# 200 A/B Tests Later: How We Learned To Create Paid Content That Sells

- Link: https://phiture.com/mobilegrowthstack/paid-content-testing-182677e003b6/
- Published: 2018-07-25T10:20:45+01:00
- Author: Sandra Wu

_It isn’t easy to write, it’s even harder to do it for your brand. Here are 5 important
lessons we learned at Blinkist that will help you succeed._

![200 A:B Tests Later- How We Learned To Create Paid Content That Sells](https://
phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/200-AB-Tests-Later-How-We-Learned-To-Create-
Paid-Content-That-Sells-.jpeg)

Whether you’re creating a blog post, a push notification, or a few lines for a Facebook
ad, writing can seem like the toughest task imaginable.

Good content takes a lot of trial and error to get right. At Blinkist, we’ve made
all the mistakes, so you don’t have to. After 2 years, over 200 tests and hundreds
of hours in the writing room, we’ve turned our magazine into a powerful tool for
user acquisition.

In this post, I’ll share with you the 5 key lessons that we learned to create content
that sells.

**Lesson 1: Start with why.**

Sometimes, the hardest thing about marketing a product is believing in it yourself.
Every product has a cause worth fighting for. Figure out what yours is, write 500
words about it, I guarantee that will do well.

Don’t believe me? Simon Sinek’s bestselling book [Start With Why](https://www.blinkist.com/en/books/start-with-why-en/)
details the rise and fall of corporations who have forgotten their mission. As a
product becomes more complex, it’s easy to lose track of why it was created in the
first place. Content marketing forces you to confront that.

Take our app for example. On the surface, Blinkist is a reading app that turns nonfiction
books into digestible content. However, it’s much more than that, it’s a tool for
learning.

That message wasn’t just more inspiring, it was also better for our pockets. By 
including our core mission on landing pages, our sign-up conversions increased by
39%.

![About Blinkist ](https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/About-Blinkist-
min.png)

I encourage you to rethink the basis of your marketing message.

_Does your content capture the essence of your product? If not, go deeper._

#### **Lesson 2: Don’t expect people to read everything.**

Once you’ve found a strong thesis, back it up with arguments. Unfortunately, unlike
a university professor, the typical reader will give you 30 seconds before grading
your piece.

This might seem unfortunate for mankind, but is actually a survival instinct we’ve
developed to protect us from all the noise on the internet.

To appeal to the modern reader, write your articles like an inverted pyramid — put
the most important stuff first.

![The Inverted Pyramid of Content Marketing](https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/
2018/07/The-Inverted-Pyramid-of-Content-Marketing-min.png)

 1. What’s the main problem your product is trying to solve?
     _For Blinkist, we want
    people to read more nonfiction books, and use that knowledge to improve themselves._
 2. How does it do it?
     _We condense the most popular books into 15-minute takeaways,
    so people can quickly survey what they should read in full._
 3. Arguments to support your claim.
     _We have a dedicated team of librarians who pick
    the best books, subject experts who extract the most important points, and a world-
    class product team that makes this content available in a beautiful, easy-to-use
    app. All this, so nonfiction books get the attention that they deserve._
 4. Other features that might be interesting to the reader.
     _We’ve won a few awards,
    our content is available in audio format, and there are curated reading list for
    every category of nonfiction books._
 5. How to sign up for your product.
     Download our app in the iTunes and Google Play
    store.

Notice that we wouldn’t start articles with what awards we’ve won because as nice
as that is, it’s irrelevant until we can make a case for our app.

For writers, this means that:

_You don’t need to spend days perfecting your content, just make sure you mention
the right things._

#### **Lesson 3: Don’t spend all your time writing.**

By now, I’ve given you an idea of how to provide valuable content, but is that enough?

The answer is — no. Good content makes a strong foundation, but great layout and
designs will take you rest of the way. To put this in perspective, this is the role
each aspect of an article plays.

**50% of the results**

What you write _(What problem is your product trying to solve? How does it do it?)_

How you write it _(How will you tell that story in an engaging way?)_

**30%**

Layout _(Does it look trustworthy?)_

Conversion elements

**20%**

Assets (images, videos, etc.)

Designs (Is it on-brand?)

Take this test for example, by changing the styling of quotes, we managed to increase
conversions by 17%.

![changing the styling of quotes resulted in increase of conversions ](https://phiture.
com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/changing-the-styling-of-quotes-resulted-in-increase-
of-conversions-min.png)

Most of the time, the simpler (sometimes less beautiful) design performs better,
but this doesn’t mean that the internet has a bad taste, rather than readability
is more important than aesthetics.

Therefore:

As important as content is, it should only take up half of your time, dedicate the
rest of your effort to the layout and design.

#### **Lesson 4: Don’t be obsessed with converting readers.**

In content marketing, ‘content’ comes first. Your job is to give people valuable
content first, and then convert them.

All our pages have a smart banner — an app download prompt that sticks to the top
as readers scroll. Other than that, we haven’t had much success with other conversion
elements.

We tried adding buttons where people tend to drop off:

![adding buttons at the end of the page ](https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/
2018/07/adding-buttons-at-the-end-of-the-page-min.png)

We tested midway/inline banners because everyone else had them:

![adding an inline banner](https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/adding-
an-inline-banner-min.png)

We also tried anchor texts (texts with links) for those who are banner blind, but
that also didn’t improve conversions.

These conversion elements didn’t do a great job at capturing readers who we already
lost and turned off engaged readers who would’ve otherwise converted.

We effectively ruined a good reading experience in order to appease the wrong people.

After too many failed tests, we decided to keep our layout simple and rely on good
content to do the converting.

Our rule of thumb is:

_Keep conversion elements to a minimum, and only add extra ones when content allows
it._

#### **Lesson 5: Ignore the superficial stuff.**

In the final lesson of this blog post, I want to warn you to not take your work 
too seriously.

I mentioned earlier that people don’t read articles, they scan them. As a result,
they follow an F-pattern when they read. You can see an example below.

![eyetracking visualizations](https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/eyetracking-
visualizations-min.jpeg)

This means:

_Sometimes, it doesn’t really matter how long your article is, what images you use,
or what fancy banners you have in place, readers will ignore everything outside 
of the F-shape._

We discovered this after 5 failed tests trying to find a better banner image.

We had an article that had a banner image of a woman’s back. We thought, this isn’t
the most inspiring, we could do better.

We first swapped it for an image of a woman who’s looking up from her phone, as 
if she’s experienced something profound. It’s important to note that this was one
of our best performers on FB, Outbrain and Taboola.

![changing the banner image to a stock photo](https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/
2018/07/changing-the-banner-image-to-a-stock-photo-min.png)

How could this go wrong? It did big time. By using the image on the right, our conversions
dropped by -10.62%.

Our first instinct was that stock photos turn people off, so we tested another photo
of our colleagues.

![changing the banner image to one of our colleagues](https://phiture.com/wp-content/
uploads/2018/07/changing-the-banner-image-to-one-of-our-colleagues-min.png)

This was even worse, our conversions dropped by -14.39%.

By this point, we thought — If it didn’t matter what image we used, do we need it
at all? So we tried removing it altogether.

![removing the banner image altogether](https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/
07/removing-the-banner-image-altogether-min.png)

What came next was no surprise, the control won again.

We didn’t stop here, we also tested moving the banner image up and down, but nothing
beat the control. We were stuck with a boring image that cannot be replaced, removed,
or repositioned.

This is when it dawned on us, we wasted days going after peanuts when we could be
doing other more fun and fruitful things (like taking a Friday afternoon off to 
nurse our tired brains).

The lesson is clear:

_It’s futile to make sense of every little piece of an article, focus on the big
stuff, and iterate within the F-shape._

#### **How to get started**

As you can see, content marketing isn’t just good for growth, it’s an opportunity
for a company to reflect on its values. Follow this article to get started, and 
once you have something to work with, hop over to my other article [How To Grow Your App Through Content Marketing](https://mobilegrowthstack.com/how-to-grow-your-app-through-content-marketing-dbd5dd8fdd33)
for the campaign side of things!