Conversion Optimisation
Overview/Introduction
Staff responsible for e-commerce face the challenge of getting more out of the traffic and better understanding why visitors use a website and why they don’t. The specialisation area Conversion Optimisation tackles this task. Being a meta discipline, Conversion Optimisation uses elements from psychology, technology, sociology and economics.
Relevant to working practice you will learn the following:
- Why people want to buy, possibly at any price. What really drives them to use the website.
- How the way visitors use a website can be influenced purposefully.
- How a website’s weakness can be discovered and resolved.
- How hypothesis formulation and website testing is performed in a statistically valid way.
- How surveys and analyses are conducted in a scientifically sound manner and the results then are valid, reliable and objective.
- How working in an interdisciplinary team can lead to top performance.
In this intensity, Conversion Optimisation & Usability with regard to e-commerce is not in any curriculum of a German higher education institution. Learn the ways of thinking as well as techniques to raise the Return on Investment of e-commerce companies.
Structure of the specialisation area
As area of specialisation, Conversion Optimisation consists of one specialisation seminar (usually in the summer semester) and two specialisation modules (one in the summer, one in the winter semester)
Specialisation 1: Process and Landing Page Optimisation (summer)
Lecturers: Prof. Dr. Tobias Aubele, André Morys
Description
All visitors have their own individual intention when visiting the website. Based on optimisation frameworks (e.g. 7E model) you will learn how to design the optimal mobile and stationary website (possibly also app) after personnel development activities. In addition to applying basic psychological principles also technical aspects (prototyping, tracking) will be important and build the content of this module.
In order to consolidate the theory by practice, you will work out and implement (in the context of a A/B test) suggestions for website design and optimisation for companies/organisations in a team. You will create target pages suitable for keywords or other sources of traffic which take up the users’ intentions as good as possible and initiate conversion. Furthermore, the focus will also be on analysing the product detail pages as well as the checkout process of the companies (e.g. by eye tracking and face reading). Ultimately, you will extend the acquisition process of the traffic team and learn the success of targeted landing pages, web analysis and upstream target group focus. Thus the collaboration of different specialist areas for the growth of the company becomes tangible for you and "teamwork" is not just a catchphrase, but lived reality.
How practice-oriented this module is designed can be seen from the konversionsKraft award for the best landing page in the category conception and the most successful A/B test. The growth levers or the success of persuasive design and corresponding data analyses are thus made visible to you and the relevant stakeholders – replace gut feeling with sound test hypotheses and test execution.
Specialisation Seminar
Lecturers: Prof. Dr. Tobias Aubele, Prof. Dr. Rolf Schillinger
Description
Students improve their knowledge in the area of conversion optimisation and get to know current topics. Due to a broad range of the topics, a practice-oriented set of tasks is represented, which shows the cross connections of conversion optimisation to neighbouring scientific fields (in particular technology, economics, psychology).
At the same time, students learn how to expand and intensify their knowledge in the area conversion optimisation / surface design & usability independently. Putting their work down to paper supports the students in underpinning their concepts and ideas with scientific findings and corresponding current specialist literature. By presenting the written work the students will improve their convincing appearance.
Specialisation 2: Quantitative and Qualitative User Research (winter)
Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Tobias Aubele
Description
In order to realise the goals of a website, a continuous adjustment of the status quo is necessary. The basis for this is profound knowledge about human behaviour (psychology of consumption) as well as the generation of not only quantitative, but also qualitative user specific data.
In particular qualitative data is of great importance (“why do people behave like that?”). This is why you will learn about the scientific foundation for interviews, questionnaires as well as moderated user tests and conduct relevant analyses. You will be able to answer subsequent questions like “Are there statistically significant differences between male and female visitors or is the current result random?” or “Can the evaluation be completed or are additional test persons required?”.
Furthermore, you will do analyses relevant to practice with the help of common (web) analysis tools (e.g. Google Analytics, R Studio), interpret the results as well as check them for validity. You will also have the chance to get a qualification in the Google Analytics-IQ programme.
All in all, you will acquire specialist knowledge about human behaviour and scientific ways of thinking as well as approaches to optimisation processes, which will take an e-commerce company to a higher level step by step.
Topics for bachelor's theses
For this area, professors offer research projects as well as bachelor’s theses. This specialisation seminar is a perfect starting point for creating ideas.