Video game entrepreneur Gaspard de Dreuzy and financial technologist Serge Kreiker had a thought: why not use the gaming experience to break the traditional online investing mold? Their idea took hold and Wall Street firm Kapitall, Inc. was born in 2008. Based in New York, Kapitall now has 15 full-time employees providing a unique online investing platform and brokerage.
Kapitall has used Google Analytics Certified Partner Empirical Path since 2011 for analytics services on its JavaScript website. The complex implementation required custom JavaScript to allow for Google Analytics tracking within the trading interface as well as on landing pages. Empirical Path implemented Google Analytics tracking directly within the Kapitall interface so that decision makers could understand pivotal actions, such as how often brokerage accounts were being funded or where in the sign-up process potential investors were dropping out.
Challenge: Refining the landing page for maximum response
Kapitall wanted to do more than simply capture data however; they also wanted to test the content of their landing page and then optimize it by targeting visitors with messages and options that would lead to conversions. Why was creating a truly effective landing page seen to be so critical? Kapitall’s gaming-style interface enlists traders to sign up for brokerage accounts and use the site to trade stocks or create practice portfolios. Every incremental sign-up is key to the company’s success.Approach: Split testing to identify a winning landing page
Kapitall understood that there was little point in making one-off ad hoc responses to analytics insights, or doing before-and-after comparisons that would inevitably be confounded by differences in the before and after audiences. Empirical Path recommended taking their analytics efforts to the next level with a closed-loop solution to eliminate complications and identify the best page version.
The team proposed automated experiments to compare different versions of the landing page to see which performed best among a random sample of visitors. To accomplish this, Empirical Path first set Google Analytics’ Event Tracking and Custom Variables on brokerage accounts to distinguish current customers from traders. The team then designed Content Experiments in Google Analytics to understand which version of the landing page drove the greatest number of sign-ups.
Results: A new landing page with proven success
The outcomes from the test were illuminating, clearly identifying that the Angry Birds landing page was most effective. The winning version showed a dramatic increase in sign-ups of 44 percent and a 98 percent probability that this version would continue to beat the original. “Kapitall was impressed by how quickly Content Experiments was able to zero in on the Angry Birds version,” says Jim Snyder, principal at Empirical Path Consulting. “Having the ability to quickly surface the best performing version directly resulted in attracting more investors at a faster rate, and that was a huge value-add to Kapitall.” Thanks to the split testing approach, Kapitall possesses valuable insights into the perfect blend of messaging and creative elements to optimize the page. With the strongest version now implemented, Kapitall is able to realize the true power of its online real estate.
