#the highest want to visit is IRELAND i need to be there so bad

[sn4kebites]

wanting to travel but being visibly muslim is always weird

[purplesurveys]

1232

Did you make any money today?  Not today, because it’s a weekend.

What was the highest place you've ever jumped from?  I’m not too sure, actually. I tend to be cautious when it comes to jumping just because I always have this fear at the back of my head that I could possibly snap my legs in half upon landing lol.

Have you ever gone swimming in a river?  I don’t think I have.

Is there something you really want to buy at the moment?  I want a jumbo RJ doll but it’s quite expensive and not one of my priorities at the moment. 

Would you ever consider culinary school?  I want to learn how to cook but not passionate enough about it to enroll in culinary school altogether, so no.

What was the last souvenir someone got you?  It’s been a while since anyone went anywhere...

Do you have a favorite remix of a song?  I’ve never enjoyed remixes and just stick to original versions of songs. The one remix I’ll give a pass to is BTS’ Mic Drop with Steve Aoki just because that one includes a dance break that sounds really nice and gets me all hyped up.

Has the power gone out recently?  Yeah, like two weeks ago. I was working from home then so it had been a huge bother, but fortunately I had been charging my devices all day and also had enough data on my phone so I was able to continue.

Do you like driving at night?  It’s ok and actually pretty relaxing if it’s LATE late at night and there’s barely any cars. Driving in the evening during rush hour, on the other hand, is just fucking stressful.

What do you think is the most saddest sounding instrument?  Depending on how it’s played, probably the piano or violin.

Do you really pay attention to the ratings on movies?  Yes. It’s a pretty influential factor.

Have you ever snuck in to a theater/dance/bar etc?  No.

If given the chance, would you go to Ireland?  I mean, it’s not really on top of my bucket list but for the sake of travelling and experiencing a different place and culture I definitely would go to Ireland.

Are you afraid of standing on the edge of hills/skyscrapers/cliffs etc?  I am scared but whenever I’m given the chance to do this I kind of scrap that fear first and live in the moment.

Do you have a favorite species of wild cat (tiger/lion/cougar etc)?  No.

Do you have an absolute favorite name (boy or girl)? Alessandra, 120%. It is so beautiful-sounding, plus I love that you can use "Alessa" as a nickname. My Silent Hill obsession is quite thrilled by that, ha ha. < I love that name too, now that I think about it. For now, I think Olivia still tops my list.

Are you good at pronouncing foreign words?  My English is alright.

When listening to music, do you usually tap your foot etc to the beat?  I tap my fingers more than my foot.

Have you ever literally cried on a friend's shoulder?  Yeah but they were also my significant other then, so I dunno if that counts. I’m not super into physical touch so this isn’t something I’d do towards a friend, no matter how close we are.

Would you ever consider being a DJ at a party if you were paid?  Nah, I would suck.

Do strapless bras work for you?  No, my boobs are too small. 

Has anyone told you that they wanted to marry you/were planning on it/etc?  No.

Do you feel comfortable enough to wear short shorts?  Yeah, I just never really have the opportunity to wear them.

Have a favorite actor/actress from Old Hollywood? (Marilyn Munroe, etc) AUDREY HEPBURNNNNNNNNNN

What's your opinion on people who stretch their ears?  They can do whatever they want lol. I’m personally not a fan of the look but that’s my own problem to deal with.

Do you think tattoos are expressive art or unattractive?  Expressive.

What is your school mascot?  None of the schools I attended have one.

Have you ever seen a bear in the wild? I have never seen a bear.

What's the book you're currently reading?  Not reading anything at the moment.

Can you recall the most disturbing movie you've ever seen?  Eraserhead. Requiem For A Dream is also stressful to watch, even on your 2nd or 45th rewatch.

Has anyone you know gotten mono?  Possibly, but I can’t place names at the moment.

Have you ever picked an apple off the tree and eaten it?  No. Aside from the fact that I don’t eat fruits, apple trees aren’t native here so I’ve never actually seen one.

Can you say yes/no in different languages?  Oo/hindi, ne/ani.

Out of the traditional superheroes, which one is your favorite?  I don’t like superheroes.

Ever peed in your pants after the age of 10?  Not in my pants but my bed, but fortunately it just happened once.

Had any surgeries? What kind?  I have not.

Ever told your parents you hated them?  I had it written down on my journal when I was going through those rebellious puberty years, but it was only directed towards my mom because that had also been the peak of her emotionally/mentally abusive days. It’s funny because she snooped through my stuff then and saw the entry and ended up crying...and I didn’t even feel bad about it because 1) I meant what I wrote, and 2) she literally went through my shit. I still don’t feel bad about it.

Do you let your pets on your furniture?  Yes they can get on the couch and my bed.

How do you feel about kettle cooked chips?  I don’t really have an opinion lmao. If they are chips then they are going in my mouth.

How strong do you like your coffee?  I like milky/creamy coffee best tbh. When it comes to how strong they are I don’t have a preference.

Would you rather see someone of the opposite sex naked or nicely dressed?  Idk.

Would you ever consider visiting Texas?  I have relatives based in San Antonio and we’re pretty close to that side of the family, so yeah. 

If you could make a movie, what would it be about?  I’ve never been one for creative writing.

If you were kicked out of your current residence whom would you call?  My grandma or one of my aunts.

Do you want a boyfriend or girlfriend?  Not at this point in my life.

Do you prefer broccoli or asparagus?  Oooooohh I love both!

Was the last person you kissed attractive?  Objectively yes, but I no longer feel the attraction I once held for her.

Are you racist at all?  No.

Do you read creepypasta? If not, you should.  No thanks.

Have you ever vandalized?  Yeah some desks when I was in grade school.

Would you ever scuba dive in shark-infested waters if you had the chance? Most likely not. And by the way, they do not "infest" waters. That's their home. I hate that phrase so much. < This is a good point and I’d like to keep it here. Anywho, yeah I’m willing to do this but as far as I know they keep you in a cage when you go down in the water. I’d only do it if this was guaranteed lol.

Have you ever been drunk at work?  Hungover, yes. Drunk while at work, hell no.

Have you ever hit a parked car with your car?  No. My mom has done this with my parked car though -____- She had been backing up and I kept honking as she inched closer to my car, but she heeded me no mind until she finally hit me.

Have you ever slept on the floor with someone you like?  We probably had but I don’t remember the details anymore.

Which do you prefer: french toast, bagels, or cereal?  Bagels.

Do you prefer light or dark haired?  Dark.

Have you ever read any of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books?  Yes, I liked reading those in like grade school and high school.

Would you be prepared to do a job that you didn’t like, if it paid well?  I haven’t been placed in that situation yet, so I’m not actually sure how I would handle it. Depends on how much the money is, I guess.

Do you think age is needed for maturity?  No.

Do you believe the future is predetermined?  I don’t think so.

What words are most comforting to you?  Words of reassurance, like, “I’m just here,” “You don’t have to apologize.”

How important is money to you?  It is generally pretty important to me and I’m usually good at saving...I’ve just hit a road bump the last few months because getting into K-Pop means wanting to get something out of every new merch drop hahahaha. I went alarmingly crazy from April to June, but I made a vow to calm down starting this July; and so far, aside from pre-ordering the new Memories of 2020 DVD and buying some merch from the pop-up store, I haven’t bought anything else.

Is there anything you want to last forever?  Cold weather in the Philippines.

List three of your passions:  Writing, food, and museums.

How old do you want to live to? Just because I’m competitive even until age, I want to make it to 100 lmao.

What kind of love do you value the most?  Very comfortable platonic love. I highly value friendships where I can pretty much treat them like an SO hahaha.

If you could control one element, what would it be?  I don’t care.

Do you prefer foxes or wolves?  No preferences.

Could you ever deliver a baby?  OMG no I would be terrible and would for sure bring more harm than good to the mother.

Do you think suits are sexy?  Uh yeah.

Ever been called babe?  Yeah.

How old is your youngest sibling?  18.

Who in your phone has a heart after their name?  Angela.

Favorite boy’s name?  I guess I have several preferences, but I dunno if I have favorite boy’s names. I like the sounds of Lucas, Jacob, Liam, and Mason.

Are your parents together, separated, divorced, never married, what?  Married.

Do you go online every day?  For sure.

What is the best quality in the last guy you kissed?  I’ve never kissed a guy.

What do you usually do during a kiss? Depends on how passionate it is? < Yeah.

Do you have an older brother?  Technically no, but I have a cousin that I pretty much see as one.

You’re offered free tickets to a Justin Bieber concert. What do you do?  I love Biebs, but I would probably sell them. Some extra money is always good hahaha.

What’s the genre of the current song you’re listening to?  K-Pop, R&B.

Would you ever keep your favorite animal as a pet?  Yeah, I already have two of them.

Would you ever sell your soul?  Erm, I guess not.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #412

“there’s nothing i could ever write to help you understand this life  /  there’s so much beauty when your eyes lay lost in all the city lights”

Did you make any money today? Nope. What was the highest place you've ever jumped from? Idk. Have you ever gone swimming in a river? Yes, but it wasn't in a fast-flowing area of it. Is there something you really want to buy at the moment? I mention Venus' terrarium enough, so besides that, I'd really like to buy a plane ticket to see Sara, as well as new glasses. Would you ever consider culinary school? No. What was the last souvenir someone got you? uhhhhhhhh Do you have a favorite remix of a song? BOI I couldn't begin. Has the power gone out recently? No. Do you like driving at night? NOOOOOOO. What do you think is the most saddest sounding instrument? Either a violin or piano. Do you really pay attention to the ratings on movies? Nope. Have you ever snuck in to a theater/dance/bar etc? No. If given the chance, would you go to Ireland? Yeah! I'd love to go on a photography journey there. Are you afraid of standing on the edge of hills/skyscrapers/cliffs etc? Yeah, heights scare me and I have a serious case of "what if I jumped off?". I'm not suicidal or anything, but there's an actual term for that urge that is somewhat normal. I just can't remember what it is. Do you have a favorite species of wild cat (tiger/lion/cougar etc)? Probably the clouded leopard. But I LOVE wild cats. I think lions are the most interesting. Do you have an absolute favorite name (boy or girl)? Alessandra, 120%. It is so beautiful-sounding, plus I love that you can use "Alessa" as a nickname. My Silent Hill obsession is quite thrilled by that, ha ha. Are you good at pronouncing foreign words? I'm decent with German. When listening to music, do you usually tap your foot etc to the beat? It's weird, I actually have a habit of swaying my leg back and forth. Not even to the beat, I just do it. Have you ever literally cried on a friend's shoulder? Yes. Would you ever consider being a DJ at a party if you were paid? No. Do strapless bras work for you? Look man my boobs are too big for those lmao. Has anyone told you that they wanted to marry you/were planning on it/etc? Many times. Guess who's not around anymore. Do you feel comfortable enough to wear short shorts? HELL no. Have a favorite actor/actress from Old Hollywood? (Marilyn Munroe, etc) Not really. What's your opinion on people who stretch their ears? You do you, boo. Do you think tattoos are expressive art or unattractive? A R T ! ! ! What is your school mascot? I'm not in school. Have you ever seen a bear in the wild? No. What's the book you're currently reading? Wings of Fire: Moon Rising. Can you recall the most disturbing movie you've ever seen? Paranormal Entity. Has anyone you know gotten mono? My older sister did when she was I think in high school. Have you ever picked an apple off the tree and eaten it? Yes, actually! It was one of the best apples I'd ever tasted. Can you say yes/no in different languages? In German, ja. (See what I did there lololol I'm clever.) Out of the traditional superheroes, which one is your favorite? Spider-Man. Ever peed in your pants after the age of 10? Maybe TMI, but a few years ago, I had a very strange episode of premature incontinence. It stopped, but it was very weird and embarrassing. Had any surgeries? What kind? I had tubes put in my ears as a two-year-old, and I wanna say at the end of 2016 is when I had my cyst removal surgery. Ever told your parents you hated them? My dad, yes. Very vehemently. I will always regret the letter I sent him. Do you let your pets on your furniture? Of course. This is their house, too. How do you feel about kettle cooked chips? Ew. How strong do you like your coffee? I don't like coffee, period. Would you rather see someone of the opposite sex naked or nicely dressed? Uhhhh I dunno. I guess it depends on the mood. Would you ever consider visiting Texas? I have friends there I'd love to meet, but I don't think so. Too hot. If you could make a movie, what would it be about? Some of the less-upsetting/disturbing RP stories I've taken part in writing. If you were kicked out of your current residence whom would you call? My dad. Do you want a boyfriend or girlfriend? I mean I do, but I don't think now is the time. I need to set shit straight about myself first. Do you prefer broccoli or asparagus? Broccoli. Asparagus is repulsive. Was the last person you kissed attractive? She's gorgeous. Are you racist at all? Not at all. Do you read creepypasta? If not, you should. Nah. Have you ever vandalized? Nope. Would you ever scuba dive in shark-infested waters if you had the chance? Most likely not. And by the way, they do not "infest" waters. That's their home. I hate that phrase so much. Have you ever been drunk at work? No. Have you ever hit a parked car with your car? No. Have you ever slept on the floor with someone you like? Yes. I remember Jason and I made a palette on the living room floor at least one night. It was SO uncomfortable. I don't even remember why we did it. Which do you prefer: french toast, bagels, or cereal? French toast. *_* Do you prefer light or dark haired? I prefer colorful hair. Have you ever read any of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books? No. I remember we had at least one, though. Would you be prepared to do a job that you didn’t like, if it paid well? No. That would affect my depression so badly. Do you think age is needed for maturity? Absolutely not. Do you believe the future is predetermined? No. What the hell would even be the point if it was? Like you'd have no free will; you'd just be a character in a story a higher power wrote. What words are most comforting to you? "I love you," "I'm here for you," "you're strong enough to get through this," stuff like that. How important is money to you? I have a stressful relationship with money. I've never in my life had a stable income because the three jobs I've had were so incredibly short-lived, so the money I DO get, I cherish the shit outta it.. I make sure I REALLY want something, and I mean it modestly, but I'm also honestly pretty selfless with money, too. I'm very willing to leave considerable tips, I don't mind buying pricey gifts for people if I think they would really, really like it, stuff like that. Going my whole life being poor, I just understand the situation so well and want to help people where I can. Is there anything you want to last forever? Love. By that I mean I hope even beyond death, the relationships we built in life stretch into what afterlife there may be. List three of your passions: Animals and their conservation, LGBTQ+ rights, and the pro-choice movement. How old do you want to live to? As old as I can before the point of being totally dependent on others to do things like clean me and stuff. I do NOT want to be get to the point of essentially being a rotting corpse. What kind of love do you value the most? Romantic, honestly. There's just something so special about it. If you could control one element, what would it be? Water I suppose, because it would be the most helpful. Do you prefer foxes or wolves? Man, that's hard, but I guess foxes. Could you ever deliver a baby? I don't think I could. I handle stomach pain VERY poorly, and I know I would screech loud enough to crack the damn sky before it would be time to perform the epidural. Do you think suits are sexy? Yeah. Ever been called babe? Yeah. How old is your youngest sibling? She's 23. Who in your phone has a heart after their name? Sara. Favorite boy’s name? Probably Severin. Are your parents together, separated, divorced, never married, what? Divorced. Do you go online every day? Yep. What is the best quality in the last guy you kissed? The last guy I kissed, maybe his loyalty. He has ALWAYS been there for me. He's also funny as hell. What do you usually do during a kiss? Depends on how passionate it is? Do you have an older brother? I do. You’re offered free tickets to a Justin Bieber concert. What do you do? Sell those bad boys. What’s the genre of the current song you’re listening to? Pop. Can you believe it?? Would you ever keep your favorite animal as a pet? ABSOLUTELY not. I could write an actual essay on why meerkats should NOT be kept as pets. Would you ever sell your soul? Noooo thanks.

[foreverlogical]

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — As the world races to find a vaccine and a treatment for COVID-19, there is seemingly no antidote in sight for the burgeoning outbreak of coronavirus conspiracy theories, hoaxes, anti-mask myths and sham cures.

The phenomenon, unfolding largely on social media, escalated this week when President Donald Trump retweeted a false video about an anti-malaria drug being a cure for the virus and it was revealed that Russian intelligence is spreading disinformation about the crisis through English-language websites.

Experts worry the torrent of bad information is dangerously undermining efforts to slow the virus, whose death toll in the U.S. hit 150,000 Wednesday, by far the highest in the world, according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. Over a half-million people have died in the rest of the world.

Hard-hit Florida reported 216 deaths, breaking the single-day record it set a day earlier. Texas confirmed 313 additional deaths, pushing its total to 6,190, while South Carolina’s death toll passed 1,500 this week, more than doubling over the past month. In Georgia, hospitalizations have more than doubled since July 1.

“It is a real challenge in terms of trying to get the message to the public about what they can really do to protect themselves and what the facts are behind the problem,” said Michael Osterholm, head of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.

He said the fear is that “people are putting themselves in harm’s way because they don’t believe the virus is something they have to deal with.”

Rather than fade away in the face of new evidence, the claims have flourished, fed by mixed messages from officials, transmitted by social media, amplified by leaders like Trump and mutating when confronted with contradictory facts.

“You don’t need masks. There is a cure,” Dr. Stella Immanuel promised in a video that promoted hydroxychloroquine. “You don’t need people to be locked down.”

The truth: Federal regulators last month revoked their authorization of the drug as an emergency treatment amid growing evidence it doesn’t work and can have deadly side effects. Even if it were effective, it wouldn’t negate the need for masks and other measures to contain the outbreak.

None of that stopped Trump, who has repeatedly praised the drug, from retweeting the video. Twitter and Facebook began removing the video Monday for violating policies on COVID-19 misinformation, but it had already been seen more than 20 million times.

Many of the claims in Immanuel’s video are widely disputed by medical experts. She has made even more bizarre pronouncements in the past, saying that cysts, fibroids and some other conditions can be caused by having sex with demons, that McDonald’s and Pokemon promote witchcraft, that alien DNA is used in medical treatments, and that half-human “reptilians” work in the government.

Other baseless theories and hoaxes have alleged that the virus isn’t real or that it’s a bioweapon created by the U.S. or its adversaries. One hoax from the outbreak’s early months claimed new 5G towers were spreading the virus through microwaves. Another popular story held that Microsoft founder Bill Gates plans to use COVID-19 vaccines to implant microchips in all 7 billion people on the planet.

Then there are the political theories — that doctors, journalists and federal officials are conspiring to lie about the threat of the virus to hurt Trump politically.

Social media has amplified the claims and helped believers find each other. The flood of misinformation has posed a challenge for Facebook, Twitter and other platforms, which have found themselves accused of censorship for taking down virus misinformation.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was questioned about Immanuel’s video during an often-contentious congressional hearing Wednesday.

“We did take it down because it violates our policies,” Zuckerberg said.

U.S. Rep. David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat leading the hearing, responded by noting that 20 million people saw the video before Facebook acted.

“Doesn’t that suggest that your platform is so big, that even with the right policies in place, you can’t contain deadly content?” Cicilline asked Zuckerberg.

It wasn’t the first video containing misinformation about the virus, and experts say it’s not likely to be the last.

A professionally made 26-minute video that alleges the government’s top infectious-disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, manufactured the virus and shipped it to China was watched more than 8 million times before the platforms took action. The video, titled “Plandemic,” also warned that masks could make you sick — the false claim Facebook cited when it removed the video down from its site.

Judy Mikovits, the discredited doctor behind “Plandemic,” had been set to appear on the show “America This Week” on the Sinclair Broadcast Group. But the company, which operates TV stations in 81 U.S. markets, canned the segment, saying it was “not appropriate” to air.

This week, U.S. government officials speaking on condition of anonymity cited what they said was a clear link between Russian intelligence and websites with stories designed to spread disinformation on the coronavirus in the West. Russian officials rejected the accusations.

Of all the bizarre and myriad claims about the virus, those regarding masks are proving to be among the most stubborn.

New York City resident Carlos Lopez said he wears a mask when required to do so but doesn’t believe it is necessary.

“They’re politicizing it as a tool,” he said. “I think it’s more to try to get Trump to lose. It’s more a scare tactic.”

He is in the minority. A recent AP/NORC poll said 3 in 4 Americans — Democrats and Republicans alike — support a national mask mandate.

Still, mask skeptics are a vocal minority and have come together to create social media pages where many false claims about mask safety are shared. Facebook has removed some of the pages — such as the group Unmasking America!, which had nearly 10,000 members — but others remain.

Early in the pandemic, medical authorities themselves were the source of much confusion regarding masks. In February, officials like the U.S. surgeon general urged Americans not to stockpile masks because they were needed by medical personnel and might not be effective in everyday situations.

Public health officials changed their tune when it became apparent that the virus could spread among people showing no symptoms.

Yet Trump remained reluctant to use a mask, mocked his rival Joe Biden for wearing one and suggested people might be covering their faces just to hurt him politically. He did an abrupt about-face this month, claiming that he had always supported masks — then later retweeted Immanuel’s video against masks.

The mixed signals hurt, Fauci acknowledged in an interview with NPR this month.

“The message early on became confusing,” he said.

Many of the claims around masks allege harmful effects, such as blocked oxygen flow or even a greater chance of infection. The claims have been widely debunked by doctors.

Dr. Maitiu O Tuathail of Ireland grew so concerned about mask misinformation he posted an online video of himself comfortably wearing a mask while measuring his oxygen levels. The video has been viewed more than 20 million times.

“While face masks don’t lower your oxygen levels. COVID definitely does,” he warned.

Yet trusted medical authorities are often being dismissed by those who say requiring people to wear masks is a step toward authoritarianism.

“Unless you make a stand, you will be wearing a mask for the rest of your life,” tweeted Simon Dolan, a British businessman who has sued the government over its COVID-19 restrictions.

Trump’s reluctant, ambivalent and late embrace of masks hasn’t convinced some of his strongest supporters, who have concocted ever more elaborate theories to explain his change of heart. Some say he was actually speaking in code and doesn’t really support masks.

O Tuathail witnessed just how unshakable COVID-19 misinformation can be when, after broadcasting his video, he received emails from people who said he cheated or didn’t wear the mask long enough to feel the negative effects.

That’s not surprising, according to University of Central Florida psychology professor Chrysalis Wright, who studies misinformation. She said conspiracy theory believers often engage in mental gymnastics to make their beliefs conform with reality.

“People only want to hear what they already think they know,” she said.

___

Associated Press writers Beatrice Dupuy in New York, Eric Tucker in Washington, and Amy Forliti in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

VISIT WEBSITE

[jjonassevilla]

“What’s a good conversion rate for my landing page?” [New AI-Backed Research]

Imagine you’re an ecommerce business using landing pages to sell sweaters for miniature pigs. Recently, you’ve done a round of A/B testing—adding a little more oink to your calls to action, let’s say—and tweaked your social ad targeting to reach the hardcore piggy people on Instagram. 

After all your optimization efforts, your landing pages now convert at 3.57%. 

But actually…even if it’s a big improvement against your personal baseline, how do you know you should stop there? How do you know that your hard-earned conversion rate is worth celebrating? Heck, how would you even know if a 30% conversion rate is any good for pages in your industry? (Maybe everyone’s getting a fat return off of pig sweaters but you.)

It’s hard to be confident in the numbers when you don’t know how everybody else is doing. Doubt settles in. Maybe you’re missing out on reaching your conversion potential without even knowing it.

Well, we feel your pain. That’s why, at Unbounce, we’re on a continuing mission to answer the big question for you. It’s the one we hear time and again from our customers:

“What’s a good, bad, or average conversion rate for my landing pages?” 

That’s where industry benchmarks come in—and that’s why we’re thrilled to bring you a fresh (and free) new version of our Conversion Benchmark Report. 

Benchmarks can energize your digital marketing strategy in three big ways:

They’re a form of competitive intelligence. They help you identify gaps between your performance and what the rest of your industry considers to be a good conversion rate. 

Our benchmarks reveal data-supported best practices, and you’ll waste less time and traffic testing unproven optimizations that our machine learning analysis shows don’t necessarily work. 

They help you build a culture of continuous improvement in your organization. It’s harder for your marketing team to be happy with “just okay�� if they’re seeing something to strive for.

Sure, some folks like to pooh-pooh industry benchmarking—“Why should I care how other marketers are converting? Why don’t I just focus on how I’m doing?”—but they’re your best window into what success really looks like. Going forward blindly, when you could have both eyes on the prize, is just silly. Oh, and these benchmarks were generated with help from an honest-to-goodness AI crunching millions of conversions, so the results are far more reliable than the anecdotal best practices often found online. As part of the Unbounce Conversion Intelligence approach to digital marketing, these machine-derived insights help you pair your hard-earned expertise with AI to create the highest-converting campaigns of your career.

Introducing the 2020 Conversion Benchmark Report

This year’s Conversion Benchmark Report uses machine learning to assist our data team in analyzing 186.9 million visits to 34,132 Unbounce-built landing pages. In terms of sample size, we analyzed more visits to these pages than the populations of Canada, Hong Kong, Mexico, Laos, and Ireland combined. 

For full context, the previous (2017) version of this report was also built on machine learning insights, but in three years we’ve refined our approach to provide tons more real, proprietary customer data to feed the machine. Now we have even better, more reliable outputs—as well as a few new ways to break down our findings, like by conversion goal. (These are boundaries we’re going to keep pushing, too.)

But what kind of info does the report contain? For one thing, you’ll find median conversion rates broken down to 16 key industries. In many cases, we’ve got wide enough sample sizes to sort them into subcategories too, so you can see how your brother’s pest control service measures up against your sister’s HVAC company. (Or how your uncle’s cybersecurity software converts against your great aunt’s cloud accounting platform.)

The Conversion Benchmark Report includes 16 industries broken down into dozens of subcategories.

Why do we report on median instead of average (mean)? Our goal is to provide you with a realistic picture of where you stand, so this year’s report lists median conversion rates as our measure of central tendency instead of the mean. We found this reduces the impact of outliers (like pages that convert five times better than the rest) on the final benchmarks.

Not clear enough? Then imagine you want to find out, on average, how many eyes people have. The median tells us they have two eyes. According to the mean, though, they have slightly less than two. Because outliers (people with one or fewer eyes) bring that number down.

Both these measures are correct, but which one would you prefer to rely on if your business is selling sunglasses?

What if your industry doesn’t appear in the report? For this year’s report, we’ve tried to be even more representative. With machine learning helping us to sort thousands of landing pages in a logical way, we’ve increased the number of industries covered from 10 to 16, and we’ve even added subcategories whenever sample sizes allow.

If you still don’t see yourself represented, though, compare your conversion rates to industries with similar audiences and conversion goals. While we don’t actually recommend comparisons between very unrelated industries (except for fun), let your judgment be your guide. 

A note on COVID-19. The conversion data in this report comes from 2019, so we realize it shows norms that have been disrupted for some vulnerable industries—like travel, events and leisure, restaurants, and medical practitioners. These benchmarks show what you can expect in stable periods, and they provide insights about how your visitors typically behave (and why they convert). We hope they’ll help you set up your digital campaigns for success—and inspire your rebound. If you face uncertainty, though, please also check out the COVID-19 Small Business Care Package for a roundup of useful resources to help lessen the impact on your business.

Below, I go into more detail about the findings and insights we’ve been able to pull from them. But if you’ve got an itchy mouse-finger, you can jump right into the Conversion Benchmark Report now. (It’ll open in a new tab.)

Going beyond the benchmarks

Benchmarks are tremendously helpful, for all the reasons I talked about above. (If you work for an agency, you know this already. They’re a baller way of showing the value of what you do—and helping clients determine their true conversion potential.) 

How do I best communicate with my target audience? 

In copywriting circles, the received wisdom is that clarity comes above all else. If you’re looking to put up the fewest hurdles possible between audience and offer, it can make sense to keep your vocabulary basic and your sentences tight and untangled.

Our data, however, complicates this equation. Is simple always better? Nope. It turns out that different industries tend to convert more often at different reading levels (and some see weaker relationships between conversion rates and readability than others). 

There are even cases in which it’s good to sound sophisticated. B2B companies offering lead-gen consulting or instruction, for instance, appear to benefit from more challenging language. We see a drop in conversion rates as pages become easier to understand. (Frankly, that’s not what we expected.)

When it comes to reading ease, pages for lead-gen consultants appear to benefit from being harder to read.

Our machine learning analysis enabled us to look at copy from 34 thousand pages. Each page is assigned a Flesch reading ease score based on the average number of syllables per word and words per sentence. More syllables and more words means more…harder.

Here’s roughly how the scoring breaks down:

What’s the perf word length for my landing pages?

While it’s true that shorter pages tend to convert better, many industries have sweet spots that break the rule—which means, if you’re going to create a long-form landing page, you should go this long. This is especially true in the wild territories beyond 200 words, where unexpected correlations between length and conversion rate have led many a marketer astray.

At what length do landing pages for family services convert best? The graph provides answers.

Depending on your offer and industry, you may find that you need to use more words to get your point across, but graphs like the one above can let you know what’s ideal. For family services, that’s 300-500 words (if you can’t get it shorter than 150 words). For other industries, it can be more or less. Whatever the case, creating variants based on our findings can definitely be a good candidate for A/B testing or Smart Traffic.

What emotions might relate to better conversion rates?

You likely know in your gut that people’s feelings can impact their decision to buy, but which ones actually drive conversions on your landing pages? To find out, we ran an ML-powered sentiment analysis that looked at emotion-associated words that might relate to healthy conversion rates—and which might even be slowing you down. 

(Spoiler: using trust words isn’t always advisable. “Trust us.”)

For SaaS, the concentration of anticipation words on a landing page correlates with its conversion rate.

When it comes to SaaS conversions, for instance, it turns out that language that conveys anticipation (words like gradual, highest, improve, and launch) sometimes correlates with better conversion rates. Or, to put it another way: as we find more of these words, we also often tend to see better conversion performance.

You can explore this example, and many others, in the report.

A good conversion rate is one you can improve upon.

When it comes down to brass tacks, all this benchmarking is valuable insofar as you can use it to build a better conversion machine from what you learn. How do you do it?

Explore the insights in this report. The report is broken down into 16 industries. How are your landing pages stacking up against the baseline? Are you way out ahead? Are you falling behind? Start with your industry, sure, but take a look at others too. There may be insights that are worth exploring outside your own arena.

Apply the data learnings to your own campaigns. Create a variant (or more than one variant) of your page that applies some of the insights we’ve provided. For example, you might dial down the jargon until you hit the optimal Flesch reading score. (You can use the free readability formula tool here to test it for yourself.)

Optimize and test. Keep in mind that data analysis reveals trends and tendencies rather than absolutes. You’re making informed decisions when you apply these learnings, but testing is still your best way to confirm. Run A/B tests or, if you’re short on the time or traffic to do so, just publish your variants and turn on Smart Traffic in the Unbounce Builder. It’ll use machine learning to automatically decide which variant is right for which visitors, and it’s otherwise hands-off. (If you’re looking for more ideas on how to build variants, I’d recommend this post from Garrett too.)

In short, this year’s report uses ML to identify opportunities you simply couldn’t spot without the processing power of a machine. Optimizing your pages doesn’t have to be aspirational. We believe this is the future of digital marketing—and, going forward, you’re going to see more and more efforts like this from Unbounce to help you enhance the skills you already have. (If you’re curious about what else we have planned, you can read more about our push to bring you Conversion Intelligence.)

Whether you sell pig sweaters, chicken harnesses, or something altogether more practical—are you confident enough to swagger into your next meeting, snap your suspenders, fire those finger-guns in your boss’s direction, and let everyone know about your team’s big win? “Soooooooo-ie!”

Take a gander at the 2020 Conversion Benchmark Report, and let us know what you think in the comments below.

from Marketing https://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/what-is-a-good-conversion-rate/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[covid19updater]

COVID19 Updates: 10/15/2020

Belgium:  Belgium: 8,271 new cases.131% increase on last Thursday (3,577); 

Czech Republic: Czech Republic reports nearly 10,000 new coronavirus cases, biggest increase on record - New cases: 9,544* - Positivity: 27% - In hospital: 2,678* (+175) - ICU: 518* (+51) - Deaths: +66* * = record

Wisconsin:  Wisconsin reports coronavirus hospitalizations reach 1,000 for the first time - New cases: 3,107 - Positivity rate: 21.4% - In hospital: 1,017 (+58) - ICU: 246 (+3) - Deaths: +28

Germany:  Germany has agreed to extend coronavirus measures amid a surge in new cases. "We are much closer to a second lockdown than we might want to believe," the leader of Bavaria state says

World:  How your blood type can increase your risk of dying from coronavirus, studies warn LINK

UK:  Hospitals in Liverpool have 90% of their intensive care capacity taken up by Covid patients and wards are almost at the level of occupancy at the peak of the epidemic, an expert in outbreak medicine has warned. Prof Calum Semple from the University of Liverpool told BBC Breakfast that he was predicting "quite a dire situation within a week or so" for the city "We’re not even into winter yet and the system is stressed by so many cases," he said. Many NHS staff are off work due to sickness and burnout and the region also faces pressure on other services such as education, fire services, food and fuel deliveries due to illness.

UK:  Millions of people in London will face tougher Covid restrictions from Saturday onwards, moving from Tier 1 to Tier 2, local MPs have been told. LINK

Czech Republic:  Czech Republic building field hospital in Prague amid surge in coronavirus cases. Hospitalizations have risen 160% in 2 weeks, or 778% from last month LINK

Europe:  Central Europe, Spared in the Spring, Suffers as Virus Surges LINK

China:  China fires 2 health officials following new virus outbreak LINK

Poland:  Poland reports 8,099 new #COVID19 cases, setting a new daily record, along with 91 new deaths

UK:  UK Test and Trace weekly update: In the past week 216,627 People Were Identified As Coming Into Close Contact With Someone Who Had Tested Positive. Only 62.6% Were Reached.

Switzerland:  Switzerland: 2,613 new cases. 123% increase on last Thursday (1,172)

Austria:  Austria quarantines the whole region around Salzburg.

US:  Cancel Thanksgiving? Fauci warns Americans may need to ‘bite the bullet’ LINK

World:  Infectious Diseases Society of America: Promoting the concept of 'herd immunity'... as an answer to the COVID-19 pandemic is inappropriate, irresponsible and ill-informed. LINK

Missouri:  Shortage of staff leads Missouri to downsize women's prison in Vandalia LINK

US:  Berks store dealing with national canning supply shortage LINK

US:  US national positivity rate for COVID-19 tests jumps to 6% LINK

Missouri:  #Missouri announces an all-time State high of new #Covid19 cases, of 3,357 (old record 3,023)

France:  French PM, Castex: 46% Of Hospital Beds In Paris Now Occupied By Covid Patients

France:  15 Oct - 08:18:13 AM [RTRS] - FRANCE'S INTERIOR MINISTER DARMANIN SAYS 12,000 POLICEMEN WILL ENFORCE CURFEW FROM SATURDAY

Germany:  Germany Health Minister, Jens SPAHN: GERMANY AT `TIPPING POINT,' COULD LOSE CONTROL OF VIRUS

Germany/Czech Republic:  Germany receives the request for admission of Czech intensive care patients. The Czech Republic has contacted German health authorities as it experiences a very large increase in severe cases of # COVID19.

Ireland: Nationwide ban on home visits imposed while Cavan, Monaghan, Donegal moved to Level 4 LINK

Netherlands:  NEW: Netherlands reports 7,833 new coronavirus cases, biggest one-day increase on record - In hospital: 1,526 (+51) - ICU: 313 (+12) - Deaths: +29

World:  Overactive Immune Cells Linked to Severe COVID-19 LINK

France:  NEW: France bans all private parties at public venues, including weddings, amid surge in coronavirus cases - AFP

Vietnam:  All entrants must be placed under medical surveillance for at least 28 days to contain COVID-19 LINK

Europe:  PRES. OF EU COMMISSION VON DER LEYEN TWEETS: I HAVE JUST BEEN INFORMED THAT A MEMBER OF MY FRONT OFFICE HAS TESTED POSITIVE FOR COVID-19 THIS MORNING. I MYSELF HAVE TESTED NEGATIVE.  PRES. OF EU COMMISSION VON DER LEYEN IS IN SELF-ISOLATION.

US:  Biden campaign says two staffers test positive for Covid. Neither was in contact with Biden or Harris.

Wisconsin:  ‘This is slowly grinding us into dirt’: An ER nurse reflects on the relentless pandemic LINK

New York:  ‘Diamond Sweet 16’ Party Leaves 37 Infected and 270 in Quarantine LINK

Alabama:  University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban, AD Greg Byrne test positive for COVID19. LINK

Florida:  Florida coronavirus: 3,356 new infections, 141 more residents dead LINK

Italy:  #BREAKING #Italy has registered 8,804 new #coronavirus infections over the past 24 hoursת the highest daily tally since the start of the country's outbreak and up from 7,332 yesterday

Europe:  Record infection figures in Germany, the Czech Republic, Italy and Poland are adding to fears that Europe is running out of chances to get a grip on the coronavirus pandemic. Many cities in France have a curfew and Londoners face new travel restrictions.

World:  UNITED AIRLINES CEO SAYS EXPECTS BUSINESS DEMAND TO RETURN TO "NORMAL" AROUND 2024 - CONF CALL

World:  US and European stocks drop as Covid cases accelerate LINK

Massachusetts:  Massachusetts restaurants heading into hibernation until spring LINK

Poland:  #BREAKING Polish PM announces nationwide partial lockdown amid record virus spike

France:  30,621 cases of #coronavirus in 24 hours in #France, which becomes the first country in # Europe to exceed the threshold of 30,000 infected in one day. It's a new all-time record.

Op/Ed (World): October 15th, 2020. The update that I have planned, but didn't wanted to make. Some excerpts from previous update, on October 10th.: "Compiling all the numbers, from testing capacity, number of cases, asymptomatic ratio, Europe today is on comparable levels to Europe at the peak of the Spring wave." "What is going to happen in the next 6 months, is influenced, in no particular order, by the following factors : -political decision to avoid full lock-downs -the start of the cold season (especially less sunlight, temperature drop not as much important) in Northern Hemisphere. -disbelief in the virus -strong belief in conspiracy theories -inability of westerners to face bad times, and inability for behavioral changes." "There will be no full lock-downs by the end of this month." "Most hospitals ICUs, across Europe, will be full by November. By the end of October, about 5% of the general population will contract the virus, the rest of 20% will contract the virus after October. While most cases will benefit from ICU treatment this month, virtually everyone else in November in December, will not." "Again, this is just numbers. Math. It cannot predict human reaction to such a catastrophe. And what it cannot predict is if we will only get to 20-25% infected people, or more...because it can easily be more. The longer full lock-downs are avoided, the more people will get infected, the faster hospitals will get full, and the more sick and dead we will have. The U.S. is 3 weeks behind Europe. What is in Europe now, it will be in the U.S. at the end of October. And this is where I think we are heading." Looking at U.K.'s Tier 3 scenario, Macron's address to the nation, Netherlands so called "hard measures" and whole bunch of leaders arguing in the favor of avoid full lock-downs at all price, facing a catastrophe on par or even worse then Spanish Flu is now reality. October 15th is the date for "make or break", as I called it. The date when I expected to clearly see what was the path chosen by our leaders. Many times before I said that my model and my predictions are based on human stupidity, and on politicians choosing the worst possible option.They did it again. They chose the worst possible option : betting on saving the economy and let the virus spread, in the hope that "it won't be that bad". So, let's see HOW BAD can it get, and let's see if it will actually get THAT BAD. We cannot rely on the official numbers of cases and deaths. We can only rely on the official number of hospitalizations and ICU usage. But I am not going to talk about any of the above. What I am going to talk about is the official data on EXCESS deaths, from January until mid-September 2020. The number of excess deaths can overwhelmingly be attributed to the current crisis : both deaths caused BY the virus and BECAUSE of the virus, due to hospitals being overwhelmed. The data I used is from several European countries and the U.S. The selected European countries for analyzing the excess deaths data are : Spain, Italy, France with England & Wales., as the worst hit countries in Europe, Germany (due to their having the best medical system in Europe for a pandemic), Sweden (as the love child of WHO) and Switzerland (as the country who had a negative factor of excess deaths) Why haven't I selected other countries in Europe? Simply because we are facing the scenario of no full lock-downs, which means that most important hospitals (by bed and ICU capacity) will be overwhelmed, and the data from Italy, Spain, France and most of the U.K. for excess deaths is the most reliable. However, not all hospitals will be overwhelmed, and there is still a lot of population living outside major urban areas, so I chose to add Germany to the pool as well. Adding Switzerland was because even if it is a tourist and business destination, they managed a negative growth in excess deaths, as well as adding to the total general population to get to a number, for Europe, of almost 50% of the entire population. The U.S. was selected because it is a mixture of social, political, faith, etc., it is the biggest western country in the world, and faced a whole bunch of various measures all over their nation, from full lock-downs to no measures at all but some mask recommendations. I did not chose to add any other country, for the obvious reason that their data is highly unreliable or doesn't even exists, like the entire African continent, the whole of India and China, Latin and South America. I did not put South Korea in the pool, because of a very simple reason : they excess deaths are a negative 60%, which I am sorry, but it is BS. Anyway, on to the actual numbers. Please bear in mind that the numbers you will read are, in the first part, the best case scenario, and in the last part, the worst case scenario. I will let each and everyone of you to chose to believe any of them, or none of them. After calculating the excess deaths, for every week, in the selected countries, the number of excess deaths, compared to the normal death rate, is 9.4%., for a population of 663 million people, 328 million in the U.S. and 335 million in the selected 7 countries in Europe. These 7 selected countries represent roughly half of the European continent (except Russia). Going further, the weekly number of deaths in the previous years, are 57,000 for the U.S. and 121,000 for Europe, with half of those for the selected 7 countries, so 60,500 weekly deaths, in previous years. The number are similar, because U.S. and Europe are virtually the same type of populations and political organizations. To make things easier to calculate, the weekly deaths, per 100,000 people, in previous years, was 17.2 in the U.S. and 18.05 in Europe (except Russia), resulting in a median number of 17.775 deaths per 100,000 people, in Europe (except Russia) and the U.S. The excess deaths, being 9.4%, when applied to 17.775 deaths, per week, per 100,000 people, in the previous years, results in the golden number (which will be the base for what we can expect to happen without full lock-downs) : 1.67 excess deaths per week, per 100,000 people, in the U.S. and Europe (except Russia), in the first 37 weeks of 2020. 1.67 excess deaths, per week, per 100,000 people in a population of 663 million (U.S.+ 7 selected European countries). Next, I made a split, in groups, of most world population, as it follows : U.S. + Canada + Europe + Russia, in Group A. India and the entire African continent in Group B. China, as a separate entity. Latin and South America in Group C. I did not consider Japan, SK, Taiwan and Singapore in my calculations, because these countries are not relevant in the equation. They are testing whether you like it or not, they lock-down anything and everything the second they find a case, they have a population that understand what is going on and abides to the rules. Very different approach to the pandemic, since the start. The countries in Group A experienced the 1.67 deaths / week / 100,000, in the first 37 weeks of 2020. China, even if being the most aggressive in lock-downs, they faced the same overwhelmed hospitals and the scarcity of medical care and resources. Still, they most likely fare better then Group A countries, but not much better. Most likely, China's golden number is 1.6 excess deaths / week / 100,000 people, in the first 37 weeks of 2020. Group B. India and Africa. I can only make an educated guess here, considering that, first, in terms of contagion, they are way worse them Group A countries and China, and secondly, in terms of medical care, generally speaking, they are MUCH worse the Group A countries and China. I will be on the optimistic side here, and consider that the golden number for Group B (India and Africa) is twice the number of Group A and China, somewhere around 3.25 excess deaths / week / 100,000 people, in the first week of 2020. Group C (Latin and S.America) are most likely about 50% worse then Group A countries. The golden number for Group C is probably 2.4 excess deaths / week / 100,000 people. Again, these are the optimistic numbers. We all know that India and Africa are much worse then just twice the U.S. and Europe, and Latin and South America are most likely higher then just 50% worse then U.S. and Europe. Regardless, we now have something that we can work with, even if it on the low end of the spectrum. After making all the calculation, for each Group, in the first 37 weeks of 2020, we registered 5,555,309 extra deaths, for a total population of 6,149,000 people, as it follows : 687,719 for Group A (1.113 billion people) 824,656 for China (1.393 billion people) 1,462,240 for Africa (1.216 billion people) 1,626,982 for India (1.353 billion people) 953,712 for Latin & S.America (1.074 billion people) Middle East and South East Asia are similar to Latin & S.America golden number, and their population represents almost the rest until 7.8 billion. However, Japan, SK, Singapore, Taiwan, Australia and NZ are having a positive effect on the golden number for the rest of the world population (1.651 billion people), lowering it to roughly 2 excess deaths / week / 100,000 people, which gives us the next number : 1,221,740 for Middle East, S.E. Asia, and the rest. In the first 37 weeks of 2020, the world registered, at best, around 6,777,049 excess deaths, deaths that are almost all caused by the virus, or because the medical crisis created by the virus. Ok, so, we have this 6.777 million excess deaths in the first 37 weeks of 2020. But how many people got the virus? According to various CDC entities and WHO, 10% of the world population contracted the virus. My estimate is that closer to 15% of the world population contracted the virus. My model is taking into consideration the start of the pandemic in November 2019. WHO and various CDCs, January 2019. Most likely, the reality is that around 12% of the world population contracted the virus in the first 37 weeks of 2020. And that is 936 million people. Now we have what we can say, with high degree of confidence, an educated guess of what the INITIAL part of the pandemic did to us : 6.777 million dead for 936 million people : 0.72% excess death rate (caused by the virus and the overwhelmed hospitals). Before I go any further, I want you all to understand that the above number is highly unlikely (India, Africa, Latin & S. America, S.E. Asia, former soviet republics, had it worse then what I assumed), and the reality is that we were at roughly 1% excess death rate for the first 37 weeks of 2020, which is over 9 million extra deaths. All of the above under a world-wide lock-down of 2 months, at the BEGINNING of the pandemic, and the END of winter season. This is highly important to understand what is coming for the world. This is the first part of the update. I know you all are now making scenarios, based on this 1% excess death rate, applied to 7.8 billion people, and the result is 78 million dead, which is, mathematically, economically and sociologically, not that bad. WW2 killed 3% of the world population. Spanish Flu also 3% of the world population...so, 1% is not that bad, right? WRONG. If by some miracle, we want to keep this 1%, we will need another 7 YEARS (until we get to 80% contagion), each year with 2 world-wide full lock-downs of 2 months each in Spring and Winter. Clearly, we won't do this. And even if we WANT to do this, we can't...because this is all based on the INITIAL part of the pandemic. We are past that, and we can't go back. Ok, onto the second part of the update. What is in the "store" next? And by next, I mean the next 12 months, until October 2021. We won't have a vaccine. We will have better treatments, but they won't make a dent in what is coming, because the governments CHOSE the path of no full lock-downs. To understand what we are facing, we have to go back to excess deaths, but this time we will look at the excess deaths in the worst hit countries, and among those, to the areas where the hospitals got overwhelmed, because this is what we will experience, if no full lock-downs. The excess deaths in the first 37 weeks of 2020 represented a median number. The golden number was also a median number. Those numbers only helped us to see what HAD HAPPEN. To see what WILL happen, is to see the excess death number in the span of 4 weeks of hardest hit areas in the Spring (Italy, Spain, U.K. and France). The above areas registered an excess death of 100% and OVER (Lombardy and Madrid up to 400% excess deaths). It is unwise to apply a 400% excess death rate, to the entire world, just because of Lombardy and Madrid. But a 100% excess death rate, registered across Spain, Italy, France, the U.K. and NYC, is more then realistic. If we do that, and I see no reason not to, since there is no plan for full lock-downs, we no longer talk about 9.4% excess death rate, or 1.67 excess deaths / week / 100,000 people. We are talking about roughly 9 times this number. I have always said that overwhelmed hospitals will cause 10 times more dead then the virus itself does. Still, this is the correct number only after the entire population gets sick, and we don't know when this will happen. To be more precise in the evaluation, we have to lower the excess deaths of 15.3 (for Europe and the U.S.) to a more realistic number, which is about half, considering that metro areas will actually face such excess deaths, and the metro areas count for roughly half the population of the world. So, the golden number for what is coming, is roughly 7.8 excess deaths / week / 100,000 people, for the next 22 weeks, up to April 2021. This is a median number, and the peak will see mush higher excess deaths, then the upward and downward slopes. But overall, this is what we are going to experience in the next 22 weeks : 7.8 excess deaths / week / 100,000 people, all cause by the virus and because of overwhelmed hospitals. If we consider the population of Europe, this will mean roughly 43,680 excess deaths per week, from November until April 2021, or a total of 873,600 dead in 20 weeks, or roughly 1.4% of the population killed by the virus or lack of medical care. Same will be for the U.S., 1.4% of the population killed by the virus or lack of medical care. But that is just for November to April 2021, to a second wave that is SIMILAR to the first wave...which clearly won't be the case. The second wave, in the absence of full lock-downs will be at least twice as big, if not 3 times as big as the first one. We're talking 20 weeks here, not 6 weeks, as it was in the Spring. We're talking a virus widespread much higher then the spring. We have no idea how many people will contract the virus by April, but with lock-downs we got to a 5% in the spring, in 6 weeks. How many will get it in the next 20 weeks? 15% is a MINIMUM. My own model shows 20% to 25% of the population in the northern hemisphere will get the virus by April, if no full lock-downs. The treatments won't matter, at all...if people cannot be treated, since most hospitals will get full by the end of this months, across Europe. When I said that we can potentially see more dead then WW2, I wasn't joking. The official death count from the virus is 1.1 million. The excess deaths in the first 37 weeks of 2020 are over 9 million. That is a 1% population loss, in reality, during the first wave, after a lock-down, with a virus spread much smaller then it is now. We will EASILY get to a 2% population loss, in the next 22 weeks, and another 1% by October 2021. And this is a scenario where only 20-25% of the population gets the virus by April 2021, and another 10% by October 2021. We would not even be HALF the way to curb this pandemic in October 2021. I can't even quantify what is going to be when the peak will hit, in mid-November. My mind cannot comprehend that the governments chose this path. The numbers are WORSE then Spanish Flu. I am unable to visualize what the impact will be. But we will see it. We will live it. The human loss of life will be insane. The number of people out of workforce in the next months will be tremendous. The economic impact of such a shortage of workforce will be much bigger then a 4 month full lock-down, and this is just people getting SICK...not those that will see their workplace shut down all of a sudden, because even if we won't full lock-down, every workplace with cases WILL BE shut down. I hope I am wrong, my math is stupid, and based on wrong assumptions. U.S. resurgence, U.S. number of epicenters, Brazil plateau, Europe second wave, schools impact, Eastern Europe being much harder hit now,...all of those things I have predicted to happen WEEKS and sometimes MONTHS before they did. Please choose to believe what you want to believe. Hope that I am wrong. Hope that even if I am right, the society will get past the next months in one piece, because I have no idea how people will react to what is coming. It can get very bad, very quick, in less then a month from now. It will probably happen. God help us.

Russia:  NEW - People will not be allowed into public transit in Moscow without wearing a mask and gloves, TASS reports

Texas:  DALLAS COUNTY REVERTS BACK TO HIGHEST RISK LEVEL LINK

Texas:  NORTH TEXAS COVID 19 MODEL PREDICTS MORE THAT 900 NEW CASES A DAY BY NEXT WEEK LINK

Florida:  Palm Beach School District Withholds Morikami Park Elementary COVID Infection LINK

Spain:  Spain:13,318 new cases, +140 dead New hospital admissions: +1,052

World:  Breaking: WHO SPECIAL ENVOY FOR GLOBAL COVID-19 RESPONSE DR DAVID NABARRO: “THIS VIRUS ISNT GOING TO GO AWAY”

Georgia:  Falcons shut down facility after 2nd player tests positive for COVID-19 LINK

World:  Retinal involvement and ocular findings in COVID-19 pneumonia patients LINK

Connecticut:  State’s First COVID Recovery Center Opens LINK

World:  Building Resilience During the COVID-19 Pandemic LINK

US:  NFL: 49ers pass rusher and Hall of Famer Fred Dean dies at 68, reportedly of COVID19 LINK

US:  US SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MCCONNELL: IF A FRESH COVID-19 RELIEF PACKAGE IS NOT PASSED BEFORE THE ELECTION, IT WILL BE PASSED AFTERWARDS.

Idaho:  In Idaho, children as young as 5 have become ill will COVID-19, and with the reopening of schools the numbers keep going up. LINK

World:  REMDESIVIR HAS LITTLE EFFECT ON COVID-19 MORTALITY, WHO STUDY SAYS- FT

Washington:  Seattle-area man is the third person in the U.S. confirmed to have been infected twice with coronavirus LINK

Texas: El Paso prepares for influx of virus deaths by adding mortuary refrigerators LINK

World:  Canadian Study Shows Over 75% Of Ex-COVID-19 Patients Have Lasting Health Problems LINK

Europe:  Covid-19 cases hit records in Europe, surpassing the United States LINK

Germany:  Germany reports 7,058 new coronavirus cases, biggest one-day increase on record - @risklayer - In hospital: 3,167 est. (+153) - ICU: 659 (+55) - Deaths: +39

World:  Risk of coronavirus exposure on commercial aircraft ‘virtually non-existent’ – even if they’re FULL – according to a Department of Defense study carried out on United planes LINK (That is, if you are wearing a mask)

New Mexico:  NM’s virus spread ‘on fire’ LINK

Texas:  LUBBOCK DANGEROUSLY CLOSE TO SHUTTING DOWN LINK

Arizona:  Rising Covid cases leave Arizona ‘headed toward exponential growth,’ expert warns LINK

Texas:  Over 130 Members Of North Texas High School Band In Quarantine After Positive COVID-19 Tests LINK

World:  Third of newborns with Covid infected before or during birth – study LINK

Canada:  Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau says border won't reopen until US gains control of COVID-19 LINK

Florida:  Clay County school bus driver who planned to retire dies after contracting COVID-19. LINK

Switzerland:  Finger pointed at Swiss yodelling 'superspreader' concert LINK

New Jersey:  Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie says he spent 7 days in ICU before recovering, urges people to take coronavirus seriously - CNN

Canada:  37-year-old Quebecer catches COVID-19 for the second time LINK

Kansas:  KC hospitals ‘bursting at the seams’ with record numbers of COVID-19 patients LINK

Wisconsin:  She was a healthy teenager. 3 months after getting COVID-19, she still hasn’t recovered LINK

[thisdaynews]

Rugby World Cup: New Zealand v Ireland - radio & text

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/rugby-world-cup-new-zealand-v-ireland-radio-text/

Rugby World Cup: New Zealand v Ireland - radio & text

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Live Reporting

By Alex Bysouth

All times stated are UK

Posted at 10:0710:07

No time for goodbyes

Ireland v New Zealand (11:15 BST)

Lose, and this will be Joe Schmidt’s final game in charge of the Irish team and Rory Best’s last match as a professional player.

Both have said they will retire after the World Cup.

Posted at 10:0510:05

‘Can’t be second fiddle’

Ireland v New Zealand (11:15 BST)

PA MediaCopyright: PA Media

Ireland coach Joe Schmidt:“You can’t go out against an All Blacks side and accept you are second fiddle.

“There are a number of players within the side that have contributed to a fair bit of history for us.

“The first win over the All Blacks, the first time we won at home against the All Blacks, but a few other milestones along the way.”

Posted at 10:0510:05

Post update

Ireland v New Zealand (11:15 BST)

Looks like the All Blacks’ social media squad are just as nifty as their rugby-playing companions…

Posted at 10:0510:05

Post update

Denis Hickie

Former Ireland winger

The win over New Zealand 12 months ago feels a long time ago considering where Ireland are now. They weren’t able to kick on from that game and the Six Nations really didn’t go well for them.

The performances in the warm-ups were mixed and they’ve taken that into the World Cup.

Posted at 10:0410:04

Ashton predicts…

Ireland v New Zealand (11:15 BST)

Video content

Video caption: Rugby Union Weekly’s Chris Ashton makes his predictions for the World Cup quarter-finalsRugby Union Weekly’s Chris Ashton makes his predictions for the World Cup quarter-finals

Posted at 10:0210:02

Lowry to bring magic touch?

Ireland v New Zealand (11:15 BST)

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

The Ireland squad were visited this week by a man who knows a thing or two about pulling off a sporting shock…

Golfer Shane Lowry, who won his first major at The Open at Portrush earlier this year, will also be in the stands to follow the quarter-final clash in Tokyo.

Joe Schmidt’s side will be hoping he can lend them a touch of that Claret Jug magic…

Posted at 10:0010:00

Post update

Ireland v New Zealand (11:15 BST)

BBC Radio 5 Live are across this one – tune in to follow all the build-up with just 15 minutes now to go until kick-off…

Click the link at the top of this page to listen, stick on t’wireless or use the BBC Sounds app.

Posted at 9:589:58

Post update

Ireland v New Zealand (11:15 BST)

Ireland may have won two of their past three meetings with the All Blacks, but this is a very different New Zealand side to the won they felled 11 months ago.

Centre Jack Goodhue and scrum-half Aaron Smith are the only starting backs who played in that defeat in Dublin last year, which is also the last time the All Blacks failed to score a try.

Twelve players who began Ireland’s victory last November keep their place with Robbie Henshaw, Conor Murray and Iain Henderson replacing Bundee Aki, Kieran Marmion and Devin Toner.

Posted at 9:569:56

All Blacks trust in youth

Ireland v New Zealand (11:15 BST)

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

New Zealand have trusted Jack Goodhue and Anton Leinert-Brown, both 24, to solve their midfield conundrum, while the experienced Brodie Retallick is named at lock despite little game time in Japan.

Retallick, capped 78 times, was restricted to just 30 minutes of action, against Namibia, in the group stages as he returned from a dislocated shoulder but will renew his vastly experienced partnership with Sam Whitelock in the second row.

Beauden Barrett will once again operate at full-back with Richie Mo’unga at fly-half while Cody Taylor is preferred to Dane Coles at hooker.

Experienced duo Ryan Crotty and Ben Smith are not included in Steve Hansen’s matchday 23 with Sonny Bill Williams only among the replacements.

Posted at 9:529:52

Post update

Ireland v New Zealand (11:15 BST)

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

The Ireland fans are out in force in Tokyo.

Going through their line-out routines with a boot… there’ll be one chilly-footed fan at the stadium.

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

Posted at 9:519:51

On the market…

Ireland v New Zealand (11:15 BST)

Video content

Video caption: Hottest ticket in town – Irish and Japanese fans face quarter-final swapHottest ticket in town – Irish and Japanese fans face quarter-final swap

Posted at 9:519:51

Ticket troubles

Ireland v New Zealand (11:15 BST)

Michael Morrow

BBC Sport NI at Tokyo Stadium

Ireland fans are once again here in numbers, with many of them leaving it late to secure their ticket for Saturday’s second quarter-final.

Last night there was a hastily arranged but by all accounts immensely successful ticket swap held near Tokyo’s Asakusa Station for fans who had jumped the gun in booking their quarter-final tickets.

When planning their trip a fair few Irish fans predicted, not unreasonably, that their side would top Pool A and therefore feature on Sunday night.

Of course, Ireland didn’t finish top of their pool, leaving many an Irish fan with a ticket for Japan v South Africa as opposed to their team’s meeting with the All Blacks.

Despite the drama, there’s no shortage of green inside the stadium, noise shouldn’t be an issue either.

Posted at 9:509:50

Rested? Or undercooked?

Ireland v New Zealand (11:15 BST)

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

With their final pool match against Italy being called off, New Zealand head into the knockout stages well rested – but is there a danger they could be underdone, having not played for 13 days?

“Having a week off is not a bad thing. It’s allowed us to work really hard last Friday,” said coach Steve Hansen.

“Our GPS numbers were equivalent or just above what a normal Test match would be so we don’t feel like we’ve lost any opportunity to get ourselves where we need to be.”

Posted at 9:489:48

All Blacks hit their straps

Ireland v New Zealand (11:15 BST)

New Zealand topped Pool B despite their final group game with Italy being cancelled because of Typhoon Hagibis.

Steve Hansen’s side remain on course for a third consecutive World Cup after passing their biggest test on the opening weekend with a 23-13 win over South Africa in Yokohama, before breezing past Namibia and Canada.

Despite their scheduled encounter with the Italians being called off, the All Blacks qualified for the knockout stages with the highest average points (52) of any side in the competition.

Posted at 9:459:45

Post update

Ireland v New Zealand (11:15 BST)

Don’t want to sway your opinion, but this is what Opta reckons…

Posted at 9:449:44

comments

Get Involved – pick your World Cup winner…

#bbcrugby

After England swatted aside Australia earlier, and with two-time defending champions New Zealand about to get under way, we want to know who is best placed to win the World Cup, and why?

Can Ireland halt the All Blacks? Will hosts Japan spring another surprise against South Africa? Will Wales maintain their title hopes against France?

Let us know using #bbcrugby

Posted at 9:419:41

Post update

Ireland v New Zealand (11:15 BST)

Posted at 9:419:41

Hansen to ‘set-up’ Schmidt?

Ireland v New Zealand (11:15 BST)

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

New Zealand coach Steve Hansen hinted earlier in the week he could “set-up” Ireland boss Joe Schmidt with his approach for the quarter-final.

Schmidt is renowned for his detailed analytical approach, with the New Zealander has guided Ireland to two victories over the All Blacks in their past three meetings.

“We’ve got weaknesses like everybody else, so you’ve got to look at your own weaknesses as much as anybody else’s,” said Hansen.

“You know that Joe does a lot of studies, so that can be a strength and a weakness. I might be able to set him up.”

Posted at 9:399:39

‘Surreal’ moment for Sexton

Ireland v New Zealand (11:15 BST)

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

Conor Murray and Johnny Sexton will become Ireland’s most-capped starting half-back duo as they line up together for the 56th time.

Speaking to the media on Friday, Ireland fly-half Sexton said it is “a little bit surreal”.

“It’s been a long time in the back of our minds, this quarter-final,” Sexton said. “We’re here now. It’s a little bit ‘I can’t believe it’s finally here’.”

Posted at 9:379:37

Sexton takes the lead

Ireland v New Zealand (11:15 BST)

Michael Morrow

BBC Sport NI at Tokyo Stadium

This week the Irish press corps were treated to two media conference masterclasses from Johnny Sexton.

The first was the morning after Ireland’s win over Samoa in Fukuoka and Sexton made sure the media were well aware of the buoyant, confident mood running through the camp as he fielded every question in a jovial manner.

The second, at yesterday’s ‘captain’s run’ during which Sexton was the only Irish player to make the trip across Tokyo to the stadium from the team base near Disneyland, was all about quiet confidence and focus.

He had a kind word about his younger team-mates, batted away questions about the potential for this to be Joe Schmidt’s last game and told us that his team were excited, not nervous.

Off the pitch he’s pretty impressive, but he’s better and much more crucial still on it. If Ireland are to get a win today, their best player is going to need to be firing on all cylinders from the first minute.

Read More

[turkiyeecom]

Teacher killed himself over crippling anxiety after trekking Himalayas

A teacher killed himself months after suffering a bout of crippling altitude sickness during a trekking trip to the Himalayas with his wife, an inquest heard.Paul Connell, 33, was found dead at the bottom of cliffs near his home in Ramsgate, Kent, after struggling with anxiety following the incident, leaving his family a note reading 'Voices in my head. I'm sorry. Love you all x'. He was travelling through Asia with his wife Lisa last September when he was struck down by the illness at 10,000ft on the Annapurna range in Nepal, which affected him so badly he texted his mother Donna Ayres telling her he wanted to 'throw himself off the mountain'.Although he was airlifted to hospital and appeared to have recovered, Mr Connell and his wife returned home to Kent months later due to his homesickness.He was taken straight to hospital by his mother after landing at Heathrow after she described him as 'looking like a heroin addict'.The inquest was told he was in and out of hospital between February and March and had tried to contact his GP 21 times the day before he died on March 26. Paul Connell, right with wife Lisa, killed himself months after developing altitude sickness while the couple were trekking the Annapurna range in Nepal in October 2018, picturedThe former teacher, 33, pictured with his wife in Vietnam, began to suffer from anxiety following the incident and while awaiting treatment in Nepal texted his mother Donna to say he wanted to 'throw himself off the mountain' Mrs Connell, pictured with Paul, said she wants to warn others of the dangers of mental health problems after her husband struggled to get treatment when back home in KentMr Connell, pictured left with Lisa on their wedding day in 2014 and right in Sri Lanka, was described as a 'really happy guy' before the altitude sicknessIt is not the first time altitude has been linked with mental health problems, with Olympic gold medallist Victoria Pendleton previously revealing she suffered depression after attempting to climb Mount Everest last year.She said oxygen deprivation up the world’s highest mountain left her feeling suicidal.Meanwhile research published in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry in 2018 found people living in high-altitude areas of the United States are more likely to commit suicide and suffer depression.Mrs Connell has now spoken out to warn others to watch out for the signs of mental health decline.The 35-year-old said: 'Paul was a really happy guy, he had a great life and he wasn't suffering with depression or anxiety.'It was something that happened really fast, really intensely over such a short space of time.'This can happen to anyone, it can happen to the strongest of people physically and mentally.'Someone can change, something can suddenly snap in someone's head. You just never know.'Mr and Mrs Connell were travelling on a trip-of-a-lifetime to Nepal and set out in September last year. The couple met in Australia, pictured, in 2012 and married two years later. They previously lived in Vietnam where they worked as English teachers An inquest in Canterbury heard Mr Connell, pictured with his wife in Nepal, had not displayed mental health problems before the trek The 33-year-old, pictured in Thailand, initially recovered after being airlifted to hospital, but became homesick after several more months travelling in AsiaThey were due to spend two months in the area, but Mr Connell suddenly began suffering panic attacks and severe anxiety and was unable to sleep.While he was up there, he texted his mother to say he wanted to jump off. WHAT ARE THE LINKS BETWEEN ALTITUDE SICKNESS AND POOR MENTAL HEALTH ? Altitude sickness is when breathing becomes difficult because there is a lack of oxygen at high altitude.  Altitude sickness, also called acute mountain sickness (AMS), can become a medical emergency if ignored.It normally develops between six and 24 hours after reaching altitudes more than 3,000m (9,842 feet) above sea level. Victoria Pendleton struggled with depression after developing altitude sickness and signs of hypoxia while trying to climb Mount Everest, picturedSymptoms are similar to those of a bad hangover, according to NHS, including headache, nausea and vomiting, dizziness, tiredness, loss of appetite and shortness of breath.At high altitude, the body is trying to compensate for the lack of oxygen in other areas of the body. A lack of oxygen leads to deterioration and eventually death of cells. This is referred to as hypoxia.Hypoxia, a condition is known to affect Everest climbers, can initially cause confusion and poor decision and is linked to poor mental health.According to scientific literature, the initial mood experienced at altitude could also be euphoria, followed by depression. With time, individuals may also become quarrelsome, irritable, anxious, and apathetic. Research has found that rates of depression and suicide are greater for those living in high altitudes. In 2018, Victoria Pendleton, a former British Olympic, said she had suffered severe depression and had contemplated suicide after her failed Everest expedition. She later split from her husband.Her expedition in April 2018 ended when Ms Pendleton showed signs of hypoxia.     Mrs Connell said that her husband became so unwell so quickly that he paid for a helicopter to take him back to the foot of the mountains.The Annapurna Range is one of the most hazardous to climb in the world.The peaks - which include the world's tenth highest mountain, Annapurna I Main, kill almost a third of those who attempt to climb them with 61 deaths out of 191 summit ascents.In October 2014, at least 43 people died as a result of snowstorms and avalanches on and around Annapurna, in Nepal's worst ever trekking disaster.After leaving the Himalayas Mr Connell rapidly improved.He recuperated for several months as the couple moved on to travel in India, before he slipped into a spiral of depression and insomnia from which he never recovered.Struggling to sleep, Mr Connell flew home to Ramsgate in the first week of February, where he was rushed straight from the airport to A&E at the QEQM Hospital in Margate by his mother.She told an inquest into his death he looked 'like a heroin addict' when she met him off his flight.Mr Connell had counselling but struggled to get a grip on his anxiety and doctors were left baffled by his case because he had never suffered from mental health problems before the Himalaya hike. The inquest at Canterbury Coroner's Court found Mr Connell killed himself on March 26.Mr Connell met his wife in Sydney in January 2012, while both were working in Australia.The pair bonded over a shared love of travelling and adventure, and went on to travel around South East Asia before settling in Hanoi, Vietnam, working as English teachers.They married in July 2014, in a small ceremony on a beach in Vietnam, which Mrs Connell described as 'perfect'.They made their home in Vietnam but came back to visit family during Christmas 2017 after Mr Connell's elder sister Aimee was diagnosed with cancer.She died on Christmas Day, but Mrs Connell said her husband had been coping with the death.It was this that inspired the pair to go travelling once again - and tick some places off their bucket list including Nepal and India.But it was about six weeks into their trip to the Himalayas that Mr Connell became ill.Mrs Connell said her husband returned home in February after struggling to sleep. His mother Donna then took him straight to hospital after claiming he 'looked like a heroin addict' Although he tried to get treatment for anxiety and depression, he was unable to get a bed at a private treatment facility and was not recommended for specialist NHS services after an initial assessment Mrs Connell, pictured with Paul on their wedding day, said her husband continued to suffer from panic attacks despite being given medicationMrs Connell, of Derry, Northern Ireland, said: 'Once he came off that mountain he was the same normal happy Paul again.'He embraced the first few months of India, he was happy.'But when the pair were in Bangalore in January, Mr Connell stopped sleeping once again.Mrs Connell said: 'He just become so frustrated and anxious. Paul woke up at 4am one night and said he needed to go home.'I thought we could just go somewhere really quiet, but he just had it in his head he wanted to go home.'Mr Connell returned to the care of his family, but had said he would try and get better so he could rejoin his wife.However she was so worried about him, she ended up flying back to the UK five days later.When she saw him she was shocked by his condition.Mr Connell, pictured in Nepal, even tried to injure himself with a rock while in and out hospital earlier this yearShe added: 'I could see that he was still having panic attacks, and this is the point he started talking about dark thoughts.' Mrs Connell took him to hospital again, and said he began crying and pleading with doctors: 'If you have to sedate me, sedate me, just please make me sleep.'They carried out physical checks on Mr Connell, but could not find anything wrong.Mrs Connell said: 'We were hoping something physical would show up. Something which would explain Paul being like this, because this person was no longer the Paul we all knew and loved. It was like a different person.'While in hospital he tried to injure himself with a rock.He was given anti-depressants and sleeping pills, but the inquest heard that although he had seen a counsellor the day before his death he was not recommended for further mental health assessments from specialist services.Mr Connell said he wanted to go to a psychiatric treatment centre called The Beacon in Ramsgate, where patients are monitored closely, but there was no space.The couple went to Mrs Connell's sister's house in Newcastle, Northern Ireland, in late February, in the hope a change of scenery would help. The couple, pictured in India, also went to see Mrs Connell's family in Northern Ireland to try to benefit from a change of sceneryMrs Connell said: 'We thought it would be good to come back here and relax and have some quiet time with my family.'It was the first time my sister and her husband had seen him in a long time, and they couldn't believe the change in him.'It was like a completely different person, Paul was really anxious.'His whole demeanour had a really nervous energy, an uncomfortable look. His eyes were kind of glassy.'He had to leave early, as a counselling space had come up.The pair continued to speak every day on the phone, while Mr Connell took his medication, saw his therapist and spent time with his parents. However a month later he took his own life after making 21 attempts to call his GP, but his calls failed to connect.DS Paul Deslandes investigated the circumstances surrounding Mr Connell's death and told the inquest that two dog walkers found Mr Connell lying face down on the beach 50ft below.Members of the public attempted to revive him for 15 minutes before paramedics arrived and took over CPR but he died 25 minutes later. The inquest at Canterbury Coroner's Court ruled Mr Connell, pictured with his wife in India, took his own lifeCoroner James Dillon ruled that Mr Connell had taken his own life.Mrs Connell said: 'I think the biggest thing is to listen to someone who is starting to speak out about it.'And listen to what they are asking for, because they know themselves what they are capable of dealing with.' Helen Greatorex, chief executive of the Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust, said: 'We were so very sad to hear of the tragedy of Paul's death.'Our thoughts and sincerest condolences are with his family and those who loved him.'We have, as everyone would expect, commenced a detailed review in to what happened in the lead up to the tragedy and are doing this in partnership with other agencies who knew Paul.'We will ensure that in particular, Paul's family are able if they wish to include questions to which they would like answers.'We will share the final report with both Her Majesty's Coroner and Paul's family.' For confidential support call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local Samaritans branch, see www.samaritans.org for details. Read More Read the full article

[kennethmontiveros]

“What’s a good conversion rate for my landing page?” [New AI-Backed Research]

Imagine you’re an ecommerce business using landing pages to sell sweaters for miniature pigs. Recently, you’ve done a round of A/B testing—adding a little more oink to your calls to action, let’s say—and tweaked your social ad targeting to reach the hardcore piggy people on Instagram. 

After all your optimization efforts, your landing pages now convert at 3.57%. 

But actually…even if it’s a big improvement against your personal baseline, how do you know you should stop there? How do you know that your hard-earned conversion rate is worth celebrating? Heck, how would you even know if a 30% conversion rate is any good for pages in your industry? (Maybe everyone’s getting a fat return off of pig sweaters but you.)

It’s hard to be confident in the numbers when you don’t know how everybody else is doing. Doubt settles in. Maybe you’re missing out on reaching your conversion potential without even knowing it.

Well, we feel your pain. That’s why, at Unbounce, we’re on a continuing mission to answer the big question for you. It’s the one we hear time and again from our customers:

“What’s a good, bad, or average conversion rate for my landing pages?” 

That’s where industry benchmarks come in—and that’s why we’re thrilled to bring you a fresh (and free) new version of our Conversion Benchmark Report. 

Benchmarks can energize your digital marketing strategy in three big ways:

They’re a form of competitive intelligence. They help you identify gaps between your performance and what the rest of your industry considers to be a good conversion rate. 

Our benchmarks reveal data-supported best practices, and you’ll waste less time and traffic testing unproven optimizations that our machine learning analysis shows don’t necessarily work. 

They help you build a culture of continuous improvement in your organization. It’s harder for your marketing team to be happy with “just okay” if they’re seeing something to strive for.

Sure, some folks like to pooh-pooh industry benchmarking—“Why should I care how other marketers are converting? Why don’t I just focus on how I’m doing?”—but they’re your best window into what success really looks like. Going forward blindly, when you could have both eyes on the prize, is just silly. Oh, and these benchmarks were generated with help from an honest-to-goodness AI crunching millions of conversions, so the results are far more reliable than the anecdotal best practices often found online. As part of the Unbounce Conversion Intelligence approach to digital marketing, these machine-derived insights help you pair your hard-earned expertise with AI to create the highest-converting campaigns of your career.

Introducing the 2020 Conversion Benchmark Report

This year’s Conversion Benchmark Report uses machine learning to assist our data team in analyzing 186.9 million visits to 34,132 Unbounce-built landing pages. In terms of sample size, we analyzed more visits to these pages than the populations of Canada, Hong Kong, Mexico, Laos, and Ireland combined. 

For full context, the previous (2017) version of this report was also built on machine learning insights, but in three years we’ve refined our approach to provide tons more real, proprietary customer data to feed the machine. Now we have even better, more reliable outputs—as well as a few new ways to break down our findings, like by conversion goal. (These are boundaries we’re going to keep pushing, too.)

But what kind of info does the report contain? For one thing, you’ll find median conversion rates broken down to 16 key industries. In many cases, we’ve got wide enough sample sizes to sort them into subcategories too, so you can see how your brother’s pest control service measures up against your sister’s HVAC company. (Or how your uncle’s cybersecurity software converts against your great aunt’s cloud accounting platform.)

The Conversion Benchmark Report includes 16 industries broken down into dozens of subcategories.

Why do we report on median instead of average (mean)? Our goal is to provide you with a realistic picture of where you stand, so this year’s report lists median conversion rates as our measure of central tendency instead of the mean. We found this reduces the impact of outliers (like pages that convert five times better than the rest) on the final benchmarks.

Not clear enough? Then imagine you want to find out, on average, how many eyes people have. The median tells us they have two eyes. According to the mean, though, they have slightly less than two. Because outliers (people with one or fewer eyes) bring that number down.

Both these measures are correct, but which one would you prefer to rely on if your business is selling sunglasses?

What if your industry doesn’t appear in the report? For this year’s report, we’ve tried to be even more representative. With machine learning helping us to sort thousands of landing pages in a logical way, we’ve increased the number of industries covered from 10 to 16, and we’ve even added subcategories whenever sample sizes allow.

If you still don’t see yourself represented, though, compare your conversion rates to industries with similar audiences and conversion goals. While we don’t actually recommend comparisons between very unrelated industries (except for fun), let your judgment be your guide. 

A note on COVID-19. The conversion data in this report comes from 2019, so we realize it shows norms that have been disrupted for some vulnerable industries—like travel, events and leisure, restaurants, and medical practitioners. These benchmarks show what you can expect in stable periods, and they provide insights about how your visitors typically behave (and why they convert). We hope they’ll help you set up your digital campaigns for success—and inspire your rebound. If you face uncertainty, though, please also check out the COVID-19 Small Business Care Package for a roundup of useful resources to help lessen the impact on your business.

Below, I go into more detail about the findings and insights we’ve been able to pull from them. But if you’ve got an itchy mouse-finger, you can jump right into the Conversion Benchmark Report now. (It’ll open in a new tab.)

Going beyond the benchmarks

Benchmarks are tremendously helpful, for all the reasons I talked about above. (If you work for an agency, you know this already. They’re a baller way of showing the value of what you do—and helping clients determine their true conversion potential.) 

How do I best communicate with my target audience? 

In copywriting circles, the received wisdom is that clarity comes above all else. If you’re looking to put up the fewest hurdles possible between audience and offer, it can make sense to keep your vocabulary basic and your sentences tight and untangled.

Our data, however, complicates this equation. Is simple always better? Nope. It turns out that different industries tend to convert more often at different reading levels (and some see weaker relationships between conversion rates and readability than others). 

There are even cases in which it’s good to sound sophisticated. B2B companies offering lead-gen consulting or instruction, for instance, appear to benefit from more challenging language. We see a drop in conversion rates as pages become easier to understand. (Frankly, that’s not what we expected.)

When it comes to reading ease, pages for lead-gen consultants appear to benefit from being harder to read.

Our machine learning analysis enabled us to look at copy from 34 thousand pages. Each page is assigned a Flesch reading ease score based on the average number of syllables per word and words per sentence. More syllables and more words means more…harder.

Here’s roughly how the scoring breaks down:

What’s the perf word length for my landing pages?

While it’s true that shorter pages tend to convert better, many industries have sweet spots that break the rule—which means, if you’re going to create a long-form landing page, you should go this long. This is especially true in the wild territories beyond 200 words, where unexpected correlations between length and conversion rate have led many a marketer astray.

At what length do landing pages for family services convert best? The graph provides answers.

Depending on your offer and industry, you may find that you need to use more words to get your point across, but graphs like the one above can let you know what’s ideal. For family services, that’s 300-500 words (if you can’t get it shorter than 150 words). For other industries, it can be more or less. Whatever the case, creating variants based on our findings can definitely be a good candidate for A/B testing or Smart Traffic.

What emotions might relate to better conversion rates?

You likely know in your gut that people’s feelings can impact their decision to buy, but which ones actually drive conversions on your landing pages? To find out, we ran an ML-powered sentiment analysis that looked at emotion-associated words that might relate to healthy conversion rates—and which might even be slowing you down. 

(Spoiler: using trust words isn’t always advisable. “Trust us.”)

For SaaS, the concentration of anticipation words on a landing page correlates with its conversion rate.

When it comes to SaaS conversions, for instance, it turns out that language that conveys anticipation (words like gradual, highest, improve, and launch) sometimes correlates with better conversion rates. Or, to put it another way: as we find more of these words, we also often tend to see better conversion performance.

You can explore this example, and many others, in the report.

A good conversion rate is one you can improve upon.

When it comes down to brass tacks, all this benchmarking is valuable insofar as you can use it to build a better conversion machine from what you learn. How do you do it?

Explore the insights in this report. The report is broken down into 16 industries. How are your landing pages stacking up against the baseline? Are you way out ahead? Are you falling behind? Start with your industry, sure, but take a look at others too. There may be insights that are worth exploring outside your own arena.

Apply the data learnings to your own campaigns. Create a variant (or more than one variant) of your page that applies some of the insights we’ve provided. For example, you might dial down the jargon until you hit the optimal Flesch reading score. (You can use the free readability formula tool here to test it for yourself.)

Optimize and test. Keep in mind that data analysis reveals trends and tendencies rather than absolutes. You’re making informed decisions when you apply these learnings, but testing is still your best way to confirm. Run A/B tests or, if you’re short on the time or traffic to do so, just publish your variants and turn on Smart Traffic in the Unbounce Builder. It’ll use machine learning to automatically decide which variant is right for which visitors, and it’s otherwise hands-off. (If you’re looking for more ideas on how to build variants, I’d recommend this post from Garrett too.)

In short, this year’s report uses ML to identify opportunities you simply couldn’t spot without the processing power of a machine. Optimizing your pages doesn’t have to be aspirational. We believe this is the future of digital marketing—and, going forward, you’re going to see more and more efforts like this from Unbounce to help you enhance the skills you already have. (If you’re curious about what else we have planned, you can read more about our push to bring you Conversion Intelligence.)

Whether you sell pig sweaters, chicken harnesses, or something altogether more practical—are you confident enough to swagger into your next meeting, snap your suspenders, fire those finger-guns in your boss’s direction, and let everyone know about your team’s big win? “Soooooooo-ie!”

Take a gander at the 2020 Conversion Benchmark Report, and let us know what you think in the comments below.

“What’s a good conversion rate for my landing page?” [New AI-Backed Research] published first on http://nickpontemktg.blogspot.com/

[samanthasmeyers]

“What’s a good conversion rate for my landing page?” [New AI-Backed Research]

Imagine you’re an ecommerce business using landing pages to sell sweaters for miniature pigs. Recently, you’ve done a round of A/B testing—adding a little more oink to your calls to action, let’s say—and tweaked your social ad targeting to reach the hardcore piggy people on Instagram. 

After all your optimization efforts, your landing pages now convert at 3.57%. 

But actually…even if it’s a big improvement against your personal baseline, how do you know you should stop there? How do you know that your hard-earned conversion rate is worth celebrating? Heck, how would you even know if a 30% conversion rate is any good for pages in your industry? (Maybe everyone’s getting a fat return off of pig sweaters but you.)

It’s hard to be confident in the numbers when you don’t know how everybody else is doing. Doubt settles in. Maybe you’re missing out on reaching your conversion potential without even knowing it.

Well, we feel your pain. That’s why, at Unbounce, we’re on a continuing mission to answer the big question for you. It’s the one we hear time and again from our customers:

“What’s a good, bad, or average conversion rate for my landing pages?” 

That’s where industry benchmarks come in—and that’s why we’re thrilled to bring you a fresh (and free) new version of our Conversion Benchmark Report. 

Benchmarks can energize your digital marketing strategy in three big ways:

They’re a form of competitive intelligence. They help you identify gaps between your performance and what the rest of your industry considers to be a good conversion rate. 

Our benchmarks reveal data-supported best practices, and you’ll waste less time and traffic testing unproven optimizations that our machine learning analysis shows don’t necessarily work. 

They help you build a culture of continuous improvement in your organization. It’s harder for your marketing team to be happy with “just okay” if they’re seeing something to strive for.

Sure, some folks like to pooh-pooh industry benchmarking—“Why should I care how other marketers are converting? Why don’t I just focus on how I’m doing?”—but they’re your best window into what success really looks like. Going forward blindly, when you could have both eyes on the prize, is just silly. Oh, and these benchmarks were generated with help from an honest-to-goodness AI crunching millions of conversions, so the results are far more reliable than the anecdotal best practices often found online. As part of the Unbounce Conversion Intelligence approach to digital marketing, these machine-derived insights help you pair your hard-earned expertise with AI to create the highest-converting campaigns of your career.

Introducing the 2020 Conversion Benchmark Report

This year’s Conversion Benchmark Report uses machine learning to assist our data team in analyzing 186.9 million visits to 34,132 Unbounce-built landing pages. In terms of sample size, we analyzed more visits to these pages than the populations of Canada, Hong Kong, Mexico, Laos, and Ireland combined. 

For full context, the previous (2017) version of this report was also built on machine learning insights, but in three years we’ve refined our approach to provide tons more real, proprietary customer data to feed the machine. Now we have even better, more reliable outputs—as well as a few new ways to break down our findings, like by conversion goal. (These are boundaries we’re going to keep pushing, too.)

But what kind of info does the report contain? For one thing, you’ll find median conversion rates broken down to 16 key industries. In many cases, we’ve got wide enough sample sizes to sort them into subcategories too, so you can see how your brother’s pest control service measures up against your sister’s HVAC company. (Or how your uncle’s cybersecurity software converts against your great aunt’s cloud accounting platform.)

The Conversion Benchmark Report includes 16 industries broken down into dozens of subcategories.

Why do we report on median instead of average (mean)? Our goal is to provide you with a realistic picture of where you stand, so this year’s report lists median conversion rates as our measure of central tendency instead of the mean. We found this reduces the impact of outliers (like pages that convert five times better than the rest) on the final benchmarks.

Not clear enough? Then imagine you want to find out, on average, how many eyes people have. The median tells us they have two eyes. According to the mean, though, they have slightly less than two. Because outliers (people with one or fewer eyes) bring that number down.

Both these measures are correct, but which one would you prefer to rely on if your business is selling sunglasses?

What if your industry doesn’t appear in the report? For this year’s report, we’ve tried to be even more representative. With machine learning helping us to sort thousands of landing pages in a logical way, we’ve increased the number of industries covered from 10 to 16, and we’ve even added subcategories whenever sample sizes allow.

If you still don’t see yourself represented, though, compare your conversion rates to industries with similar audiences and conversion goals. While we don’t actually recommend comparisons between very unrelated industries (except for fun), let your judgment be your guide. 

A note on COVID-19. The conversion data in this report comes from 2019, so we realize it shows norms that have been disrupted for some vulnerable industries—like travel, events and leisure, restaurants, and medical practitioners. These benchmarks show what you can expect in stable periods, and they provide insights about how your visitors typically behave (and why they convert). We hope they’ll help you set up your digital campaigns for success—and inspire your rebound. If you face uncertainty, though, please also check out the COVID-19 Small Business Care Package for a roundup of useful resources to help lessen the impact on your business.

Below, I go into more detail about the findings and insights we’ve been able to pull from them. But if you’ve got an itchy mouse-finger, you can jump right into the Conversion Benchmark Report now. (It’ll open in a new tab.)

Going beyond the benchmarks

Benchmarks are tremendously helpful, for all the reasons I talked about above. (If you work for an agency, you know this already. They’re a baller way of showing the value of what you do—and helping clients determine their true conversion potential.) 

How do I best communicate with my target audience? 

In copywriting circles, the received wisdom is that clarity comes above all else. If you’re looking to put up the fewest hurdles possible between audience and offer, it can make sense to keep your vocabulary basic and your sentences tight and untangled.

Our data, however, complicates this equation. Is simple always better? Nope. It turns out that different industries tend to convert more often at different reading levels (and some see weaker relationships between conversion rates and readability than others). 

There are even cases in which it’s good to sound sophisticated. B2B companies offering lead-gen consulting or instruction, for instance, appear to benefit from more challenging language. We see a drop in conversion rates as pages become easier to understand. (Frankly, that’s not what we expected.)

When it comes to reading ease, pages for lead-gen consultants appear to benefit from being harder to read.

Our machine learning analysis enabled us to look at copy from 34 thousand pages. Each page is assigned a Flesch reading ease score based on the average number of syllables per word and words per sentence. More syllables and more words means more…harder.

Here’s roughly how the scoring breaks down:

What’s the perf word length for my landing pages?

While it’s true that shorter pages tend to convert better, many industries have sweet spots that break the rule—which means, if you’re going to create a long-form landing page, you should go this long. This is especially true in the wild territories beyond 200 words, where unexpected correlations between length and conversion rate have led many a marketer astray.

At what length do landing pages for family services convert best? The graph provides answers.

Depending on your offer and industry, you may find that you need to use more words to get your point across, but graphs like the one above can let you know what’s ideal. For family services, that’s 300-500 words (if you can’t get it shorter than 150 words). For other industries, it can be more or less. Whatever the case, creating variants based on our findings can definitely be a good candidate for A/B testing or Smart Traffic.

What emotions might relate to better conversion rates?

You likely know in your gut that people’s feelings can impact their decision to buy, but which ones actually drive conversions on your landing pages? To find out, we ran an ML-powered sentiment analysis that looked at emotion-associated words that might relate to healthy conversion rates—and which might even be slowing you down. 

(Spoiler: using trust words isn’t always advisable. “Trust us.”)

For SaaS, the concentration of anticipation words on a landing page correlates with its conversion rate.

When it comes to SaaS conversions, for instance, it turns out that language that conveys anticipation (words like gradual, highest, improve, and launch) sometimes correlates with better conversion rates. Or, to put it another way: as we find more of these words, we also often tend to see better conversion performance.

You can explore this example, and many others, in the report.

A good conversion rate is one you can improve upon.

When it comes down to brass tacks, all this benchmarking is valuable insofar as you can use it to build a better conversion machine from what you learn. How do you do it?

Explore the insights in this report. The report is broken down into 16 industries. How are your landing pages stacking up against the baseline? Are you way out ahead? Are you falling behind? Start with your industry, sure, but take a look at others too. There may be insights that are worth exploring outside your own arena.

Apply the data learnings to your own campaigns. Create a variant (or more than one variant) of your page that applies some of the insights we’ve provided. For example, you might dial down the jargon until you hit the optimal Flesch reading score. (You can use the free readability formula tool here to test it for yourself.)

Optimize and test. Keep in mind that data analysis reveals trends and tendencies rather than absolutes. You’re making informed decisions when you apply these learnings, but testing is still your best way to confirm. Run A/B tests or, if you’re short on the time or traffic to do so, just publish your variants and turn on Smart Traffic in the Unbounce Builder. It’ll use machine learning to automatically decide which variant is right for which visitors, and it’s otherwise hands-off. (If you’re looking for more ideas on how to build variants, I’d recommend this post from Garrett too.)

In short, this year’s report uses ML to identify opportunities you simply couldn’t spot without the processing power of a machine. Optimizing your pages doesn’t have to be aspirational. We believe this is the future of digital marketing—and, going forward, you’re going to see more and more efforts like this from Unbounce to help you enhance the skills you already have. (If you’re curious about what else we have planned, you can read more about our push to bring you Conversion Intelligence.)

Whether you sell pig sweaters, chicken harnesses, or something altogether more practical—are you confident enough to swagger into your next meeting, snap your suspenders, fire those finger-guns in your boss’s direction, and let everyone know about your team’s big win? “Soooooooo-ie!”

Take a gander at the 2020 Conversion Benchmark Report, and let us know what you think in the comments below.

from Marketing https://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/what-is-a-good-conversion-rate/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[josephkchoi]

“What’s a good conversion rate for my landing page?” [New AI-Backed Research]

Imagine you’re an ecommerce business using landing pages to sell sweaters for miniature pigs. Recently, you’ve done a round of A/B testing—adding a little more oink to your calls to action, let’s say—and tweaked your social ad targeting to reach the hardcore piggy people on Instagram. 

After all your optimization efforts, your landing pages now convert at 3.57%. 

But actually…even if it’s a big improvement against your personal baseline, how do you know you should stop there? How do you know that your hard-earned conversion rate is worth celebrating? Heck, how would you even know if a 30% conversion rate is any good for pages in your industry? (Maybe everyone’s getting a fat return off of pig sweaters but you.)

It’s hard to be confident in the numbers when you don’t know how everybody else is doing. Doubt settles in. Maybe you’re missing out on reaching your conversion potential without even knowing it.

Well, we feel your pain. That’s why, at Unbounce, we’re on a continuing mission to answer the big question for you. It’s the one we hear time and again from our customers:

“What’s a good, bad, or average conversion rate for my landing pages?” 

That’s where industry benchmarks come in—and that’s why we’re thrilled to bring you a fresh (and free) new version of our Conversion Benchmark Report. 

Benchmarks can energize your digital marketing strategy in three big ways:

They’re a form of competitive intelligence. They help you identify gaps between your performance and what the rest of your industry considers to be a good conversion rate. 

Our benchmarks reveal data-supported best practices, and you’ll waste less time and traffic testing unproven optimizations that our machine learning analysis shows don’t necessarily work. 

They help you build a culture of continuous improvement in your organization. It’s harder for your marketing team to be happy with “just okay” if they’re seeing something to strive for.

Sure, some folks like to pooh-pooh industry benchmarking—“Why should I care how other marketers are converting? Why don’t I just focus on how I’m doing?”—but they’re your best window into what success really looks like. Going forward blindly, when you could have both eyes on the prize, is just silly. Oh, and these benchmarks were generated with help from an honest-to-goodness AI crunching millions of conversions, so the results are far more reliable than the anecdotal best practices often found online. As part of the Unbounce Conversion Intelligence approach to digital marketing, these machine-derived insights help you pair your hard-earned expertise with AI to create the highest-converting campaigns of your career.

Introducing the 2020 Conversion Benchmark Report

This year’s Conversion Benchmark Report uses machine learning to assist our data team in analyzing 186.9 million visits to 34,132 Unbounce-built landing pages. In terms of sample size, we analyzed more visits to these pages than the populations of Canada, Hong Kong, Mexico, Laos, and Ireland combined. 

For full context, the previous (2017) version of this report was also built on machine learning insights, but in three years we’ve refined our approach to provide tons more real, proprietary customer data to feed the machine. Now we have even better, more reliable outputs—as well as a few new ways to break down our findings, like by conversion goal. (These are boundaries we’re going to keep pushing, too.)

But what kind of info does the report contain? For one thing, you’ll find median conversion rates broken down to 16 key industries. In many cases, we’ve got wide enough sample sizes to sort them into subcategories too, so you can see how your brother’s pest control service measures up against your sister’s HVAC company. (Or how your uncle’s cybersecurity software converts against your great aunt’s cloud accounting platform.)

The Conversion Benchmark Report includes 16 industries broken down into dozens of subcategories.

Why do we report on median instead of average (mean)? Our goal is to provide you with a realistic picture of where you stand, so this year’s report lists median conversion rates as our measure of central tendency instead of the mean. We found this reduces the impact of outliers (like pages that convert five times better than the rest) on the final benchmarks.

Not clear enough? Then imagine you want to find out, on average, how many eyes people have. The median tells us they have two eyes. According to the mean, though, they have slightly less than two. Because outliers (people with one or fewer eyes) bring that number down.

Both these measures are correct, but which one would you prefer to rely on if your business is selling sunglasses?

What if your industry doesn’t appear in the report? For this year’s report, we’ve tried to be even more representative. With machine learning helping us to sort thousands of landing pages in a logical way, we’ve increased the number of industries covered from 10 to 16, and we’ve even added subcategories whenever sample sizes allow.

If you still don’t see yourself represented, though, compare your conversion rates to industries with similar audiences and conversion goals. While we don’t actually recommend comparisons between very unrelated industries (except for fun), let your judgment be your guide. 

A note on COVID-19. The conversion data in this report comes from 2019, so we realize it shows norms that have been disrupted for some vulnerable industries—like travel, events and leisure, restaurants, and medical practitioners. These benchmarks show what you can expect in stable periods, and they provide insights about how your visitors typically behave (and why they convert). We hope they’ll help you set up your digital campaigns for success—and inspire your rebound. If you face uncertainty, though, please also check out the COVID-19 Small Business Care Package for a roundup of useful resources to help lessen the impact on your business.

Below, I go into more detail about the findings and insights we’ve been able to pull from them. But if you’ve got an itchy mouse-finger, you can jump right into the Conversion Benchmark Report now. (It’ll open in a new tab.)

Going beyond the benchmarks

Benchmarks are tremendously helpful, for all the reasons I talked about above. (If you work for an agency, you know this already. They’re a baller way of showing the value of what you do—and helping clients determine their true conversion potential.) 

How do I best communicate with my target audience? 

In copywriting circles, the received wisdom is that clarity comes above all else. If you’re looking to put up the fewest hurdles possible between audience and offer, it can make sense to keep your vocabulary basic and your sentences tight and untangled.

Our data, however, complicates this equation. Is simple always better? Nope. It turns out that different industries tend to convert more often at different reading levels (and some see weaker relationships between conversion rates and readability than others). 

There are even cases in which it’s good to sound sophisticated. B2B companies offering lead-gen consulting or instruction, for instance, appear to benefit from more challenging language. We see a drop in conversion rates as pages become easier to understand. (Frankly, that’s not what we expected.)

When it comes to reading ease, pages for lead-gen consultants appear to benefit from being harder to read.

Our machine learning analysis enabled us to look at copy from 34 thousand pages. Each page is assigned a Flesch reading ease score based on the average number of syllables per word and words per sentence. More syllables and more words means more…harder.

Here’s roughly how the scoring breaks down:

What’s the perf word length for my landing pages?

While it’s true that shorter pages tend to convert better, many industries have sweet spots that break the rule—which means, if you’re going to create a long-form landing page, you should go this long. This is especially true in the wild territories beyond 200 words, where unexpected correlations between length and conversion rate have led many a marketer astray.

At what length do landing pages for family services convert best? The graph provides answers.

Depending on your offer and industry, you may find that you need to use more words to get your point across, but graphs like the one above can let you know what’s ideal. For family services, that’s 300-500 words (if you can’t get it shorter than 150 words). For other industries, it can be more or less. Whatever the case, creating variants based on our findings can definitely be a good candidate for A/B testing or Smart Traffic.

What emotions might relate to better conversion rates?

You likely know in your gut that people’s feelings can impact their decision to buy, but which ones actually drive conversions on your landing pages? To find out, we ran an ML-powered sentiment analysis that looked at emotion-associated words that might relate to healthy conversion rates—and which might even be slowing you down. 

(Spoiler: using trust words isn’t always advisable. “Trust us.”)

For SaaS, the concentration of anticipation words on a landing page correlates with its conversion rate.

When it comes to SaaS conversions, for instance, it turns out that language that conveys anticipation (words like gradual, highest, improve, and launch) sometimes correlates with better conversion rates. Or, to put it another way: as we find more of these words, we also often tend to see better conversion performance.

You can explore this example, and many others, in the report.

A good conversion rate is one you can improve upon.

When it comes down to brass tacks, all this benchmarking is valuable insofar as you can use it to build a better conversion machine from what you learn. How do you do it?

Explore the insights in this report. The report is broken down into 16 industries. How are your landing pages stacking up against the baseline? Are you way out ahead? Are you falling behind? Start with your industry, sure, but take a look at others too. There may be insights that are worth exploring outside your own arena.

Apply the data learnings to your own campaigns. Create a variant (or more than one variant) of your page that applies some of the insights we’ve provided. For example, you might dial down the jargon until you hit the optimal Flesch reading score. (You can use the free readability formula tool here to test it for yourself.)

Optimize and test. Keep in mind that data analysis reveals trends and tendencies rather than absolutes. You’re making informed decisions when you apply these learnings, but testing is still your best way to confirm. Run A/B tests or, if you’re short on the time or traffic to do so, just publish your variants and turn on Smart Traffic in the Unbounce Builder. It’ll use machine learning to automatically decide which variant is right for which visitors, and it’s otherwise hands-off. (If you’re looking for more ideas on how to build variants, I’d recommend this post from Garrett too.)

In short, this year’s report uses ML to identify opportunities you simply couldn’t spot without the processing power of a machine. Optimizing your pages doesn’t have to be aspirational. We believe this is the future of digital marketing—and, going forward, you’re going to see more and more efforts like this from Unbounce to help you enhance the skills you already have. (If you’re curious about what else we have planned, you can read more about our push to bring you Conversion Intelligence.)

Whether you sell pig sweaters, chicken harnesses, or something altogether more practical—are you confident enough to swagger into your next meeting, snap your suspenders, fire those finger-guns in your boss’s direction, and let everyone know about your team’s big win? “Soooooooo-ie!”

Take a gander at the 2020 Conversion Benchmark Report, and let us know what you think in the comments below.

“What’s a good conversion rate for my landing page?” [New AI-Backed Research] published first on https://nickpontemrktg.wordpress.com/

[roypstickney]

“What’s a good conversion rate for my landing page?” [New AI-Backed Research]

Imagine you’re an ecommerce business using landing pages to sell sweaters for miniature pigs. Recently, you’ve done a round of A/B testing—adding a little more oink to your calls to action, let’s say—and tweaked your social ad targeting to reach the hardcore piggy people on Instagram. 

After all your optimization efforts, your landing pages now convert at 3.57%. 

But actually…even if it’s a big improvement against your personal baseline, how do you know you should stop there? How do you know that your hard-earned conversion rate is worth celebrating? Heck, how would you even know if a 30% conversion rate is any good for pages in your industry? (Maybe everyone’s getting a fat return off of pig sweaters but you.)

It’s hard to be confident in the numbers when you don’t know how everybody else is doing. Doubt settles in. Maybe you’re missing out on reaching your conversion potential without even knowing it.

Well, we feel your pain. That’s why, at Unbounce, we’re on a continuing mission to answer the big question for you. It’s the one we hear time and again from our customers:

“What’s a good, bad, or average conversion rate for my landing pages?” 

That’s where industry benchmarks come in—and that’s why we’re thrilled to bring you a fresh (and free) new version of our Conversion Benchmark Report. 

Benchmarks can energize your digital marketing strategy in three big ways:

They’re a form of competitive intelligence. They help you identify gaps between your performance and what the rest of your industry considers to be a good conversion rate. 

Our benchmarks reveal data-supported best practices, and you’ll waste less time and traffic testing unproven optimizations that our machine learning analysis shows don’t necessarily work. 

They help you build a culture of continuous improvement in your organization. It’s harder for your marketing team to be happy with “just okay” if they’re seeing something to strive for.

Sure, some folks like to pooh-pooh industry benchmarking—“Why should I care how other marketers are converting? Why don’t I just focus on how I’m doing?”—but they’re your best window into what success really looks like. Going forward blindly, when you could have both eyes on the prize, is just silly. Oh, and these benchmarks were generated with help from an honest-to-goodness AI crunching millions of conversions, so the results are far more reliable than the anecdotal best practices often found online. As part of the Unbounce Conversion Intelligence approach to digital marketing, these machine-derived insights help you pair your hard-earned expertise with AI to create the highest-converting campaigns of your career.

Introducing the 2020 Conversion Benchmark Report

This year’s Conversion Benchmark Report uses machine learning to assist our data team in analyzing 186.9 million visits to 34,132 Unbounce-built landing pages. In terms of sample size, we analyzed more visits to these pages than the populations of Canada, Hong Kong, Mexico, Laos, and Ireland combined. 

For full context, the previous (2017) version of this report was also built on machine learning insights, but in three years we’ve refined our approach to provide tons more real, proprietary customer data to feed the machine. Now we have even better, more reliable outputs—as well as a few new ways to break down our findings, like by conversion goal. (These are boundaries we’re going to keep pushing, too.)

But what kind of info does the report contain? For one thing, you’ll find median conversion rates broken down to 16 key industries. In many cases, we’ve got wide enough sample sizes to sort them into subcategories too, so you can see how your brother’s pest control service measures up against your sister’s HVAC company. (Or how your uncle’s cybersecurity software converts against your great aunt’s cloud accounting platform.)

The Conversion Benchmark Report includes 16 industries broken down into dozens of subcategories.

Why do we report on median instead of average (mean)? Our goal is to provide you with a realistic picture of where you stand, so this year’s report lists median conversion rates as our measure of central tendency instead of the mean. We found this reduces the impact of outliers (like pages that convert five times better than the rest) on the final benchmarks.

Not clear enough? Then imagine you want to find out, on average, how many eyes people have. The median tells us they have two eyes. According to the mean, though, they have slightly less than two. Because outliers (people with one or fewer eyes) bring that number down.

Both these measures are correct, but which one would you prefer to rely on if your business is selling sunglasses?

What if your industry doesn’t appear in the report? For this year’s report, we’ve tried to be even more representative. With machine learning helping us to sort thousands of landing pages in a logical way, we’ve increased the number of industries covered from 10 to 16, and we’ve even added subcategories whenever sample sizes allow.

If you still don’t see yourself represented, though, compare your conversion rates to industries with similar audiences and conversion goals. While we don’t actually recommend comparisons between very unrelated industries (except for fun), let your judgment be your guide. 

A note on COVID-19. The conversion data in this report comes from 2019, so we realize it shows norms that have been disrupted for some vulnerable industries—like travel, events and leisure, restaurants, and medical practitioners. These benchmarks show what you can expect in stable periods, and they provide insights about how your visitors typically behave (and why they convert). We hope they’ll help you set up your digital campaigns for success—and inspire your rebound. If you face uncertainty, though, please also check out the COVID-19 Small Business Care Package for a roundup of useful resources to help lessen the impact on your business.

Below, I go into more detail about the findings and insights we’ve been able to pull from them. But if you’ve got an itchy mouse-finger, you can jump right into the Conversion Benchmark Report now. (It’ll open in a new tab.)

Going beyond the benchmarks

Benchmarks are tremendously helpful, for all the reasons I talked about above. (If you work for an agency, you know this already. They’re a baller way of showing the value of what you do—and helping clients determine their true conversion potential.) 

How do I best communicate with my target audience? 

In copywriting circles, the received wisdom is that clarity comes above all else. If you’re looking to put up the fewest hurdles possible between audience and offer, it can make sense to keep your vocabulary basic and your sentences tight and untangled.

Our data, however, complicates this equation. Is simple always better? Nope. It turns out that different industries tend to convert more often at different reading levels (and some see weaker relationships between conversion rates and readability than others). 

There are even cases in which it’s good to sound sophisticated. B2B companies offering lead-gen consulting or instruction, for instance, appear to benefit from more challenging language. We see a drop in conversion rates as pages become easier to understand. (Frankly, that’s not what we expected.)

When it comes to reading ease, pages for lead-gen consultants appear to benefit from being harder to read.

Our machine learning analysis enabled us to look at copy from 34 thousand pages. Each page is assigned a Flesch reading ease score based on the average number of syllables per word and words per sentence. More syllables and more words means more…harder.

Here’s roughly how the scoring breaks down:

What’s the perf word length for my landing pages?

While it’s true that shorter pages tend to convert better, many industries have sweet spots that break the rule—which means, if you’re going to create a long-form landing page, you should go this long. This is especially true in the wild territories beyond 200 words, where unexpected correlations between length and conversion rate have led many a marketer astray.

At what length do landing pages for family services convert best? The graph provides answers.

Depending on your offer and industry, you may find that you need to use more words to get your point across, but graphs like the one above can let you know what’s ideal. For family services, that’s 300-500 words (if you can’t get it shorter than 150 words). For other industries, it can be more or less. Whatever the case, creating variants based on our findings can definitely be a good candidate for A/B testing or Smart Traffic.

What emotions might relate to better conversion rates?

You likely know in your gut that people’s feelings can impact their decision to buy, but which ones actually drive conversions on your landing pages? To find out, we ran an ML-powered sentiment analysis that looked at emotion-associated words that might relate to healthy conversion rates—and which might even be slowing you down. 

(Spoiler: using trust words isn’t always advisable. “Trust us.”)

For SaaS, the concentration of anticipation words on a landing page correlates with its conversion rate.

When it comes to SaaS conversions, for instance, it turns out that language that conveys anticipation (words like gradual, highest, improve, and launch) sometimes correlates with better conversion rates. Or, to put it another way: as we find more of these words, we also often tend to see better conversion performance.

You can explore this example, and many others, in the report.

A good conversion rate is one you can improve upon.

When it comes down to brass tacks, all this benchmarking is valuable insofar as you can use it to build a better conversion machine from what you learn. How do you do it?

Explore the insights in this report. The report is broken down into 16 industries. How are your landing pages stacking up against the baseline? Are you way out ahead? Are you falling behind? Start with your industry, sure, but take a look at others too. There may be insights that are worth exploring outside your own arena.

Apply the data learnings to your own campaigns. Create a variant (or more than one variant) of your page that applies some of the insights we’ve provided. For example, you might dial down the jargon until you hit the optimal Flesch reading score. (You can use the free readability formula tool here to test it for yourself.)

Optimize and test. Keep in mind that data analysis reveals trends and tendencies rather than absolutes. You’re making informed decisions when you apply these learnings, but testing is still your best way to confirm. Run A/B tests or, if you’re short on the time or traffic to do so, just publish your variants and turn on Smart Traffic in the Unbounce Builder. It’ll use machine learning to automatically decide which variant is right for which visitors, and it’s otherwise hands-off. (If you’re looking for more ideas on how to build variants, I’d recommend this post from Garrett too.)

In short, this year’s report uses ML to identify opportunities you simply couldn’t spot without the processing power of a machine. Optimizing your pages doesn’t have to be aspirational. We believe this is the future of digital marketing—and, going forward, you’re going to see more and more efforts like this from Unbounce to help you enhance the skills you already have. (If you’re curious about what else we have planned, you can read more about our push to bring you Conversion Intelligence.)

Whether you sell pig sweaters, chicken harnesses, or something altogether more practical—are you confident enough to swagger into your next meeting, snap your suspenders, fire those finger-guns in your boss’s direction, and let everyone know about your team’s big win? “Soooooooo-ie!”

Take a gander at the 2020 Conversion Benchmark Report, and let us know what you think in the comments below.

[itsjessicaisreal]

“What’s a good conversion rate for my landing page?” [New AI-Backed Research]

Imagine you’re an ecommerce business using landing pages to sell sweaters for miniature pigs. Recently, you’ve done a round of A/B testing—adding a little more oink to your calls to action, let’s say—and tweaked your social ad targeting to reach the hardcore piggy people on Instagram. 

After all your optimization efforts, your landing pages now convert at 3.57%. 

But actually…even if it’s a big improvement against your personal baseline, how do you know you should stop there? How do you know that your hard-earned conversion rate is worth celebrating? Heck, how would you even know if a 30% conversion rate is any good for pages in your industry? (Maybe everyone’s getting a fat return off of pig sweaters but you.)

It’s hard to be confident in the numbers when you don’t know how everybody else is doing. Doubt settles in. Maybe you’re missing out on reaching your conversion potential without even knowing it.

Well, we feel your pain. That’s why, at Unbounce, we’re on a continuing mission to answer the big question for you. It’s the one we hear time and again from our customers:

“What’s a good, bad, or average conversion rate for my landing pages?” 

That’s where industry benchmarks come in—and that’s why we’re thrilled to bring you a fresh (and free) new version of our Conversion Benchmark Report. 

Benchmarks can energize your digital marketing strategy in three big ways:

They’re a form of competitive intelligence. They help you identify gaps between your performance and what the rest of your industry considers to be a good conversion rate. 

Our benchmarks reveal data-supported best practices, and you’ll waste less time and traffic testing unproven optimizations that our machine learning analysis shows don’t necessarily work. 

They help you build a culture of continuous improvement in your organization. It’s harder for your marketing team to be happy with “just okay” if they’re seeing something to strive for.

Sure, some folks like to pooh-pooh industry benchmarking—“Why should I care how other marketers are converting? Why don’t I just focus on how I’m doing?”—but they’re your best window into what success really looks like. Going forward blindly, when you could have both eyes on the prize, is just silly. Oh, and these benchmarks were generated with help from an honest-to-goodness AI crunching millions of conversions, so the results are far more reliable than the anecdotal best practices often found online. As part of the Unbounce Conversion Intelligence approach to digital marketing, these machine-derived insights help you pair your hard-earned expertise with AI to create the highest-converting campaigns of your career.

Introducing the 2020 Conversion Benchmark Report

This year’s Conversion Benchmark Report uses machine learning to assist our data team in analyzing 186.9 million visits to 34,132 Unbounce-built landing pages. In terms of sample size, we analyzed more visits to these pages than the populations of Canada, Hong Kong, Mexico, Laos, and Ireland combined. 

For full context, the previous (2017) version of this report was also built on machine learning insights, but in three years we’ve refined our approach to provide tons more real, proprietary customer data to feed the machine. Now we have even better, more reliable outputs—as well as a few new ways to break down our findings, like by conversion goal. (These are boundaries we’re going to keep pushing, too.)

But what kind of info does the report contain? For one thing, you’ll find median conversion rates broken down to 16 key industries. In many cases, we’ve got wide enough sample sizes to sort them into subcategories too, so you can see how your brother’s pest control service measures up against your sister’s HVAC company. (Or how your uncle’s cybersecurity software converts against your great aunt’s cloud accounting platform.)

The Conversion Benchmark Report includes 16 industries broken down into dozens of subcategories.

Why do we report on median instead of average (mean)? Our goal is to provide you with a realistic picture of where you stand, so this year’s report lists median conversion rates as our measure of central tendency instead of the mean. We found this reduces the impact of outliers (like pages that convert five times better than the rest) on the final benchmarks.

Not clear enough? Then imagine you want to find out, on average, how many eyes people have. The median tells us they have two eyes. According to the mean, though, they have slightly less than two. Because outliers (people with one or fewer eyes) bring that number down.

Both these measures are correct, but which one would you prefer to rely on if your business is selling sunglasses?

What if your industry doesn’t appear in the report? For this year’s report, we’ve tried to be even more representative. With machine learning helping us to sort thousands of landing pages in a logical way, we’ve increased the number of industries covered from 10 to 16, and we’ve even added subcategories whenever sample sizes allow.

If you still don’t see yourself represented, though, compare your conversion rates to industries with similar audiences and conversion goals. While we don’t actually recommend comparisons between very unrelated industries (except for fun), let your judgment be your guide. 

A note on COVID-19. The conversion data in this report comes from 2019, so we realize it shows norms that have been disrupted for some vulnerable industries—like travel, events and leisure, restaurants, and medical practitioners. These benchmarks show what you can expect in stable periods, and they provide insights about how your visitors typically behave (and why they convert). We hope they’ll help you set up your digital campaigns for success—and inspire your rebound. If you face uncertainty, though, please also check out the COVID-19 Small Business Care Package for a roundup of useful resources to help lessen the impact on your business.

Below, I go into more detail about the findings and insights we’ve been able to pull from them. But if you’ve got an itchy mouse-finger, you can jump right into the Conversion Benchmark Report now. (It’ll open in a new tab.)

Going beyond the benchmarks

Benchmarks are tremendously helpful, for all the reasons I talked about above. (If you work for an agency, you know this already. They’re a baller way of showing the value of what you do—and helping clients determine their true conversion potential.) 

How do I best communicate with my target audience? 

In copywriting circles, the received wisdom is that clarity comes above all else. If you’re looking to put up the fewest hurdles possible between audience and offer, it can make sense to keep your vocabulary basic and your sentences tight and untangled.

Our data, however, complicates this equation. Is simple always better? Nope. It turns out that different industries tend to convert more often at different reading levels (and some see weaker relationships between conversion rates and readability than others). 

There are even cases in which it’s good to sound sophisticated. B2B companies offering lead-gen consulting or instruction, for instance, appear to benefit from more challenging language. We see a drop in conversion rates as pages become easier to understand. (Frankly, that’s not what we expected.)

When it comes to reading ease, pages for lead-gen consultants appear to benefit from being harder to read.

Our machine learning analysis enabled us to look at copy from 34 thousand pages. Each page is assigned a Flesch reading ease score based on the average number of syllables per word and words per sentence. More syllables and more words means more…harder.

Here’s roughly how the scoring breaks down:

What’s the perf word length for my landing pages?

While it’s true that shorter pages tend to convert better, many industries have sweet spots that break the rule—which means, if you’re going to create a long-form landing page, you should go this long. This is especially true in the wild territories beyond 200 words, where unexpected correlations between length and conversion rate have led many a marketer astray.

At what length do landing pages for family services convert best? The graph provides answers.

Depending on your offer and industry, you may find that you need to use more words to get your point across, but graphs like the one above can let you know what’s ideal. For family services, that’s 300-500 words (if you can’t get it shorter than 150 words). For other industries, it can be more or less. Whatever the case, creating variants based on our findings can definitely be a good candidate for A/B testing or Smart Traffic.

What emotions might relate to better conversion rates?

You likely know in your gut that people’s feelings can impact their decision to buy, but which ones actually drive conversions on your landing pages? To find out, we ran an ML-powered sentiment analysis that looked at emotion-associated words that might relate to healthy conversion rates—and which might even be slowing you down. 

(Spoiler: using trust words isn’t always advisable. “Trust us.”)

For SaaS, the concentration of anticipation words on a landing page correlates with its conversion rate.

When it comes to SaaS conversions, for instance, it turns out that language that conveys anticipation (words like gradual, highest, improve, and launch) sometimes correlates with better conversion rates. Or, to put it another way: as we find more of these words, we also often tend to see better conversion performance.

You can explore this example, and many others, in the report.

A good conversion rate is one you can improve upon.

When it comes down to brass tacks, all this benchmarking is valuable insofar as you can use it to build a better conversion machine from what you learn. How do you do it?

Explore the insights in this report. The report is broken down into 16 industries. How are your landing pages stacking up against the baseline? Are you way out ahead? Are you falling behind? Start with your industry, sure, but take a look at others too. There may be insights that are worth exploring outside your own arena.

Apply the data learnings to your own campaigns. Create a variant (or more than one variant) of your page that applies some of the insights we’ve provided. For example, you might dial down the jargon until you hit the optimal Flesch reading score. (You can use the free readability formula tool here to test it for yourself.)

Optimize and test. Keep in mind that data analysis reveals trends and tendencies rather than absolutes. You’re making informed decisions when you apply these learnings, but testing is still your best way to confirm. Run A/B tests or, if you’re short on the time or traffic to do so, just publish your variants and turn on Smart Traffic in the Unbounce Builder. It’ll use machine learning to automatically decide which variant is right for which visitors, and it’s otherwise hands-off. (If you’re looking for more ideas on how to build variants, I’d recommend this post from Garrett too.)

In short, this year’s report uses ML to identify opportunities you simply couldn’t spot without the processing power of a machine. Optimizing your pages doesn’t have to be aspirational. We believe this is the future of digital marketing—and, going forward, you’re going to see more and more efforts like this from Unbounce to help you enhance the skills you already have. (If you’re curious about what else we have planned, you can read more about our push to bring you Conversion Intelligence.)

Whether you sell pig sweaters, chicken harnesses, or something altogether more practical—are you confident enough to swagger into your next meeting, snap your suspenders, fire those finger-guns in your boss’s direction, and let everyone know about your team’s big win? “Soooooooo-ie!”

Take a gander at the 2020 Conversion Benchmark Report, and let us know what you think in the comments below.

from Marketing https://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/what-is-a-good-conversion-rate/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[annaxkeating]

“What’s a good conversion rate for my landing page?” [New AI-Backed Research]

Imagine you’re an ecommerce business using landing pages to sell sweaters for miniature pigs. Recently, you’ve done a round of A/B testing—adding a little more oink to your calls to action, let’s say—and tweaked your social ad targeting to reach the hardcore piggy people on Instagram. 

After all your optimization efforts, your landing pages now convert at 3.57%. 

But actually…even if it’s a big improvement against your personal baseline, how do you know you should stop there? How do you know that your hard-earned conversion rate is worth celebrating? Heck, how would you even know if a 30% conversion rate is any good for pages in your industry? (Maybe everyone’s getting a fat return off of pig sweaters but you.)

It’s hard to be confident in the numbers when you don’t know how everybody else is doing. Doubt settles in. Maybe you’re missing out on reaching your conversion potential without even knowing it.

Well, we feel your pain. That’s why, at Unbounce, we’re on a continuing mission to answer the big question for you. It’s the one we hear time and again from our customers:

“What’s a good, bad, or average conversion rate for my landing pages?” 

That’s where industry benchmarks come in—and that’s why we’re thrilled to bring you a fresh (and free) new version of our Conversion Benchmark Report. 

Benchmarks can energize your digital marketing strategy in three big ways:

They’re a form of competitive intelligence. They help you identify gaps between your performance and what the rest of your industry considers to be a good conversion rate. 

Our benchmarks reveal data-supported best practices, and you’ll waste less time and traffic testing unproven optimizations that our machine learning analysis shows don’t necessarily work. 

They help you build a culture of continuous improvement in your organization. It’s harder for your marketing team to be happy with “just okay” if they’re seeing something to strive for.

Sure, some folks like to pooh-pooh industry benchmarking—“Why should I care how other marketers are converting? Why don’t I just focus on how I’m doing?”—but they’re your best window into what success really looks like. Going forward blindly, when you could have both eyes on the prize, is just silly. Oh, and these benchmarks were generated with help from an honest-to-goodness AI crunching millions of conversions, so the results are far more reliable than the anecdotal best practices often found online. As part of the Unbounce Conversion Intelligence approach to digital marketing, these machine-derived insights help you pair your hard-earned expertise with AI to create the highest-converting campaigns of your career.

Introducing the 2020 Conversion Benchmark Report

This year’s Conversion Benchmark Report uses machine learning to assist our data team in analyzing 186.9 million visits to 34,132 Unbounce-built landing pages. In terms of sample size, we analyzed more visits to these pages than the populations of Canada, Hong Kong, Mexico, Laos, and Ireland combined. 

For full context, the previous (2017) version of this report was also built on machine learning insights, but in three years we’ve refined our approach to provide tons more real, proprietary customer data to feed the machine. Now we have even better, more reliable outputs—as well as a few new ways to break down our findings, like by conversion goal. (These are boundaries we’re going to keep pushing, too.)

But what kind of info does the report contain? For one thing, you’ll find median conversion rates broken down to 16 key industries. In many cases, we’ve got wide enough sample sizes to sort them into subcategories too, so you can see how your brother’s pest control service measures up against your sister’s HVAC company. (Or how your uncle’s cybersecurity software converts against your great aunt’s cloud accounting platform.)

The Conversion Benchmark Report includes 16 industries broken down into dozens of subcategories.

Why do we report on median instead of average (mean)? Our goal is to provide you with a realistic picture of where you stand, so this year’s report lists median conversion rates as our measure of central tendency instead of the mean. We found this reduces the impact of outliers (like pages that convert five times better than the rest) on the final benchmarks.

Not clear enough? Then imagine you want to find out, on average, how many eyes people have. The median tells us they have two eyes. According to the mean, though, they have slightly less than two. Because outliers (people with one or fewer eyes) bring that number down.

Both these measures are correct, but which one would you prefer to rely on if your business is selling sunglasses?

What if your industry doesn’t appear in the report? For this year’s report, we’ve tried to be even more representative. With machine learning helping us to sort thousands of landing pages in a logical way, we’ve increased the number of industries covered from 10 to 16, and we’ve even added subcategories whenever sample sizes allow.

If you still don’t see yourself represented, though, compare your conversion rates to industries with similar audiences and conversion goals. While we don’t actually recommend comparisons between very unrelated industries (except for fun), let your judgment be your guide. 

A note on COVID-19. The conversion data in this report comes from 2019, so we realize it shows norms that have been disrupted for some vulnerable industries—like travel, events and leisure, restaurants, and medical practitioners. These benchmarks show what you can expect in stable periods, and they provide insights about how your visitors typically behave (and why they convert). We hope they’ll help you set up your digital campaigns for success—and inspire your rebound. If you face uncertainty, though, please also check out the COVID-19 Small Business Care Package for a roundup of useful resources to help lessen the impact on your business.

Below, I go into more detail about the findings and insights we’ve been able to pull from them. But if you’ve got an itchy mouse-finger, you can jump right into the Conversion Benchmark Report now. (It’ll open in a new tab.)

Going beyond the benchmarks

Benchmarks are tremendously helpful, for all the reasons I talked about above. (If you work for an agency, you know this already. They’re a baller way of showing the value of what you do—and helping clients determine their true conversion potential.) 

How do I best communicate with my target audience? 

In copywriting circles, the received wisdom is that clarity comes above all else. If you’re looking to put up the fewest hurdles possible between audience and offer, it can make sense to keep your vocabulary basic and your sentences tight and untangled.

Our data, however, complicates this equation. Is simple always better? Nope. It turns out that different industries tend to convert more often at different reading levels (and some see weaker relationships between conversion rates and readability than others). 

There are even cases in which it’s good to sound sophisticated. B2B companies offering lead-gen consulting or instruction, for instance, appear to benefit from more challenging language. We see a drop in conversion rates as pages become easier to understand. (Frankly, that’s not what we expected.)

When it comes to reading ease, pages for lead-gen consultants appear to benefit from being harder to read.

Our machine learning analysis enabled us to look at copy from 34 thousand pages. Each page is assigned a Flesch reading ease score based on the average number of syllables per word and words per sentence. More syllables and more words means more…harder.

Here’s roughly how the scoring breaks down:

What’s the perf word length for my landing pages?

While it’s true that shorter pages tend to convert better, many industries have sweet spots that break the rule—which means, if you’re going to create a long-form landing page, you should go this long. This is especially true in the wild territories beyond 200 words, where unexpected correlations between length and conversion rate have led many a marketer astray.

At what length do landing pages for family services convert best? The graph provides answers.

Depending on your offer and industry, you may find that you need to use more words to get your point across, but graphs like the one above can let you know what’s ideal. For family services, that’s 300-500 words (if you can’t get it shorter than 150 words). For other industries, it can be more or less. Whatever the case, creating variants based on our findings can definitely be a good candidate for A/B testing or Smart Traffic.

What emotions might relate to better conversion rates?

You likely know in your gut that people’s feelings can impact their decision to buy, but which ones actually drive conversions on your landing pages? To find out, we ran an ML-powered sentiment analysis that looked at emotion-associated words that might relate to healthy conversion rates—and which might even be slowing you down. 

(Spoiler: using trust words isn’t always advisable. “Trust us.”)

For SaaS, the concentration of anticipation words on a landing page correlates with its conversion rate.

When it comes to SaaS conversions, for instance, it turns out that language that conveys anticipation (words like gradual, highest, improve, and launch) sometimes correlates with better conversion rates. Or, to put it another way: as we find more of these words, we also often tend to see better conversion performance.

You can explore this example, and many others, in the report.

A good conversion rate is one you can improve upon.

When it comes down to brass tacks, all this benchmarking is valuable insofar as you can use it to build a better conversion machine from what you learn. How do you do it?

Explore the insights in this report. The report is broken down into 16 industries. How are your landing pages stacking up against the baseline? Are you way out ahead? Are you falling behind? Start with your industry, sure, but take a look at others too. There may be insights that are worth exploring outside your own arena.

Apply the data learnings to your own campaigns. Create a variant (or more than one variant) of your page that applies some of the insights we’ve provided. For example, you might dial down the jargon until you hit the optimal Flesch reading score. (You can use the free readability formula tool here to test it for yourself.)

Optimize and test. Keep in mind that data analysis reveals trends and tendencies rather than absolutes. You’re making informed decisions when you apply these learnings, but testing is still your best way to confirm. Run A/B tests or, if you’re short on the time or traffic to do so, just publish your variants and turn on Smart Traffic in the Unbounce Builder. It’ll use machine learning to automatically decide which variant is right for which visitors, and it’s otherwise hands-off. (If you’re looking for more ideas on how to build variants, I’d recommend this post from Garrett too.)

In short, this year’s report uses ML to identify opportunities you simply couldn’t spot without the processing power of a machine. Optimizing your pages doesn’t have to be aspirational. We believe this is the future of digital marketing—and, going forward, you’re going to see more and more efforts like this from Unbounce to help you enhance the skills you already have. (If you’re curious about what else we have planned, you can read more about our push to bring you Conversion Intelligence.)

Whether you sell pig sweaters, chicken harnesses, or something altogether more practical—are you confident enough to swagger into your next meeting, snap your suspenders, fire those finger-guns in your boss’s direction, and let everyone know about your team’s big win? “Soooooooo-ie!”

Take a gander at the 2020 Conversion Benchmark Report, and let us know what you think in the comments below.

from Digital https://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/what-is-a-good-conversion-rate/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[reviewandbonuss]

“What’s a good conversion rate for my landing page?” [New AI-Backed Research]

Imagine you’re an ecommerce business using landing pages to sell sweaters for miniature pigs. Recently, you’ve done a round of A/B testing—adding a little more oink to your calls to action, let’s say—and tweaked your social ad targeting to reach the hardcore piggy people on Instagram. 

After all your optimization efforts, your landing pages now convert at 3.57%. 

But actually…even if it’s a big improvement against your personal baseline, how do you know you should stop there? How do you know that your hard-earned conversion rate is worth celebrating? Heck, how would you even know if a 30% conversion rate is any good for pages in your industry? (Maybe everyone’s getting a fat return off of pig sweaters but you.)

It’s hard to be confident in the numbers when you don’t know how everybody else is doing. Doubt settles in. Maybe you’re missing out on reaching your conversion potential without even knowing it.

Well, we feel your pain. That’s why, at Unbounce, we’re on a continuing mission to answer the big question for you. It’s the one we hear time and again from our customers:

“What’s a good, bad, or average conversion rate for my landing pages?” 

That’s where industry benchmarks come in—and that’s why we’re thrilled to bring you a fresh (and free) new version of our Conversion Benchmark Report. 

Benchmarks can energize your digital marketing strategy in three big ways:

They’re a form of competitive intelligence. They help you identify gaps between your performance and what the rest of your industry considers to be a good conversion rate. 

Our benchmarks reveal data-supported best practices, and you’ll waste less time and traffic testing unproven optimizations that our machine learning analysis shows don’t necessarily work. 

They help you build a culture of continuous improvement in your organization. It’s harder for your marketing team to be happy with “just okay” if they’re seeing something to strive for.

Sure, some folks like to pooh-pooh industry benchmarking—“Why should I care how other marketers are converting? Why don’t I just focus on how I’m doing?”—but they’re your best window into what success really looks like. Going forward blindly, when you could have both eyes on the prize, is just silly. Oh, and these benchmarks were generated with help from an honest-to-goodness AI crunching millions of conversions, so the results are far more reliable than the anecdotal best practices often found online. As part of the Unbounce Conversion Intelligence approach to digital marketing, these machine-derived insights help you pair your hard-earned expertise with AI to create the highest-converting campaigns of your career.

Introducing the 2020 Conversion Benchmark Report

This year’s Conversion Benchmark Report uses machine learning to assist our data team in analyzing 186.9 million visits to 34,132 Unbounce-built landing pages. In terms of sample size, we analyzed more visits to these pages than the populations of Canada, Hong Kong, Mexico, Laos, and Ireland combined. 

For full context, the previous (2017) version of this report was also built on machine learning insights, but in three years we’ve refined our approach to provide tons more real, proprietary customer data to feed the machine. Now we have even better, more reliable outputs—as well as a few new ways to break down our findings, like by conversion goal. (These are boundaries we’re going to keep pushing, too.)

But what kind of info does the report contain? For one thing, you’ll find median conversion rates broken down to 16 key industries. In many cases, we’ve got wide enough sample sizes to sort them into subcategories too, so you can see how your brother’s pest control service measures up against your sister’s HVAC company. (Or how your uncle’s cybersecurity software converts against your great aunt’s cloud accounting platform.)

The Conversion Benchmark Report includes 16 industries broken down into dozens of subcategories.

Why do we report on median instead of average (mean)? Our goal is to provide you with a realistic picture of where you stand, so this year’s report lists median conversion rates as our measure of central tendency instead of the mean. We found this reduces the impact of outliers (like pages that convert five times better than the rest) on the final benchmarks.

Not clear enough? Then imagine you want to find out, on average, how many eyes people have. The median tells us they have two eyes. According to the mean, though, they have slightly less than two. Because outliers (people with one or fewer eyes) bring that number down.

Both these measures are correct, but which one would you prefer to rely on if your business is selling sunglasses?

What if your industry doesn’t appear in the report? For this year’s report, we’ve tried to be even more representative. With machine learning helping us to sort thousands of landing pages in a logical way, we’ve increased the number of industries covered from 10 to 16, and we’ve even added subcategories whenever sample sizes allow.

If you still don’t see yourself represented, though, compare your conversion rates to industries with similar audiences and conversion goals. While we don’t actually recommend comparisons between very unrelated industries (except for fun), let your judgment be your guide. 

A note on COVID-19. The conversion data in this report comes from 2019, so we realize it shows norms that have been disrupted for some vulnerable industries—like travel, events and leisure, restaurants, and medical practitioners. These benchmarks show what you can expect in stable periods, and they provide insights about how your visitors typically behave (and why they convert). We hope they’ll help you set up your digital campaigns for success—and inspire your rebound. If you face uncertainty, though, please also check out the COVID-19 Small Business Care Package for a roundup of useful resources to help lessen the impact on your business.

Below, I go into more detail about the findings and insights we’ve been able to pull from them. But if you’ve got an itchy mouse-finger, you can jump right into the Conversion Benchmark Report now. (It’ll open in a new tab.)

Going beyond the benchmarks

Benchmarks are tremendously helpful, for all the reasons I talked about above. (If you work for an agency, you know this already. They’re a baller way of showing the value of what you do—and helping clients determine their true conversion potential.) 

How do I best communicate with my target audience? 

In copywriting circles, the received wisdom is that clarity comes above all else. If you’re looking to put up the fewest hurdles possible between audience and offer, it can make sense to keep your vocabulary basic and your sentences tight and untangled.

Our data, however, complicates this equation. Is simple always better? Nope. It turns out that different industries tend to convert more often at different reading levels (and some see weaker relationships between conversion rates and readability than others). 

There are even cases in which it’s good to sound sophisticated. B2B companies offering lead-gen consulting or instruction, for instance, appear to benefit from more challenging language. We see a drop in conversion rates as pages become easier to understand. (Frankly, that’s not what we expected.)

When it comes to reading ease, pages for lead-gen consultants appear to benefit from being harder to read.

Our machine learning analysis enabled us to look at copy from 34 thousand pages. Each page is assigned a Flesch reading ease score based on the average number of syllables per word and words per sentence. More syllables and more words means more…harder.

Here’s roughly how the scoring breaks down:

What’s the perf word length for my landing pages?

While it’s true that shorter pages tend to convert better, many industries have sweet spots that break the rule—which means, if you’re going to create a long-form landing page, you should go this long. This is especially true in the wild territories beyond 200 words, where unexpected correlations between length and conversion rate have led many a marketer astray.

At what length do landing pages for family services convert best? The graph provides answers.

Depending on your offer and industry, you may find that you need to use more words to get your point across, but graphs like the one above can let you know what’s ideal. For family services, that’s 300-500 words (if you can’t get it shorter than 150 words). For other industries, it can be more or less. Whatever the case, creating variants based on our findings can definitely be a good candidate for A/B testing or Smart Traffic.

What emotions might relate to better conversion rates?

You likely know in your gut that people’s feelings can impact their decision to buy, but which ones actually drive conversions on your landing pages? To find out, we ran an ML-powered sentiment analysis that looked at emotion-associated words that might relate to healthy conversion rates—and which might even be slowing you down. 

(Spoiler: using trust words isn’t always advisable. “Trust us.”)

For SaaS, the concentration of anticipation words on a landing page correlates with its conversion rate.

When it comes to SaaS conversions, for instance, it turns out that language that conveys anticipation (words like gradual, highest, improve, and launch) sometimes correlates with better conversion rates. Or, to put it another way: as we find more of these words, we also often tend to see better conversion performance.

You can explore this example, and many others, in the report.

A good conversion rate is one you can improve upon.

When it comes down to brass tacks, all this benchmarking is valuable insofar as you can use it to build a better conversion machine from what you learn. How do you do it?

Explore the insights in this report. The report is broken down into 16 industries. How are your landing pages stacking up against the baseline? Are you way out ahead? Are you falling behind? Start with your industry, sure, but take a look at others too. There may be insights that are worth exploring outside your own arena.

Apply the data learnings to your own campaigns. Create a variant (or more than one variant) of your page that applies some of the insights we’ve provided. For example, you might dial down the jargon until you hit the optimal Flesch reading score. (You can use the free readability formula tool here to test it for yourself.)

Optimize and test. Keep in mind that data analysis reveals trends and tendencies rather than absolutes. You’re making informed decisions when you apply these learnings, but testing is still your best way to confirm. Run A/B tests or, if you’re short on the time or traffic to do so, just publish your variants and turn on Smart Traffic in the Unbounce Builder. It’ll use machine learning to automatically decide which variant is right for which visitors, and it’s otherwise hands-off. (If you’re looking for more ideas on how to build variants, I’d recommend this post from Garrett too.)

In short, this year’s report uses ML to identify opportunities you simply couldn’t spot without the processing power of a machine. Optimizing your pages doesn’t have to be aspirational. We believe this is the future of digital marketing—and, going forward, you’re going to see more and more efforts like this from Unbounce to help you enhance the skills you already have. (If you’re curious about what else we have planned, you can read more about our push to bring you Conversion Intelligence.)

Whether you sell pig sweaters, chicken harnesses, or something altogether more practical—are you confident enough to swagger into your next meeting, snap your suspenders, fire those finger-guns in your boss’s direction, and let everyone know about your team’s big win? “Soooooooo-ie!”

Take a gander at the 2020 Conversion Benchmark Report, and let us know what you think in the comments below.

https://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/what-is-a-good-conversion-rate/

[courtneytincher]

Brexit Bulletin: Where Is Johnson’s Plan?

Brexit is 43 days away.(Bloomberg) -- Sign up here to get the Brexit Bulletin in your inbox every weekday.Today in Brexit: There’s one question on everyone’s lips, and only Boris Johnson knows the answer. What’s Happening? Two days after Luxembourg’s prime minister made a name for himself with a podium show, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and chief European Union Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier will take center stage. They may try to tone down a discussion that has gotten a little shrill.  Xavier Bettel might lament the “nightmare” of Brexit, but Juncker and Barnier, two of the EU’s most prominent players, are unlikely to display a similar level of disdain when they address the European Parliament in Strasbourg at 9 a.m. CET.  They’ll give MEPs the lowdown on the prospects of the U.K. leaving the EU with an agreement by the Oct. 31 deadline.To avoid a no-deal scenario—which all sides still insist is their aim—the U.K. needs to produce detailed proposals on the changes Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants to see in the existing accord, which Parliament repeatedly refused to accept when Theresa May was prime minister. There’s plenty of chatter about what might be on the cards. Bloomberg’s Dara Doyle examined the potential for an all-Ireland food zone yesterday; ITV’s Robert Peston picks up that theme, saying the success of Johnson’s nascent plan hinges on winning Dublin’s backing. Meanwhile, Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney yesterday became the latest EU figure to confirm those proposals haven’t been exactly forthcoming. The Guardian reports that U.K. officials have so far only presented a version of the existing deal but with the so-called Irish border backstop merely scrubbed out; HuffPost says Johnson’s team has shown a version of the plan to EU counterparts but won’t hand over a hard copy.Talks with EU leaders are expected to resume next week around the United Nations General Assembly. With time running out before October’s crucial EU summit, Team Johnson appears to be heading for a late reveal and a high-stakes, last-minute negotiation.Today’s Must-ReadsLabour’s Jeremy Corbyn says he’ll take Brexit back to voters if he wins a general election. “We will give the people the final say on Brexit, with the choice of a credible leave offer and remain,” Corbyn writes in the Guardian. The post-Brexit financial landscape could become even more chaotic, writes Mark Gilbert, should regulators in Paris and London disagree on revisiting the rules governing fund managers’ investments in illiquid securities. “Why are you ruining my future by voting for Brexit?” Conservative MP Bim Afolami on being interrogated by an eight-year-old.Brexit in BriefSeconds Out, Day Two | The battle over whether Johnson was within his rights to prorogue, or suspend, Parliament will continue in the Supreme Court today. On a tense first day, some of the 11 justices “appeared to be supportive,” of the case against Johnson, according to Robert Hazell, a professor of constitutional law at University College London. “If I were the government, after the first day, I would be feeling a bit more worried.” Revoke and Remain | Liberal Democrat Leader Jo Swinson confirmed at the party’s conference on Tuesday that she would go further than Corbyn and cancel Brexit if elected Prime Minister at the next general election. “There is no Brexit that will be good for our country,” Swinson said. “Brexit will put lives at risk.”Deeper in Debt | A record of number of Britons sought debt advice in the first half of 2019, Bloomberg’s David Goodman reports. A chaotic Brexit wouldn’t help.Personality Clash | Boris Johnson’s approval rating is getting better (or at least less bad), despite a slew of headlines insisting that he has endured a nightmare a few weeks in office. Figures released by YouGov on Tuesday show how Johnson’s stock has risen since he entered Downing Street, with Corbyn’s net favorability rating down at -49. Johnson is still in negative territory as well.Carney to Stay? | The appointment of a new Bank of England chief is likely to be delayed, the Financial Times reports, suggesting that outgoing Governor Mark Carney could be asked to extend his term past Jan. 31 if Brexit is delayed again.On the Markets | The pound rose on Tuesday as Johnson’s lawyers came under pressure in the courtroom, pushing above $1.25 to reach its highest level since July. It was trading at $1.2492 early on Wednesday.Want to keep up with Brexit?You can follow us @Brexit on Twitter and join our Facebook group, Brexit Decoded. Get the latest news at bloomberg.com/brexit. Got feedback? Send us an email.Spread the word: Colleagues, friends and family can sign up here. For in-depth EU coverage, try the Brussels Edition.For even more: Subscribe to Bloomberg All Access for our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters.Bloomberg Invest London | October 8 Join global institutional investors and corporate leaders at Bloomberg Invest London on October 8. Speakers include CEOs Anne Richards, Fidelity International; Emmanuel Roman, PIMCO; Bill Winters, Standard Chartered; Andreas Utermann, Allianz Global Investors; and Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, Societe Generale. Register with Code: NEWSLETTER at bloomberglive.com/investlondon.To contact the author of this story: Adam Blenford in London at ablenford@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Anne Swardson at aswardson@bloomberg.net, Leila TahaFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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Brexit is 43 days away.(Bloomberg) -- Sign up here to get the Brexit Bulletin in your inbox every weekday.Today in Brexit: There’s one question on everyone’s lips, and only Boris Johnson knows the answer. What’s Happening? Two days after Luxembourg’s prime minister made a name for himself with a podium show, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and chief European Union Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier will take center stage. They may try to tone down a discussion that has gotten a little shrill.  Xavier Bettel might lament the “nightmare” of Brexit, but Juncker and Barnier, two of the EU’s most prominent players, are unlikely to display a similar level of disdain when they address the European Parliament in Strasbourg at 9 a.m. CET.  They’ll give MEPs the lowdown on the prospects of the U.K. leaving the EU with an agreement by the Oct. 31 deadline.To avoid a no-deal scenario—which all sides still insist is their aim—the U.K. needs to produce detailed proposals on the changes Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants to see in the existing accord, which Parliament repeatedly refused to accept when Theresa May was prime minister. There’s plenty of chatter about what might be on the cards. Bloomberg’s Dara Doyle examined the potential for an all-Ireland food zone yesterday; ITV’s Robert Peston picks up that theme, saying the success of Johnson’s nascent plan hinges on winning Dublin’s backing. Meanwhile, Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney yesterday became the latest EU figure to confirm those proposals haven’t been exactly forthcoming. The Guardian reports that U.K. officials have so far only presented a version of the existing deal but with the so-called Irish border backstop merely scrubbed out; HuffPost says Johnson’s team has shown a version of the plan to EU counterparts but won’t hand over a hard copy.Talks with EU leaders are expected to resume next week around the United Nations General Assembly. With time running out before October’s crucial EU summit, Team Johnson appears to be heading for a late reveal and a high-stakes, last-minute negotiation.Today’s Must-ReadsLabour’s Jeremy Corbyn says he’ll take Brexit back to voters if he wins a general election. “We will give the people the final say on Brexit, with the choice of a credible leave offer and remain,” Corbyn writes in the Guardian. The post-Brexit financial landscape could become even more chaotic, writes Mark Gilbert, should regulators in Paris and London disagree on revisiting the rules governing fund managers’ investments in illiquid securities. “Why are you ruining my future by voting for Brexit?” Conservative MP Bim Afolami on being interrogated by an eight-year-old.Brexit in BriefSeconds Out, Day Two | The battle over whether Johnson was within his rights to prorogue, or suspend, Parliament will continue in the Supreme Court today. On a tense first day, some of the 11 justices “appeared to be supportive,” of the case against Johnson, according to Robert Hazell, a professor of constitutional law at University College London. “If I were the government, after the first day, I would be feeling a bit more worried.” Revoke and Remain | Liberal Democrat Leader Jo Swinson confirmed at the party’s conference on Tuesday that she would go further than Corbyn and cancel Brexit if elected Prime Minister at the next general election. “There is no Brexit that will be good for our country,” Swinson said. “Brexit will put lives at risk.”Deeper in Debt | A record of number of Britons sought debt advice in the first half of 2019, Bloomberg’s David Goodman reports. A chaotic Brexit wouldn’t help.Personality Clash | Boris Johnson’s approval rating is getting better (or at least less bad), despite a slew of headlines insisting that he has endured a nightmare a few weeks in office. Figures released by YouGov on Tuesday show how Johnson’s stock has risen since he entered Downing Street, with Corbyn’s net favorability rating down at -49. Johnson is still in negative territory as well.Carney to Stay? | The appointment of a new Bank of England chief is likely to be delayed, the Financial Times reports, suggesting that outgoing Governor Mark Carney could be asked to extend his term past Jan. 31 if Brexit is delayed again.On the Markets | The pound rose on Tuesday as Johnson’s lawyers came under pressure in the courtroom, pushing above $1.25 to reach its highest level since July. It was trading at $1.2492 early on Wednesday.Want to keep up with Brexit?You can follow us @Brexit on Twitter and join our Facebook group, Brexit Decoded. Get the latest news at bloomberg.com/brexit. Got feedback? Send us an email.Spread the word: Colleagues, friends and family can sign up here. For in-depth EU coverage, try the Brussels Edition.For even more: Subscribe to Bloomberg All Access for our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters.Bloomberg Invest London | October 8 Join global institutional investors and corporate leaders at Bloomberg Invest London on October 8. Speakers include CEOs Anne Richards, Fidelity International; Emmanuel Roman, PIMCO; Bill Winters, Standard Chartered; Andreas Utermann, Allianz Global Investors; and Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, Societe Generale. Register with Code: NEWSLETTER at bloomberglive.com/investlondon.To contact the author of this story: Adam Blenford in London at ablenford@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Anne Swardson at aswardson@bloomberg.net, Leila TahaFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

September 18, 2019 at 07:33AM via IFTTT