I remember buying that special for $5, and it was by far the easiest thing I have bought on the internet. It probably did help that his name was already a household brand in the comedy world.
> It probably did help that his name was already a household brand in the comedy world.
This is something that the author somehow overlooks. Louis CK does not need to "sell" to you, you're basically just buying. There's a lot of sales fluff that most other websites need to go through because either the product is not unique (a lot of cheaper/better competition) or the product is not dead simple.
While the general premise is correct, it will fail to produce such drastic results for products which actually must compete in the marketplace. There is no "other" Louis CK, and I think this applies to most artists in general. These ticketmaster sweeteners/lock-ins are not needed; the venues/performers likely only use them for convenience and as a promotional and organizational turn-key solution.
Agreed that I bet that helped get people to his site to purchase the video download. But I think it is equally important to note that he left the subscribe box unchecked during this purchase, and he still had enough people re-check it that he was able to sell out his live shows ONLY through this email.
That is what I am trying to convey here – that focusing on a great customer experience can be an aid in driving sales, not a deterrent.
Ultimately, everyone wants to make user experiences like this. But along the way, some short-sighted MBA or marketer gets involved, who's job success is measured by email subscription numbers or another metric, and the whole thing gets messed up.
What if customer experience was the only metric that mattered? We find that our clients who focus on this as the main metric see sales double... which is really what all the suits care about.
Just imagine how much better Google would be if user experience was 100% of their focus, not shared with advertisers (Google's real customers the way it works today).
But how can you show how proactive you have been in your quarterly performance review without testing out various user funnel strategies, optimizing conversion rates and paying consultants for A/B tests?
You mention tactics. Instead, focus on metrics trends. Optimizing the customer experience may include the tactics you've mentioned, but if you walk into a review and show that your customers are happier (net promoter score, or clips from user testing, for example), conversion rates are up, and online revenues are up... that would be pretty darn good evidence of a job well done.
Starting the article with: 'I made it the easiest thing you could possibly buy, you don’t have to join anything. All the things I hate about going on the Internet and trying to watch stuff – I stripped all of that away.'.
And ending with: 'The Stuck Score™ benchmarks your site in seven key problem areas so that you can immediately improve your website performance.
How much revenue are you leaving on the table? Find out for free.
Get your free Stuck Score™ today. [ Submit your name and email here ]'
I see your point, but like Louis CK, if you see the value in the content provided, we think you'd be willing to give more information: in Louis CK's case subscribing to an email when making a purchase, in our case getting a Stuck Score™ that can provide even more value.
Fair enough and thumbs up for actively replying. In my view you could improve my customer experience by reducing the feeling of getting into a sales funnel.
Without using something like an A/B test it would be impossible to determine what kind of effect this has on conversion rate. I don't doubt removing friction helps get users to make a purchase but "Hey I just did these few things and this time we had tickets sell really fast!" is not a correct approach to optimizing conversion rate, there could have been any number of factors which were not accounted for here as to why tickets sold so fast.
I used to be a firm believer in A/B tests, but nowadays I feel that our over-reliance on it has created this awful internet dystopia.
Don't get me wrong - A/B tests are valuable, but I've worked at many companies that have relied on them to a fault.
For one thing, there are very important metrics that are hard to measure, and many are impossible to measure in relation to a specific website change. User happiness for example is a nearly impossible metric to measure, and correlating it to specific website experiments is pretty much right out.
Many factors also have time-delayed effects, which is nearly impossible to correlate back to source causes, and IMO why we see so many companies achieve short-term conversion gains at enormous expense to brand perception and customer satisfaction.
In many ways companies that over-focus on A/B testing miss the forest for the trees - it doesn't necessarily create the best possible product, it often instead ends up creating the least shitty version of a bad product.
The article makes it seem like fans bought his ticket because it was easy. I wonder how many tickets he sold due to his site decisions and how many he sold due to his popularity.
The number of people willing to wade through the terrible experience of ordering tickets online to see their favorite artists does suggest that the first rule is, be popular.
But the bigger point here is... why make it a terrible experience if you don't need to? Or purpose at The Good is to remove all the bad experiences from the web until only the good remain. That's why I shared this inspirational example.
So CKs brilliant talent for comedy had not so much to do with his ticket sales, eh?
That sounds like a sales pitch. Oh wait, scroll to the bottom, this is a sales pitch. Classic tactic of making the incredible sound easy, just pay a small fee!
There is no huge secret to conversion rate optimization, or consumer experience optimization. It’s quite simple, really: put your consumer’s needs first and you’ll double your online sales...
So it's that black and white, is it? You can apply a binary assessment to something as complex as "putting a consumer's needs first?" Even if you could, you still have the issue of pricing models, software terms and more to consider which may be necessary to protect your business and your bottom line, but do nothing to further the consumer's interests.
Louis CK is selling one product (a highly popular one) on his site at a single price point. I don't find the fact that he sold out in one day to be mind-blowing or applicable to most businesses. Ticketmaster sells out shows everyday and their customer experience is terrible. The underlying product is what gets the sales, not the website.
The reason sites like Amazon hire MBA's by the hundreds is because those sites have countless pricing dimensions that have to be analyzed continuously in order to maximize conversion rates, profit, and inventory. It sounds good at first pass to think just throwing out all the features on every website that aren't consumer-centric in order to sell out is a simple workable strategy because a popular comedian selling an e-product did it, but then after you think about it for a couple minutes you realize it's pretty useless advice.
I pretty much agree as someone who does UX UI and design for some of the biggest companies around.
I look at something and if it annoys me I know it annoys a lot of people out there, then I rip it out or figure out a way that is less annoying.
Rule 1-10 don't annoy people with your website
Rule 11-100 keep it simple
I don't suggest my personal approach for everyone because there is no accounting for taste, and I am way more cynical and easily annoyed than most so that helps me in this field lol
This agency takes content from Howard Stern about Louis CK's site in order to promote themselves, and then doesn't link to Louis CK's site so we can see for ourselves what it's all about.
The point isn't the commenter /(doesn't know how to|couldn't)/ find the site; it's the fact that the web was built to link relevant pages together, and this page (and many) fail to do that, despite it being an article about a particular website/page.
What if the site was actually louisck-the-new-site.net? Hopefully google has indexed it, but why should you depend on that?
This behavior increases the difficulty of indexing the web from "count links to page X" to some a deep learning of all article content - and that deep learning relies purely on what's already been indexed.
The only external links are to their social media pages, the rest of their links are to their own articles.
Is there a word for websites like that?
In wiki parlance, we call sets of pages that only link to their own internal information "walled gardens".
In normal people terms, we call them "bad websites". This page was good at being an article, but bad at being a website. Which is why I included the link above, to help humans and algorithms make links to the appropriate information.
But the benefit of only linking to your internal information is more page views and therefore ad revenue. At least in the short term, until users find the good websites. One more way advertising is ruining the world wide web.
It was upvoted enough to make it to the front page, so people are getting some value of it. I agree that davidhoos is basically a lucky marketer whose gimmicky article happens to be entertaining and appeal to a certain Hacker News anti-marketing sentiment (ironically).
Just went to look at his tour dates and the "buy tickets" links seem to almost all link to...ticketmaster.com. :(
I clicked on the one for the venue closest to me and Ticketmaster forces me to choose from of list of scheduled events to see seating for, and Louie's not even on the list. Classic ticketmaster.
I don't think it needs to be an either/or. Why not both/and. Aim to have both a solid user focused experience and to be a highly differentiated, beloved brand.
Of course it doesn't need to be an either-or thing, but the article posits that him selling well was connected to his website design, which is basically speculation.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 101 ms ] threadThis is something that the author somehow overlooks. Louis CK does not need to "sell" to you, you're basically just buying. There's a lot of sales fluff that most other websites need to go through because either the product is not unique (a lot of cheaper/better competition) or the product is not dead simple.
While the general premise is correct, it will fail to produce such drastic results for products which actually must compete in the marketplace. There is no "other" Louis CK, and I think this applies to most artists in general. These ticketmaster sweeteners/lock-ins are not needed; the venues/performers likely only use them for convenience and as a promotional and organizational turn-key solution.
That is what I am trying to convey here – that focusing on a great customer experience can be an aid in driving sales, not a deterrent.
We're not doing the even more super obtrusive pop-over window, which would be interrupting your reading.
That is still the best example of usability and user experience on the internet, IMO.
Starting the article with: 'I made it the easiest thing you could possibly buy, you don’t have to join anything. All the things I hate about going on the Internet and trying to watch stuff – I stripped all of that away.'.
And ending with: 'The Stuck Score™ benchmarks your site in seven key problem areas so that you can immediately improve your website performance. How much revenue are you leaving on the table? Find out for free.
Get your free Stuck Score™ today. [ Submit your name and email here ]'
Don't get me wrong - A/B tests are valuable, but I've worked at many companies that have relied on them to a fault.
For one thing, there are very important metrics that are hard to measure, and many are impossible to measure in relation to a specific website change. User happiness for example is a nearly impossible metric to measure, and correlating it to specific website experiments is pretty much right out.
Many factors also have time-delayed effects, which is nearly impossible to correlate back to source causes, and IMO why we see so many companies achieve short-term conversion gains at enormous expense to brand perception and customer satisfaction.
In many ways companies that over-focus on A/B testing miss the forest for the trees - it doesn't necessarily create the best possible product, it often instead ends up creating the least shitty version of a bad product.
Clients "Did you get a chance to look at our website?"
Me "No, I closed browser as soon as I seen annoying popup because I don't have time for that"
That sounds like a sales pitch. Oh wait, scroll to the bottom, this is a sales pitch. Classic tactic of making the incredible sound easy, just pay a small fee!
And... the Stuck Score™ is free, if that helps?
There is no huge secret to conversion rate optimization, or consumer experience optimization. It’s quite simple, really: put your consumer’s needs first and you’ll double your online sales...
So it's that black and white, is it? You can apply a binary assessment to something as complex as "putting a consumer's needs first?" Even if you could, you still have the issue of pricing models, software terms and more to consider which may be necessary to protect your business and your bottom line, but do nothing to further the consumer's interests.
Louis CK is selling one product (a highly popular one) on his site at a single price point. I don't find the fact that he sold out in one day to be mind-blowing or applicable to most businesses. Ticketmaster sells out shows everyday and their customer experience is terrible. The underlying product is what gets the sales, not the website.
The reason sites like Amazon hire MBA's by the hundreds is because those sites have countless pricing dimensions that have to be analyzed continuously in order to maximize conversion rates, profit, and inventory. It sounds good at first pass to think just throwing out all the features on every website that aren't consumer-centric in order to sell out is a simple workable strategy because a popular comedian selling an e-product did it, but then after you think about it for a couple minutes you realize it's pretty useless advice.
I look at something and if it annoys me I know it annoys a lot of people out there, then I rip it out or figure out a way that is less annoying.
Rule 1-10 don't annoy people with your website Rule 11-100 keep it simple
I don't suggest my personal approach for everyone because there is no accounting for taste, and I am way more cynical and easily annoyed than most so that helps me in this field lol
That's what I hate about the Internet.
1 day to sell out is awesome either way, though, yes?
Comments that don't bother to Google for missing information in the article: That's what I hate about the internet. :)
What if the site was actually louisck-the-new-site.net? Hopefully google has indexed it, but why should you depend on that?
This behavior increases the difficulty of indexing the web from "count links to page X" to some a deep learning of all article content - and that deep learning relies purely on what's already been indexed.
The only external links are to their social media pages, the rest of their links are to their own articles. Is there a word for websites like that?
In normal people terms, we call them "bad websites". This page was good at being an article, but bad at being a website. Which is why I included the link above, to help humans and algorithms make links to the appropriate information.
But the benefit of only linking to your internal information is more page views and therefore ad revenue. At least in the short term, until users find the good websites. One more way advertising is ruining the world wide web.
I clicked on the one for the venue closest to me and Ticketmaster forces me to choose from of list of scheduled events to see seating for, and Louie's not even on the list. Classic ticketmaster.