Does a destination photo in the homepage hero lift lead submissions?
The homepage hero showed a group of travelers walking down a city street. We tested left-aligned hero copy and a photo of the destination itself. After 21 days, the destination photo was up 3.9%, short of our confidence bar, so we paused the test.
Not significant Responsive 21 days Not called
The hypothesis
By aligning the hero copy with the photo, or letting the destination be the photo, we will make the hero easier to take in, resulting in more lead form submissions.
The hero background had always shown a group walking through city streets, and its copy did not line up with where the people in the photo were looking. We saw 2 ways to make the hero easier to read: align the copy with the photo, or let the destination itself be the image.
The same hero runs on the paid landing page where most ad traffic arrives, so the test ran on both.
What we changed
We tested left-aligned hero copy and a destination photo.
Var A moved the hero copy to the left, a more natural reading position, and shifted the background photo so the people in it faced the copy. Var B replaced the photo of the group with a landscape of a destination city. Both ran on the homepage and on the matching ad landing page.
- Hero copy aligned left
- Photo shifted so the people face the copy
- Group photo replaced with a city landscape
The result
The destination photo was up 3.9% after 21 days, short of our confidence bar, so we paused the test.
Var B, the destination photo, led control for most of the test and ended 21 days up 3.9%. That lift only reached 49% confidence, well short of our bar. Var A showed no positive movement, so we paused it partway through to send more traffic to Var B. With no clear winner, we paused the test and kept the original hero.
Left-aligned copy on its own did not move visitors. The new photo leaned the right way, but not by enough to call.
What we took from it
The photo is worth another round, not a rollout.
Visitors to this homepage are picturing where they would spend their time, and the destination photo leaned the right way. But a 3.9% lift at 49% confidence is not a result. Changing the copy layout made no difference. A next round could test a photo that shows both the place and people enjoying it, and run long enough to reach a clear answer.