You’re Making My Brain Hurt! The Psychology Behind Terrible Conversion Experiences

Michael Lykke Aagaard is a Dane living in Vancouver who works at Unbounce and spent years before that as a conversion optimisation consultant. He opens with his own experience: a banner ad promising a demo led him to a page with 107 links, two forms and a live chat nobody answered, and he never saw the demo. He explains why experiences like this drain people so fast, drawing on the work of Daniel Kahneman and psychologist Bart Schutz.

You'll learn how System 1 and System 2 work, why every unclear element on a page raises cognitive load, and how the priming effect, framing and the WYSIATI principle play into it. Michael backs each principle with his own tests, such as removing a line about a 14-day cancellation policy, which lifted CTR by 9%. Each block ends with concrete practices: a funnel walk-through, five-second tests, session recordings, and interviews with customers and with sales and support staff.