I’m currently reading the book Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely and I’ve picked up a lot of insights that I will be working into my websites and marketing campaigns going forward. Dan is Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University. You should definitely pick up a copy no matter what line of work you are in.

Back in 2008 Dan gave a TED Talk and one of the examples he used to highlight just how irrational we are sometimes as consumers was an order page for the Economist. So much thought goes into creating the best copy for subscriber acquisition or renewal pieces that sometimes we forget that we need to make sure we are saying the right things and framing offers the right way all the way through the entire checkout process if we want to achieve maximum conversion.

The Economist order page example offered three choices:

• Online subscription for $59
• Print subscription for $125
• Print and Online for $125

Dan saw this order page and called up the Economist to see what they were thinking and why they would frame the offer in such a way. Clearly nobody in their right mind would choose option #2. Unfortunately by the time Dan got to the right person at the Economist, the offer page was replaced.

So Dan decided to test the original page with 100 MIT students. Here is what they chose:

• Online subscription for $59 (16%)
• Print subscription for $125 (0%)
• Print and Online for $125 (84%)

This would seem to make sense right? The third option looks like an incredible bargain and so 84% of the students chose that option.

A natural reaction would be to eliminate the option nobody wants, so Dan eliminated the middle option. It’s amazing the result this change had on what people chose:

• Online subscription for $59 (68%)
• Print and Online for $125 (32%)

What a difference! Which result do you think the Economist would prefer? Clearly the result where 84% of people chose the higher priced option. But they would probably never figure out how to achieve this result without testing.

So, two lessons to take away from this:

1) Always be testing and tweaking your offers, and

2) Don’t hesitate to test offers that seem to make zero sense…those which nobody would choose. The “dummy option” could have a profound (and profitable) effect on what they do ultimately decide.

You can watch the entire Ted Talk embedded below. The example illustrated here begins at the 12:35 mark.