are automatically inserting whatever your search query is into the landing page text – often out of context. I typed ‘omniture site catalyst’ and it showed up in the following context: ‘Learn how Omniture SiteCatalyst, our Web Analytics solution, will help improve your Omniture Site Search and Marketing ROI, and ultimately increase your bottom line’. That sentence doesn’t make a lot of sense does it? And who says I was interested in Site Catalyst anyway? Which leads me to my next problem…

Problem 2: The landing page has very little relevance to my search term. Other than the auto-inserted search keyword mentioned in problem 1, there is no mention of their site search tool, and its benefits and features, or a picture of the tool. This immediately decreases the chances of me filling in their contact form. I know you are Omniture, and I’m sure you make a great site search product, but why not tell me about it before I complete the form?

Problem 3: Okay, so lets say I wanted to roll the dice and trust Omniture by filling in the form, hoping Omniture contact me, and demonstrate to me a good site search product. There are two further painful barriers preventing me from wanting to fill this form in – basically, the contact form does its worst to make me want to fill it in! Firstly, it is asking for way to many detailed answers from me! It had 6 fields and 7 drop down menus! Why should I take the time to enter all those details, when Omniture haven’t taken the time to even tell me anything about their Site Search product? Do they really need to immediately know things like my ‘department’ and ‘relationship to Omniture’? Surely they could get detailed info like that when they call or email me. Secondly, they use some scary language just above the form: ‘Please note: Cookies must be enabled to proceed. Wow. What a strange off-putting thing to say on a form. This may make potential customers think twice whether they do have cookies enabled, or simply enough, why exactly Omniture wants them to have them turned on so bad.

Sorry Omniture. But if I was a serious prospect, I would have abandoned this failed landing page. I would have just probably either gone straight to a site search competitor, or if I really was still very interested in their tool and wanted to work even more to find more info, I would have gone to their omniture.com site, and tried to find their site search product to get more information that way.

The solution: And this would have been an easy fix.  They could have used their own ‘Test and Target’ product and tested the copy on this landing page to mention their site search benefits, tested using a picture of their site search product, and tested the amount of fields on the form that resulted in the most conversions (forms completed). And test removing the weird cookies line. Call me crazy, but I would be surprised if testing those changes didn’t result in a huge increase in leads from this landing page. And lots more fellow happy Omniture customers!

Again, I don’t mean to bash Omniture, as they make great products. But everyone needs a little help now and again from friends, don’t they? Hopefully someone at Omniture is listening 🙂