This was my third Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas. And, I still learned a lot. This time it was at the Wynn.

One of the highlights was the Ca$hvertising keynote. For this post, I’ll share a few tips from the keynote and one of the sessions that stood out.

17 Proven Studies to Make You Money

Here are the best publicly-stated ways to increase your conversion rate that I heard at the conference:

Readability

1) Fancy fonts are used to make something sound that more effort went into making it (Source: Derek Halpern). Restaurants often use fancy fonts to make the food look like it took a lot of effort to make.

2) Figure. Optimal width for reading online is around 550-600 pixels wide (Source: Halpern). This got the best reading comprehension on average. Halpern also recommended having a thinner opening paragraph. Then, the body content expands as it’s read. See example of DerekHalpern.com, above.

3) Reverse type on print reduces readership by 70% (Source: Whitman). People aren’t used to white letters on a black background; it’s annoying to read.

4) Figure. Captions have high readership — often by 2-3 times more than the body of an article (Source: Whitman). Ogilvy often used his captions as headlines because of the increased readership from this.

5) CAPS slows down reading by 11.8% (Source: Whitman). Exception is when only putting ONE or two words in caps for emphasis.

6) Don’t use Times New Roman font online (Source: Whitman).

Pictures and Photographs

7) Figure. People look at what others are looking at (Source: Halpern). Have a model looking where you want your user to look. See example with Chemistry.com.

8 ) Arrows also guide eye flow in a similar manner (Source: Whitman).

9) Engage users by having a smiling person staring from the monitor to the user (Source: Halpern). Grabs attention.

10) Do not use motionless photos (Source: Whitman). For example, a person riding a bicycle would likely be more effective than just showing a picture of bicycle.

11) Cartoons can be powerful in ads (Source: Whitman). 39% of newspaper subscribers read the comics; this is a higher percentage than many categories.

12) Use top down (to the left) product images online (Source: Halpern). Shows the three dimensional aspect of a product that most would expect to see in real life.

Miscellaneous

13) Figure. Use less than 6 offers on a page (Source: Halpern). 3 is most likely optimal. Above 6 offers dramatically decreases conversion rates.

14) Show “lock” near credit card form to improve conversions (Source: Halpern).

15) Remove all navigation from billing information page (Source: Halpern). No one wants to spend money. People will use any excuse to not buy. Having unnecessary links/navigation is often a trigger for users to not buy.

16) Put core benefit in headline (Source: Whitman).

17) Paying for larger ad space rarely results in an equal or greater ROI (Source: Whitman). This was from an offline study — although it’s probably very similar to online as well.

More About the Show

Dr. Drew Eric Whitman was the first keynote speaker this year. He’s the author of Ca$hvertising, one of the most recommended advertising books today. I wrote many of his tips above. Even though I lost my voice at the conference, I was still able to talk to him briefly at the end of his keynote. For at least the last three conferences, Affiliate Summit has done a superb job on locking in very knowledgeable and helpful speakers. Last time they had Frank Lunz, a pollster and political analyst that knew a lot about which type of words persuade people — very helpful for copywriters and affiliates. The time before, there was Dr. Robert Cialdini. Dr. Cialdini went over the very fundamental reasons people are persuaded.

I went to a few sessions to give my voice a break. Amanda Orson and Ad Hustler had a good session on Local Affiliate Marketing. Ad Hustler gave some more details on the post he made before: How I Generated $1,700,000 in Auto Sales Despite a Weak Economy. His landing page examples of the different lead generation campaigns he ran were really creative, I thought.

In summary, I enjoyed this ASW and learned a lot that will help my business grow. If I missed any parts of the keynote that you think I should add, post a comment below and I’ll add it.

Update: Affiliate Summit added the Ca$hervertising keynote to Youtube:

Disclosure: This post contains an affiliate link to a book costing a whopping ten bucks. Also, in case I misquoted a case study, make sure you actually split test if you use one of these techniques, and track the results. I cannot guarantee these statements will actually make you money.