Posted on October 16, 2006
3 Ways to Split Test
BY BEN CASTELLI
Want to increase conversion rates? Split testing is an essential step in improving the effectiveness of online marketing efforts and converting more visitors into customers. Classic A/B split testing has been a staple for direct marketers, however it is surprising how few online businesses take advantage of this technique, especially since the cost of split testing online is minimal compared to the cost of printing and mailing. The number of things that you can test online are almost limitless; copy, graphics, colors, placement of forms etc.... Below are 3 general ways that you can use split testing to monitor your online marketing efforts and increase conversions.
- AdWords Ad Text - It is essential to split test your Google AdWords ad text. Just make sure you only have two ads running per ad group, accumulate clicks (over 30 per/ad), determine the winner, delete the loser and create a new ad to try to beat the winner. If you are running Google Analytics the Overall Ad A/B Testing report is a great way to see which ad text is driving visitors to your site. For example, through split testing I was able to determine that adding the word "New" to the title of my AdWords ads resulted in a significant increase in clicks and conversions. Don't forget that it is very important to look at conversion rates of the ads in addition to CTR. Generally you want to accumulate a good number of clicks before declaring a winner, however if you can't wait, check out SplitTester to see which of the two ads will really perform better over time.
- Email Marketing Campaigns - A great way to split test an email marketing campaign is to send out the email in waves. For example, if you are planning on sending out a promotional email to your list of 1,000, but are uncertain about which subject line to use, you can send out 100 emails with subject line A, and 100 emails with subject line B. Then compare the open and click through rates and send the remaining 800 emails the winning subject line.
- Landing Pages/Opt-in Pages - There are a large number of items you can test on a landing page such as the call to action text, the placement of the sign up form, inclusion of audio, etc... A service like Hypertracker will split your visitors between two pages and help you determine which changes to your landing pages will deliver the greatest increase in conversion rates.
Finally, to avoid skewing your data, it is important to split test at only one point of the sales process, Adwords, landing pages, sales pages, product pages, order pages etc...
