Conquer your consumers with the help of the unconscious

Imagine a scene that occurs a billion times every day for a billion computers around the world. A man is looking for new sneakers in online stores, or a woman is surfing the Internet in search of a new dress.

Online shoppers think they control their decisions. However, in reality, as they scroll, go through the pages and in some cases buy something, a lot of subconscious processes and signals that control their behavior.
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And for business it is very important to understand how these subliminal signals affect consumers.

The most investigated indicator of this automatic process is the priming effect, in which the stimulus received by a person influences how he reacts to another stimulus. We know that our mental paradigms — how we categorize things around us — like to bring together similar topics and thoughts. Therefore, if we show a person the word “housewife” and then either the word “woman” or the word “pilot”, he recognizes “woman” more quickly because the activation of the brain happens faster in the case of related ideas.

This may be uncomfortable to admit, because no one likes to say that he believes in stereotypes. But we will know these connections at the beginning of life, and they are buried in our subconscious.

The effect of priming affects not only our thoughts and feelings, it also affects behavior. If we are shown a photograph of an elderly couple, for example, we automatically (and without realizing it) begin to extract from this the corresponding stereotype of behavior like a slow walk. Studies show that these ideas are assimilated in life early — often before people have the ability to overpower or reject them.

Web experiment: men's photos against women

Our company ClickTale conducted an experiment in order to test the impact of subconscious gender stereotypes on the Internet. Using A / B testing, we created two versions of our main page: one was a photograph of a man, and the other was exactly the same, but with a photograph of a woman. Then, using our own software, we divided the audience into two groups and traced all their interaction with the elements of the page: what they clicked on, how far they scrolled, what their next pages were, and so on.



During the experiment, we used Optimizely for A / B testing of our two calls to action on the page: “Request a Demo” and “Try ClickTale”. Additional elements on the page that we tracked included clicks on product images or on Blog, Why ClickTale, and Search.

Our key findings were as follows:

1. Users who have seen a photo of a man, noticeably more often clicked on “Try ClickTale”, than they saw a photo with a woman.
2. On the contrary, those who saw the woman noticeably more often clicked on “Request a Demo”.
3. Visitors to the "male" version of the page often noticeably clicked on "Product Features" and "Search".
4. Visitors to the "female" preferred options "Why ClickTale" and "Blog".

Explaining Visitor Differences

The results are fully described by the effect of priming. Visitors who saw the image of the men preferred to click on “Try ClickTale” - an active approach. With the women chose “Request a Demo” - more passive. Does this mean that women are more passive and men are more active? No, this means that these are the stereotypes assigned to them unconsciously by site visitors.

The choice of “Product Features” and “Search” when displaying male photography also reflects a more active and purposeful approach to studying what ClickTale is. In comparison, “Why ClickTale” and “Blog” is a more passive study that signals a less direct approach to obtaining information about the company.

If you measure only the conversion, the results will not be as complete as when understanding this difference of processes. This gives a valuable lesson to web designers and marketers: when it comes to online behavior, it’s not what the eye sees. The important thing is that the brain perceives even before it consciously sees, before the human mind is able to understand why it feels the way it feels.

Understanding the effect of priming — and how to apply it — is the secret that allows companies to gain a competitive advantage.