At a time when it’s easier and cheaper to start a business, standing out in the sea of competition has never been more difficult. So, what can you do to differentiate? Apart from the products you sell, the customer experience you provide is a major lever to distinguish your brand. View these slides to learn: - How to leverage data to discover your brand’s differentiators - Methods for promoting your brand’s unique value proposition - Strategies for putting customers at the center of the experience

1. The Art & Science of Standing
Out in a Saturated Market

2. • Yes, we are recording today’s
webinar!
• Slides and recording will be sent to all
registrants later today
• Save your questions for Q&A with our
speaker after the interview—use the
GotoWebinar panel
Webinar FAQs

3. • Craig Battin, Head of Growth Marketing @ Earnest
• Focus on optimization, acquisition, pricing, and CRM
• Quantitative banking background translated into career in
Growth
Meet our speakers:
• Josephine Foucher, Product Manager @Hotwire
• Specialized in optimization
• Background in analytics and data science

4. Agenda
• Panel Discussion
• Optimization program at Earnest & Hotwire
• Tip and best practices for how to leverage data to
stand out in a saturated market

5. What does standing out in a saturated market mean to you?
● Saturation = heavy competition
● Perceived lack of differentiation
in consumer financial services
● Standing out: Doing things
differently requires excellence
across design, product,
marketing, customer support
● Travel is a highly competitive
market and the industry is
constantly being disrupted
● Leniency is the biggest threat
● To survive, we need to be laser
focus on our customers, bold,
and data driven

6. What are your priorities?
● Strengthen feedback loop
● Increase testing velocity as business
expands in complexity
● Better communicate to clients how
financial products work and what they
mean for overall financial health
● Customer post-booking satisfaction is
our #1 KPI
● Test and learn is a way to get there,
with targets in terms of velocity, learn
rate and conversion lifts
● The goal is to acquire loyal customers

7. How does data influence your approach?
Data is at Earnest’s core, and we
start by listening intently to what it
tells us
● Data > opinions when
improving product
● Granular data and and should
inform client experience you
provide
● Always expanding data
gathering to understand more
about clients
We use data for everything
● Dashboards and reports to
know how we are doing
● Business cases for any large
initiative
● Test into every feature release

8. What tips can you provide people to better leverage data?
● Get aligned on listening to your
data, even when it tells you things
you don’t want to hear
● Ownership within the org: who is
the neutral arbiter of all things
data-related?
● Arrive at cross-functional
understanding on how the
organization will meld quantitative
data + qualitative feedback
Don’t get analysis paralysis, if you
don’t have anything, start with:
● bounce analysis
● fallout reports
● error reports
Reports tell you what is happening,
talking to customers tells you why

9. Earnest
How are you leveraging
optimization to stand out in a
saturated market?

10. From 30,000 feet...
We use data science to understand people at an individual level and partner with them
on their journey to achieving life’s milestones
Three key ingredients:
• Technology
• Design
• Client Services
Testing informs what technology we build, how we design our products, and it helps us
arrive at answers around what clients want faster than “wait and see”
Level of personalization within Earnest products requires a massive amount of testing
and this feedback loop is core to Earnest and big differentiator for us

11. Understanding how much information customers want
Hypothesis: Removing a list of loan rates will increase application completions.
Variation: Removed loan termsControl
10% increase
to
application
start

12. Helping customers make decisions at the right time
Variation: Simple ratesControl
Hypothesis: Removing slider tool will limit the number of options clients consider at this stage, reducing
confusion/overload and improving conversion.
Winner

13. Living the customer experience
Hypothesis: By allowing users to ‘start rate-check process’ through entering their email on mobile,
then following up via email retargeting, we will be able to capture incremental QS on desktop.
Control Variation
~7-10% lift

14. Gauging sensitivity around personal information
Hypothesis: By allowing users to get a rate estimate without entering their Social Security Number,
we believe conversion to getting an estimate will increase significantly
Control Variation: No SSN
-8% :(

15. Tips
• Open up the experiment ideas funnel and be sure to
include those who interface with clients the most
• Throughput, throughput, throughput
• Don’t be afraid to push boundaries
• Don’t limit your thinking to online-only experience

16. Hotwire
How are you leveraging
optimization to stand out in a
saturated market?

17. Get continuous feedback
• User surveys
• Pain points from
Customer operations
The Best Ideas Address a Customer Need
For new features, get
inputs early
• Field surveys
• In house labs
• Usertesting.com

18. We implemented a survey on the confirmation in addition to the email
• Tripled feedback submission
• Post-booking satisfaction score added to company KPI
Aim for satisfaction not just conversion

19. Win in hotel names after listening to customers in labs
Hypothesis: By changing our Hot Rate Hotel naming convention to include Star
Rating, users will remember hotel names more easily and conversion will increase.
Control Variation Winner!

20. Be Bold

21. What does Bold Mean for Testing?
Control Search hotels Horizontal “good trip”
Hypothesis: by changing the call to
action to “search hotels”, the
prompt will be more action driven
and users will quote more
Hypothesis: by changing the picture,
copy and layout of the fare finder,
we will provide users with a fresh
search experience and increase
quote rate
LoserInconclusive

22. Celebrate insights not just customers
Control Horizontal “good trip”
Horizontal save 60%
Hypothesis: by changing the
picture, copy and layout of the fare
finder, we will provide users with a
fresh search experience and
increase quote rate
Hypothesis: by changing the fare
finder from vertical to horizontal,
users will find it easier to fill the
form and quote will increase
Winner
Loser
Give permission to fail to allow great discoveries

23. Identify your hypothesis, and validate before you invest
• Highlight what you are proposing
• Outline your success metrics
• State your reasoning
IF…
THEN…
BECAUSE...
Bad Example:
“Let’s test a different book button colour.”
Good Example:
“If we structure the details page in a more digestible way then we can
increase GPPQ because customer will find relevant info more easily”

24. Break up big features into smaller tests to validate user
need
Product challenge: Speed
• Fast access is a big customer priority, but investing in speed is very expensive
• Before rebuilding our APIs, test the value of better perceived speed
Hypothesis: customers care about page load speed, by reducing the page load perceived speed we will reduce
customer frustration and increase conversion.
Winner
Control Variation

25. Q&A

26. Try Optimizely Free for 30 Days
http://www.optimizely.com/get-started

27. Thank You!