If it were your Landing page autostart video?

[LegMedic]

Would you have a video on your landing page autostart or would you allow the prospect to click to watch the video?

Do you think having the video autostart will make the bounce rate higher?

[travlinguy]

When I'm looking for something online I want to control the experience. If I encounter a site with autostart audio or video I almost always click away immediately. I'm not interested in hearing or seeing someone launch into their pitch until I've determined it's something I want to spend time on. The page's copy has to be compelling enough to get me to to want to see a video or hear a recording.

I don't actually know what the research shows on this but I know there are plenty of people out there like me. I feel the best mix these days is to have a professionally produced video with plenty of written material as well. Let the visitor make the choice. Maybe someone here can come up with some revealing stats. I'd love to know. I think you can get a good idea by testing. Good luck.

[MilleronMarketing]

I agree. I think you should have your USP right up front, and lead the prospect to your video via benefits.

[Stephen Dean]

Here's a blast from the past...

Autoplay video/audio on landing page?

Originally Posted by Stephen Dean

This question seems to come up often. Dave Miz gave the best response in my opinion:

Should I auto play video on sales page?

Whenever the question is asked, it always plays out the same way. Several people chime in that they hate it and would never buy from a website that uses it. Then people who've tested it say auto-play has won every test they've tried.

Of course, test results from others only provides you with a better guess of what will work for you.

Cheers,
Stephen Dean

[soliddesign]

Autostart is BAD. The best thing to do is to include the video above the fold, with a bit of enticing copy to get the visitor to view it.

[Pusateri]

Pop-ups worked too, then came pop-up blocking software and pretty soon it was integrated into browsers. I'm guessing it's only a matter of months before browsers start blocking autoplay by default. Call it the browser slap.

There are already browser add-ons that do it. If you decide to use autoplay, it would be wise to have a play button on your player, else it be rendered a giant dead spot on your page when civilization catches up to marketing once again.

[Andrew Maclean]

I wouldn't use autostart because it can really turn into something very, very annoying.

[David Raybould]

Test.
Test.
Test.
Test.
Test.
Test.
Test.

That's the only answer.

Whichever makes most money
wins.

-David Raybould

[Steve Faber]

Here's something to think about. Many people surf the web at the office, even though they're not supposed to. A simple check of your stats will verify that for most sites. If you autoplay it, you could get your prospect in hot water, as the sound from your video screams from their cubicle, straight to their boss's ears.

[Marvin Johnston]

Sometimes it is a matter of bad timing ... other times principle. But rarely will I support a company that decides auto-play is a good thing.

I took a look at one site for which I *was* the target audience. The auto-play started in waking up my wife. No way in h**l would I go to that event after that. And that happened after I had half made up my mind to go.

Had another one go off while I was in the library. Another company I will NOT do business with.

I'm sure I am not the lone ranger here.

Testing might show the overall conversion, but it is unlikely to be able to show how many conversions were driven away. Kind of like membership numbers that grew by 50 people. But a look at the numbers show 100 people going away and 150 new people giving it a try.

Marvin

[danielsteven]

it may be annoying to some, but it converts higher compared to a video that a viewer must push "play" on. Thats what I've noticed with my split testing....but why not do a little split test yourself?

[Stephen Dean]

Originally Posted by Marvin Johnston

Another company I will NOT do business with.

I'm sure I am not the lone ranger here.

Testing might show the overall conversion, but it is unlikely to be able to show how many conversions were driven away. Kind of like membership numbers that grew by 50 people. But a look at the numbers show 100 people going away and 150 new people giving it a try.

Marvin

A lot of marketing drives people away. That's OK as long as you still bring in the numbers.

If auto-play converts higher than press-play, then it's clearly not driving more people away.

I don't think I've ever heard of anyone testing auto-play vs press-play and mentioning press-play won. In contrast, I've heard Michel Fortin endorse auto play, Dave Miz, and countless others on this board. And all my tests have shown auto-play wins.

Like I said before. Whenever this question is asked many people chime in that they hate it so the person shouldn't use it. Then one or two people who've tested it say auto-play always wins for them.

Auto-play is the profitable play. I'd hate for people to choose the less profitable option because of a few opinions.

Cheers,
Stephen Dean

[MaxReferrals]

No one's opinion matters, unless people replying on this
thread are buying your products. It's just their opinion.

Answer: A/B test for conversions

[Marvin Johnston]

Originally Posted by Stephen Dean

If auto-play converts higher than press-play, then it's clearly not driving more people away.

I don't think I've ever heard of anyone testing auto-play vs press-play and mentioning press-play won. In contrast, I've heard Michel Fortin endorse auto play, Dave Miz, and countless others on this board. And all my tests have shown auto-play wins.

I have never heard of auto-playing not outperforming auto-play, so I'll take that as a given (for now.)

BUT, how can you tell if auto-play is or is not driving people away?

The overall numbers will be obvious as to what creates the highest conversions. But there is no way (that I can see) to tell how many people might have bought but were driven away.

If the conversions without are 100, and the conversions with are 200, it could well be that while the first 100 didn't buy, an additional 200 needed a 2 x 4 banged along side their head to get their attention .

A better question might be how to measure the people lost by auto-play.

Marvin

[wrcato2]

When it comes to video it is my opinion that the video should be started by the visitor. Never auto play. Here's why if the person is on dial-up the page will take to long to come up because of the video.

In my case, they simply suck to much banwidth. I am on satalight and we are allowed 250MB per day or pay 5.00 for more banwidth.

[Stephen Dean]

Originally Posted by Marvin Johnston

I have never heard of auto-playing not outperforming auto-play, so I'll take that as a given (for now.)

BUT, how can you tell if auto-play is or is not driving people away?

The overall numbers will be obvious as to what creates the highest conversions. But there is no way (that I can see) to tell how many people might have bought but were driven away.

If the conversions without are 100, and the conversions with are 200, it could well be that while the first 100 didn't buy, an additional 200 needed a 2 x 4 banged along side their head to get their attention .

A better question might be how to measure the people lost by auto-play.

Marvin

You measure conversion by percentage - the number of sales over the number of visitors.

You don't measure it by simply counting sales.

So if the conversion is higher for auto-play then you know that you're not driving away more sales.

Cheers,
Stephen Dean

[Marvin Johnston]

Originally Posted by Stephen Dean

You measure conversion by percentage - the number of sales over the number of visitors.

You don't measure it by simply counting sales.

So if the conversion is higher for auto-play then you know that you're not driving away more sales.

Maybe I'm just dense, but I don't see how looking at the overall conversion numbers will even give a hint of how many people have been driven away.

Using my membership analogy, just looking at the overall gain does not tell the whole story. Seeing an increase in membership does not show how many people chose to not join (buy.)

This became a "duh" moment for me some years ago when the board was happy with the overall membership increase. And they ignored the number of people who were leaving. Being kind of blunt, I referred to it as an "ignorance is bliss" moment .

But we also had the data to know *what* was happening. And another board member who was savvy enough to check out what was actually happening.

Another possible factor that I have never heard mentioned is the refund rate, and how it relates to autoplay vs non-autoplay.

Marvin

[Stephen Dean]

Originally Posted by Marvin Johnston

Maybe I'm just dense, but I don't see how looking at the overall conversion numbers will even give a hint of how many people have been driven away.

...Seeing an increase in membership does not show how many people chose to not join (buy.)

If you get 3 sales for every 100 visitors (3%) with auto-play, and 2 sales for every 100 visitors (2%) for press-play...

...then the numbers tell you that 98 out of 100 people do not buy with press-play compared to 97 out of 100 people not buying with auto-play. That would mean auto-play "drove away" less potential buyers and is preferable to press-play.

Those are made up numbers for the example. But the conversion rate can clearly show that auto-play "drives away" less buyers than press-play.

I feel like you keep pointing to the number of sales and are not comparing it to the number of visitors. Comparing the sales to the number of visitors can answer your question. And I think it has, over and over again.

As to the refund rate. Anyone who bought has already shown they're not going to boycott a business for using auto-play, so I don't see why it would have an increase in the refund rate.

Cheers,
Stephen Dean

[Stephen Dean]

A better way of explaining it, Martin, is that if you can tell that 2 out of every 100 visitors are purchasing your product on average... then you can tell that you're "driving away" 98 out of every 100 visitors on average.

Cheers,
Stephen

[Pusateri]

I think Marvin and I have the same intuition about the overlap (or lack there-of) in the converting populations for the two methodologies.

Let's pretend there are ten unique visitors, call them A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I, and J.

In hypothetical No. 1, auto-play is used and A,B,C and D purchase for a conversion rate of 40%.

In hypothetical No. 2, the visitor has to press-play to see the video. D,E and F purchase for a conversion rate of 30%.

In these hypotheticals, auto-play wins the conversion war, but loses two people who would have purchased in press-play world. Press-play also leaves money on the table by the names of A, B and C.

What we have are two different subpopulations of the same market who respond differently to a given stimulus. In order to turn the most potential buyers into actual buyers we need to address both.

One way would be a five second countdown before the actual video starts. That would give people who hate auto-play veto power and probably keep them from automatically clicking away. The auto-play people can watch the shiny, hypnotic timer for five seconds.

[Alex Barboza]

If the volume is too loud then it is annoying for everybody. If it is not too loud then it will probably annoy us who are aware of the marketing tactics behind it, not to "normal" browsers that have no clue about people making money online.

But as David said, test it.

[Stephen Dean]

Originally Posted by Pusateri

One way would be a five second countdown before the actual video starts. That would give people who hate auto-play veto power and probably keep them from automatically clicking away. The auto-play people can watch the shiny, hypnotic timer for five seconds.

Cheers, that's a good thought and might make for a good test.

Stephen