One of the most common ways of attracting participants is placing an “ad” on your website (and sometimes other websites as well).

The ad usually takes the form of an at-a-glance proposition (e.g. “Improve our site – win an Apple Watch!”).

Clicking the ad can either take the user directly to the tree test (where the study is briefly explained) or to a page on your website that explains the research and links to the tree test from there.

If you’re running a tree test to improve your own website, then that’s the obvious place to run the ad, because you’re automatically getting the right users.

If your website gets a lot of traffic, then the small percentage of visitors who click through to your study may provide the numbers you need to confidently analyze your results.

If your website doesn’t get enough traffic on its own, or if it’s a new website that you’re creating, then you’ll need to find other websites that:

• Attract the type of users who would conceivably use your website too, and
  
  
• Are willing to put your ad on their pages (for free, for money, or for some other arrangement you can make with them).
  
  

For example, we ran a tree test for a New Zealand government agency using web ads. Their own site didn’t get much traffic, so they contacted colleagues who ran other government sites and asked for help. Eventually their ad ran on half a dozen ministry and department websites and they got a very healthy number of participants. (And they returned the favor later when those other sites ran their own online studies.)

If you do place web ads on sites other than your own, be sure that your ad and your explanation (discussed below) are clear about what they’re testing. For example, if you’re testing site A, and you place an ad for it on site B, make sure your ad is clearly for site A. Otherwise you run the risk of:

• Attracting users who may not be who you want
  
  
• Confusing or unintentionally misleading users who then abandon your study.
  
  
  

The global header is usually the best (and often the easiest) place to put your web ad.

• It appears on every page of the site, so every website visitor has a chance of seeing it.
  
  
• Adding a “banner” ad across the top of your page is usually easier to do than trying to insert it into the various page layouts that your site uses.
  
  
• Many sites already have an “announcement” banner feature that you can use for your ad. You just provide the text and the destination link.
  
  

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If the site has a library of ads that it serves up on various page, you can also get yours added to the mix. In this case, you just need to create an ad with the proper dimensions, graphic format, and so on.

If you’re looking for specific types of users, you may want to run your ad on corresponding pages of the site. In the Shimano example we saw earlier (where they split their website into sections for cyclist, rowers, and anglers), if you were targeting cyclists, then you would obviously advertise your study on the cyclist pages of the site (and perhaps the general pages too), but not on the rowing or fishing pages.

There are countless books and articles on how to create effective ads. For your online study, though, you really just need to focus on two factors:

• Attracting attention to your ad
  
  
• Conveying your proposition at a glance
  
  

To attract attention:

• Make sure your ad appears in a spot that website visitors are likely to see.
  Generally this means anything at the top of the page, especially the top center.
  
  
• Use colors or graphics that draw the visitor’s eye.
  For example, when we do banner ads across the top of website pages, we usually pick a saturated color that stands out from the other content.
  
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  You can also use an image to create visual interest. If we’re doing a prize draw (a common incentive), we’ll usually use an image of the prize (e.g. an Apple Watch).
  
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Once you have a visitor’s attention, you have a few seconds (at most) to convince them to participate. Like a roadside billboard, you are usually limited to the small amount of text that a “passer-by” is willing to skim.

We typically phrase the text as a simple value proposition: if you do this, we’ll give you that. Here are some examples:

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You also need to make it clear what they should do next, if they decide to participate. This can be a clear text link (colored/underlined text) or a separate button.

Finally, if you are advertising your study on a website different from your own, you’ll need to add some context to your ad so that visitors are clear about what they’re volunteering for:

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Before participants actually do your test, you’ll need to give them a bit of preamble, typically including items such as:

• What the study is for
  
  
• How long it will take
  
  
• What their reward is
  
  
• What you will do with the results
  
  
• Any other “fine print” that you need to include (such as terms and condition of the prize draw, if you’re doing one)
  
  

You may want to cover this in the test itself (for example, on the welcome page), or you can put it all on an explanation page on your website. We typically do the latter, because many of our clients already do it this way for other online studies they conduct (such as user surveys).

While you do need to cover the items mentioned above (and perhaps other points specific to your research), you also need to do this briefly and concisely, and give them an obvious way to start the study. Otherwise, you’ll see a fair number of people dropping out because this is all taking too long or looking a bit murky.

Here’s a typical explanation page that covers the basics and provides a clear way to start the study:

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Note that this content may be similar to what you put in your email invitations (if you’re also recruiting by email) – see “Using email lists” below.

Next: Using email lists