So, what is 5 Second User Testing?

OK, but what can it be used for?

Hmmm, 5 seconds doesn’t sound very long…

It’s plenty of time! We’re looking to test the immediate visual impact of the content. We are looking to find out whether it gives a strong and effective first impression, and to find out if there are any sources of confusion that need to be eliminated from the design.

The first impression isn’t the whole story about marketing effectiveness but it’s a crucial component. For example in search marketing, if your landing page doesn’t immediately create a positive impression for the visitor, they won’t hang around to read the detail – they’ll hit the back button and move on to a competitor’s listing.

OK, I’m interested, does it work for B2B?

Yes! Perhaps surprisingly well. We’ve used 5 second user testing with great success across a diverse range of B2B marketing projects. We’ve a detailed B2B case study example below.

But do you need to recruit a specialist panel?

Many forms of market research are difficult for B2B because of the need to work with specialist research participants – people who are expert in the subject matter under test. But for 5 second user testing the panel members don’t need to be experts in the subject matter.

We’re not concerned about how a person responds to the complex details of the content under test, just their first impressions – and these are usually much the same whether they have subject matter expertise or not.

There are often cultural elements to how people process visuals, so ideally we use a test panel that is broadly representative of the target audience in terms of geographic location, age and education level. But we don’t need to be more specific than that for most tests – which makes test setup and execution much faster and easier.

You mentioned an example?

Here goes!

We’re in the process of refreshing our branding at Sharp Ahead. We like our current branding but we don’t feel it quite represents the agency we are today, especially with our last couple of years of growth. So we’ve developed a refreshed brand concept which we all absolutely love, and we’re keen to roll it out.

But with any project like this it is easy to get too close to the work and too attached to a creative concept. We are not our own target audience! So we wanted to reduce the risk of our rebrand by testing the new branding against the old.

We chose to test one of our most important PPC landing pages – a page that allows a prospective new client to sign up for a free initial consultation with one of our directors.

Here’s the current version of the page with the original branding:

And here’s the new design – note that this is currently just a flat design, not a live web page. (One of the advantages of this test method is that we can test an early design like this.)

We tested the two versions with separate panels – this is important, we don’t want to “educate” a participant about the first version of a design and then have the same participant give a distorted impression of the second version.

The results gave us a lot of confidence in the new branding. For example the new branding scores 23% better on an index of “professionalism” – a big improvement that aligns with where we are looking to take the brand.

The change in the page design was also intended to simplify the visuals so that they were less distracting – allowing the reader to focus on the CTA and other key elements of the page. Our test gave us some confidence that we’ve achieved that. Here’s the word cloud showing what people recalled the most strongly about the original page:

Note how “funnel” and “book” and “image” stand out there, at the expense of “consultation”. This word cloud suggests that the visuals are distracting from the primary CTA, not enhancing it.

Here’s the corresponding word cloud for the new design:

This is a much better result! The panelists have seen and recalled the offer of a free consultation, and the fact that we’re a b2b marketing specialist. So we can have a lot of confidence that the new design has achieved its objectives.

So, there we have it, a perfect example to illustrate the benefits of running 5 second user testing to provide insight that can help your brand evolve positively. 

Say hello to a new feature on the Google Ads platform: image extensions.

It won’t surprise you to learn that an image extension enables a search ad to contain an image.

This is the latest in a long line of features from Google that allow “extensions” (or as they are now called “assets”) to be used to expand a search ad beyond the basic headline and description. But it’s the first time Google has allowed graphics in search ads. So, it creates an exciting opportunity for search marketers to expand their creativity.

Here’s an example from Google’s own documentation:

The benefits of the image are clear in this case: the ad stands out more on the page, and the picture of attractive-looking food conveys a huge amount of information in a way that the ad copy itself cannot.

It’s obvious how an image is helpful when selling a tangible product to a consumer. But are image extensions relevant for the B2B marketer?

We’ve looked at a two examples of search ads for B2B services to illustrate how B2B advertisers are currently using image extensions. (Disclaimer: neither of these examples is connected with Sharp Ahead.)

Discover How To Decarb Your Digital Marketing

Sharp Ahead are proud to be returning to Leeds Digital Festival and hosting an event at 9:30 on 29th September.

The Leeds Digital Festival, known as “The Tech Event for Everyone”, is an open & collaborative celebration of digital culture in all its forms. It’s perfect for those interested in coding, fintech, social media, AI, healthtech, data, start-ups, digital music, cyber security or AR/VR.

Now returning for its 7th year, the Leeds Digital Festival is hosting a jam-packed three days of cutting-edge tech events, including our very own session on decarbing your digital marketing.

In our 45 minute session, hosted at Avenue HQ and online, we’ll be discussing the carbon cost of your digital marketing activities and how you can work towards your ESG goals, whilst improving the performance of your digital marketing channels.