Bigger title and plum CTA on Humana's banner: +192% clickthrough
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsA simpler, larger banner title with a plum CTA raised Humana's clickthrough to the next funnel step by 192%.
Humana's digital test team ran the test, and it was published by MarketingExperiments after a MarketingSherpa Summit 2016 talk.
Several changes shipped together, so no single one gets the credit.
- Clickthrough to the next funnel step rose 192%.
- Sample size, duration and confidence weren't shared.
- Only clickthrough was reported, not leads or enrollments.
The change
Larger, simpler title; plum CTA; slide counter moved to grey.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The banner had its original title, smaller text and a button color that blended into a mostly green page.
Variant
The title was simplified and enlarged and the supporting text was cut down. The CTA button turned plum, and the slide counter changed from plum to grey so it didn't compete with the button.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- A plum button stood out against a page that was mostly green.
- Greying the slide counter removed a second plum element that had pulled the eye from the CTA.
- A bigger, simpler title made the message readable at a glance.
Caveats: Bundled test: title, text, button color and counter color changed together. A separate MarketingExperiments write-up describes this 192% test as a switch to a harder-sell 'shop' CTA during Medicare enrollment, so the timing may have played a part.
Who ran it
Humana ran this test and published the results (MarketingExperiments). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Humana →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we simplify the banner title and give the CTA a color no other element uses, then clickthrough will rise because the button becomes the clear focal point.
- Primary metric
- Banner clickthrough to the next funnel step
- Guardrails
- Downstream lead or quote submissions
- Clicks on other homepage elements
- Who should test it
- Lead-gen businesses whose banner CTA shares colors with the rest of the page. It won't help much if the button already has strong contrast.
Questions
Does button color really matter?
Color alone rarely matters. Contrast with the rest of the page does, because it decides whether the button stands out.
Why change the slide counter color?
It was the same plum as the new button, so it competed for attention.
Making it grey left the CTA as the only plum element.