Framing, Relativity, and the Decoy Effect

Upselling customers from entry level products to advanced (and more expensive) products is an ongoing challenge to information marketers. Learn how a psychological phenomenon called the Decoy Effect can increase upgrades by 262%.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywNqzSCo7Y[/youtube]

Read the “Upsell Equation Salespage” here!

The decoy effect is a psychological phenomenon that results from the fact that people are easily influenced by the context in which something is shown to them (this is called ‘framing’) and that we also judge the value of things relative to other similar things with an established value (the concept of ‘relativity’.) Dan Ariely describes it in detail in his book, ‘Predictably Irrational.

By placing three options together on one sales page (with the middle and top offers being most comparable) people are significantly more likely to purchase an upgrade option. The target offer is framed as the best choice among the three.

The beauty of the decoy effect is you can implement it with absolutely no special technology. A standard web page and shopping cart solution will work.

The Upsell Equation website features a decoy effect offer which illustrates the concept.

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