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The ROI / Business case for testing
Sometimes it's hard to convince your boss that your company should invest precious resources into running content experiments. One way to communicate the business value of testing is to run the numbers.
As an example, let's say your company currently acquires customers or sells products online. Let's assume every year, 1 million visitors reach your site and 5% proceed past your home page, 10% of those proceed past your product/service details page, and 20% of those ultimately become customers. Let's also assume the average sale is $250. This would equate to 1,000 customers and $250,000 in revenue for every 1,000,000 visitors. Not too shabby right?
Now assume that by testing alternate content and page designs, you were able to increase the advance rates for each step of the sales process by a small percentage. Let's say that now 6% of visitors advanced past the home page, 12% past the details page, and 24% to the final checkout / contact page. By improving only 3 pages by small percentages, with the same number of visitors each year, instead of acquiring 1,000 customers and $250,000 in revenue, you'd now acquire 1,728 customers and generate $432,000 in revenue!
|
BEFORE |
AFTER |
|
|
Visitors |
1,000,000 |
1,000,000 |
|
Home page Advance Rate |
5% |
6% |
|
Product Detail Page Advance Rate |
10% |
12% |
|
Contact Us Completion Rate |
20% |
24% |
|
Conversions |
1,000 |
1,728 |
|
Average Sale |
$250 |
$250 |
|
Total Sales |
$250,000 |
$432,000 |
So at the end of the day, using experiments to find better-performing content can dramatically increase your sales without increasing your spending. After using Website Optimizer to improve your ROI, you might even find your boss asking you why aren't you testing more often.
Don't Be Intimidated by Testing Terminology
So you're thinking about testing, but a bit overwhelmed by all the jargon and complexity. Should I run an A/B test or multivariate? Taguchi or Full Factorial? What about BT and Personalization? Wading through this sea of terms might make you concerned that testing is too complicated for normal marketers.
The good news is that testing actually is quite simple. Sure, there are different levels of testing complexity. However, the reality is that the simplest tests often yield you the largest portion of gains, and you don't need a Ph.D to run successful tests. Below are some layperson's descriptions of the different tests out there and which is right for you.
|
Test Type |
Summary |
What it means for you |
|
Before and After |
Track performance on a page, make a change, see if performance improved |
This is uncontrolled testing since any number of factors can cause an improvement or reduction in performance in addition to the content change you made. Nevertheless, this is still better than doing nothing. |
|
A/B |
Splitting the traffic between 2 or more published pages and tracking which one gets the most conversions. |
This is the easiest controlled test to run and usually takes minutes to set up. A/B tests also are great for testing big layout changes and often give you the biggest boost in conversion rate. |
|
Multivariate |
Carving up a page into a few sections, then trying different content in each section to create different versions of the page -- usually a handful of versions, occasionally a few dozen or a few hundred. |
The most talked-about testing method, this requires more traffic, technical work, and time than A/B testing. It can deliver major conversion rate improvements after you've done a few A/B tests on the page and want to boost the conversion rate to its upper limits. |
|
Segmented, personalized, and/or experiential testing. |
Multivariate plus cross-tabbing results based on visitor characteristics and modification of the entire user experience across pages. |
This is the most sophisticated level of testing, which can push conversion rates even higher but requires significant time, technology, and resources. Nevertheless, if you've maximized your performance with A/B and multivariate tests, this is the next possible step. |
What to Test?
Once you've worked with your IT team to add the tags to your pages, now comes the fun part: deciding what to test. There's no golden rule for tests that will always work, but there are some areas of typical webpages which lend themselves to optimization and measurable improvements to your conversion rates. While the range of tests you can run is only limited by your imagination, here are 5 areas to strongly consider.
-
Title
- Short versus long
- Question versus statement
- Formal versus informal
- Emphasizing selling point A versus B
-
Image
- Big versus small
- Photo versus illustration
- Customer versus product
-
Layout
- Long sales letter versus multi-column layout
- 3 page pitch versus one dense page
-
Selling
proposition
- Quality versus convenience
- Features versus service
- Make money versus save money
-
Conversion Incentives
- Highlight free shipping versus money back guarantee
- List all incentives versus none
- Telephone order conversion versus online form
For more insight on what elements of your page you can be testing
Your First Test - How to stack the deck
So you've decided to take the plunge and start your first experiment -- great! Since content experimentation will mean a shift in how marketing content gets created, you'll want to do everything you can to make sure your first experiment is successful. Once you're able to show your team positive, measurable improvements and calculate the impact on your bottom line, you'll get their stamp of approval.
So to maximize your chances for success, consider these tips.
-
Find the
weak link.
- For your first experiment, find a page that gets lots of traffic but is a really poor performer. Every website has at least one of these -- a page that has been modified haphazardly over time, if at all, and is due for an overhaul. There will be plenty of time to make strong pages even stronger, but for your first effort, pick a page that you have a good chance of improving.
-
Come up
with some hypotheses.
- Rather than randomly testing any content, start with the problem and work from there. What are the top 3 issues with the current page from a customer point of view? What are 3 ways to potentially address those problems? Answer these questions, and you've got an experiment asking to be launched.
-
Make it
fun.
- Find the most highly paid, credentialed, and confident person in your company and ask him or her to suggest some content variations for your page. Label those variations in Website Optimizer by his/her name. Now find a bunch of more junior marketers and try your hardest to come up with better variations. Then track the progress to see which variations are performing better. Nothing like a little competition to get people excited about content experimentation.
-
Manage
expectations.
- Even if you make sure you test a high traffic page and limit your test to just 2-3 variations, it's possible you will not beat the original. This might be because you don't have enough traffic to support that many variations, or because your variations aren't different enough from the original to notice a change. It's also possible that some or all of your variations may do worse than the original. In these cases, remember that learning what doesn't work is almost as good as learning what does. It can take a few experiments before you hit on breakthrough content, so set expectations appropriately for your first test. Make sure you tell everyone it's a pilot and that testing is a process you may need to tweak in the future.
Five Tips for Writing Effective Web Headlines
You've refined your keywords, optimized your bids, and written AdWords text ads that pull in tons of targeted clicks, but after looking at your Google Analytics reports, you realize that your landing page has a bounce rate of 91%.
Which means that 91% of the users coming to your site are quickly glancing around and leaving, deciding immediately that this site isn't for them. One of the easiest, low-tech ways to make users stick around and look at your products or services is to catch their attention with an engaging headline.Recent research suggests that users decide to stay or leave your site in 8 seconds or less -- in that short amount of time, headlines are the one piece of copy that users will actually read.
Here are five tips for writing headlines that will draw in user attention.
Include your paid keyword in the headline.
And as close to the beginning of the headline as you can. When users land on your site after clicking on a text ad or organic listing, they're a bit nervous.
They have a good idea of what they're looking for, and hope that your site will deliver it, but they're a bit skeptical. And they have a good reason to be -- there are a lot of junky sites out there that don't deliver.
Putting the keyword in the headline provides split-second assurance to visitors that they are in the right place. It will make them relax a bit and be more receptive to your message.
Don't sound like an ad.
Most of us are presented with thousands of advertising messages per day. Our brains have developed sophisticated filters to keep most of those messages out.
Sometimes, the best way to get past that filter is to not sound like an ad. Instead of sounding like an overbearing salesperson, try to sound like a friend delivering valuable information.
For example, instead of:
Fabulous Skin Cream that Makes a Difference!
Try
5 Ways to Reduce Wrinkles in 30 Days.
Highlight benefits rather than features.
Instead of rattling off the cold facts about your product or service, think about what problem your product or service will solve for your user.
Instead of
E-mail with up to 2GB of Storage
Try
Never Throw Another E-mail Away
Make headlines look easy to read.
When our
eyes are moving fast looking for something particular, we tend to ignore
copy that looks like it will take too much effort to read.
So, make your headline as simple and direct as possible. Try using shorter words.
For example, instead of
Deploy Robust Data Recovery Solutions and Enhance Network Availability
Try
5 Things You Need to Protect Your Data
Don't forget subheads.
Subheads are another easy way to quickly offer more information about your product. Similar to headlines, they're usually a piece of text users will be likely to scan.
Let's say you're an e-tailer and your landing page is a specific product page, with the product name serving as the page's headline. A subhead that offers visitors a quick preview of product benefits saves them the trouble of digging benefits out of user reviews and product descriptions that are often visually buried on the page.
Instead of
Computer Satchel
Try
Computer Satchel
Patented protection system cushions your laptop with shock-absorbing,
air-filled pouches.
One more thing.
Five Objectives of Website Copy
Many businesses put a great deal of emphasis on website graphics and on creating a visually interesting site, but their sites often don't have enough text. Informative text is reassuring to visitors and it gives search engines something to crawl. So, where should you start? Let's look at five things you can accomplish with text.
Establish your points of difference.
Why would a customer choose to buy from you rather than from one of the many other businesses just like yours? If you bristle at the idea that any business could be "just like yours", you've found something important to communicate on your site.
You don't need to disparage your competition - this isn't necessary, or in most cases, even advisable. Instead, tell visitors about what makes your approach to the business unique. If you specialize in a certain area or approach, tell them how - and why. Establishing your points of difference helps your visitors become more informed buyers of the services or products you offer.
Satisfy their need to know.
Studies have shown that searchers often use the web to do basic research first, only later going back to convert on the site or look up your business. To the extent that you anticipate and answer research questions, you give your visitors exactly what they are looking for and begin to earn their trust and loyalty.
To create this content, ask yourself, "What would I need to know if I were in the market for this product or service"? Then, think of different ways to present the information. To help your visitors see how your service could benefit them, consider adding one or more case studies to your site, each of which describes how a customer was able to solve a problem and overcome challenges with the help of your service or product. You might also add a "Frequently Asked Questions" page. Such an FAQ page can be a powerful marketing tool that raises the questions that you think customers ought to ask.
Sometimes, just by raising an issue and providing information, you will be able to establish a point of difference. As visitors research other sites, they may look for more information on issues, benefits, and features that that they learned about on your site. If a competitor's site doesn't adequately address something that they have become interested in, you will have gained a little bit of an edge.
Teach.
You may not consider yourself an expert in your field, but you probably know a great deal more than you give yourself credit for. Chances are that visitors will appreciate any advice you care to give. Writing articles related to your business and publishing them on your site can put you in the enviable situation of being perceived as an authority.
Consider asking visitors for their email address in return for access to your articles. You'll build a targeted contact list that allows you to create an ongoing relationship with qualified prospects, send special offers, and continue to provide useful information.
Increase your visibility.
To a search engine, the best sites consist of many HTML files, each one text rich. If one of your articles mentions a topic for which you have more information, embed links to the extra information like this: "Learn about painting with oil-based paint." Then, on the page with the extra information, make sure that you have a <title> tag with the appropriate title, in this case, "Painting with Oil-based Paint". This helps search engines to index your content, which in turn can help give you some visibility.
Even more important, you'll find that other sites like to link to pages with useful information. Having lots of sites pointing to your articles on art techniques will help artists find your online art store and can improve your natural (unpaid) search engine rankings.
Learn what is interesting to your visitors.
One of the great things about adding a lot of text-based information to your site is that you can find out which topics and issues are most interesting to your visitors. In Google Analytics, the Top Content report (in the Content section) shows you how many visits to your site resulted in pageviews of each page and the average amount of time that visitors spent on the page.
The Content by Title report shows the same information, but aggregated by page title. So, if you have an article with several pages of content, and each page has the same <title> tag, the pie chart view will show the percentage of total visits and total pageviews that relate to the article.
You can also look at the Site Overlay (in the Content section) for any page to see which links visitors click on the most. This gives you an idea of what's most interesting to visitors, given the fixed set of choices on any particular page.
Try to improve your content mix using what you learn from these reports. By keeping an eye on what the analytics are telling you, you'll learn more about your visitors and be able to provide just the information they are looking for.
Quick Start Guide
In this guide, we'll outline the information you'll need in order to design your first experiment. Then we'll walk through the different steps you'll take to set up an experiment using the Website Optimizer tool. After reading this guide, you should have a good idea of the basics of testing with Website Optimizer and be ready to begin your first experiment.
You might find it helpful to print out this guide as a reference when completing steps within the tool.
Design your experiment
Before you use the Website Optimizer tool, you'll need to spend some time designing the scope of your experiment. These are the critical decisions you and your team will need to make:
Choose your test page. This is the page that you'll be optimizing by making changes with Website Optimizer. Your test page needs to offer an action that your visitor can take, like a purchase, download, or sign-up. This action can often be in the form of a link to another page on your site.
For your first experiment, we suggest you choose a test page that receives a high volume of traffic, such as your landing page, so you can see meaningful results quickly. You might wish to pick a page that you drive traffic to using AdWords, or a page that has a low conversion rate which you'd like to increase.
Choose your conversion page. This is the page that represents business results for you - whether it's the page where a user makes a purchase, fills out an interest form, or downloads a white paper. Learn more.
If you chose a test page with a link to another page on your site, choosing your conversion page is easy: it's the page a visitor sees when they click on the test page link. If the test page has more than one link, pick the one likely to get the most traffic. As with the test page, you will need to enter the URL for this page later.
For this first experiment, it's not quite so important what the link does -- whether it takes the visitor to a sign-up page, a product specification, runs some script, or some other action. In future experiments, though, the conversion you choose to track should define how you measure the success of your test page.
Choose what type of test is right for you. Website Optimizer offers two types of tests: A/B and multivariate. A/B tests compare the performance of two entirely different pages, so you can try out different layouts, move around sections of the page, or change the overall look and feel of a page. These tests are simpler and take less time to obtain results. Multivariate tests, on the other hand, are more flexible and robust. A multivariate test allows you to test content variations in different sections of your page simultaneously. For example, you could try out two different headlines, three different images, and two different product descriptions.
Select which content you want to test. Throughout this guide, we'll be working with a multivariate example experiment using a test page headline and an image as our page sections. Pinpoint those sections on your test page; you'll need to identify them specifically later in the experiment set-up process. You can find some suggestions on what to test in our FAQ or Best Practices. If you're doing an A/B test, you won't need to choose specific content.
|
Create the content variations you want to test. If you're doing a multivariate test, once you've identified the headline and image you'll be testing, you need to come up with at least one variation for each. During the experiment, visitors will see either the original content or the new variation. This is so the experiment can determine which variation of the content leads to more people taking the desired action and reaching your conversion page. |
|
Try to come up with variations that are significantly different from the original content -- experiments where the variation and original are very similar tend to get inconclusive results. For example:
Original
headline:
Welcome!
Variation headline: You are entering...the Red Zone
Original
graphic:
<a picture of a smiling child>
Variation graphic: <an abstract design>
Notice that the originals are unassuming, generic. The variations are more intriguing, even provocative. Visitors will likely have very different reactions to each. The goal of the experiment is to find out which reaction is most advantageous to you.
If you're performing an A/B test, you'll need to create the alternate versions of your test page. Because you create the alternate versions, you have complete flexibility when it comes to what you'd like to try out. During the experiment, visitors will see either your original test page or one of the alternate variations you've created. Website Optimizer will measure the performance of each version of the page to determine which variation leads to more people taking the desired action and reaching your conversion page.
Decide how much of your traffic you want to include in your experiment. When the experiment goes live, visitors to your website will see either the original content or the new variations. You can choose to limit the percentage of visitors who will see the new variations. Keep in mind, however, that by limiting the percentage of visitors participating in the experiment, you are also lengthening the amount of time it will take for the experiment to give you meaningful results. So if your test page and conversion page get limited traffic, you will likely want to include 100% of your visitors.
Now that you've made the crucial decisions for your experiment, you can access the Website Optimizer tool and start creating it.
Website Optimizer Overview
You want your ads to be successful. To measure that success, you use click and conversion tracking to gain insight into user behavior on your pages. If users are reaching your pages, but you aren't getting the conversion results you want, what do you do? It's time to make improvements to your site. Website Optimizer can help.
Website Optimizer allows you to test changes in the website content of your pages in order to determine what will be most effective in getting conversions. You choose what parts of a page you'd like to test -- headline, image, promo text - and we'll run an experiment on a portion of your site traffic to determine which content on your site users respond to best. When we've collected enough data, we'll provide you with reliable reports and a suggested course of action in order to optimize your site for maximum business results.
Before performing an experiment, take some time to consider which aspects of your page you'd like to test and how; the more thought you put into the experiment, the more valuable results you'll get out of it. The Quick Start Guide will give you a good idea of what steps you'll need to take to prepare for your experiment.
To run the experiment, you'll also need the assistance of your webmaster or site administrator, who will implement the experiment code on your site that will enable Website Optimizer to vary your traffic to the different versions of your page. You or your webmaster might find it helpful to review our Technical Overview as well.
For a full walk-through of the benefits and use of Website Optimizer, view our Demo.
|
Example report |
There are two kinds of reports: a combination report and a page section report. Each of the columns in those reports provides a different insight into the performance of combinations, page sections and variations.
Combination report
A combination report will show the performance results for all of the page combinations made from the page section variations you created for your experiment. By seeing how well a particular combination performs in comparison with the original and the other combinations, you can choose the most successful one to improve your business.

Estimated conversion rate range provides the most immediate insight into overall performance. You'll view this column to see how well each combination is performing relative to your original content. If you're a numbers type, you can view the numerical range to the left, but we've visually displayed the performance in the bars to the right: bars that veer toward the left and are colored in red aren't performing as well as your original content, while bars that veer toward the right and are partially green are performing better than your original content.
The chance to beat original column shows the likelihood, expressed as a probability, that a particular combination will be more successful than your original content. It is very possible that there can be more than one combination which has a good chance to beat the original. When this number goes above 95% or below 5%, the corresponding bar will be all green or all red, respectively.
Observed improvement displays the percent improvement over the original combination. Because this percentage is a ratio of the conversion rate of a combination to the conversion rate of the original column, it will often vary widely. We suggest that you only concentrate on the observed improvement when a large amount of data has been collected and it can be considered more reliable.
Conversions/impressions is just that -- the raw data of how many conversions and page views a particular combination generated.
Page section report
In contrast to the combination report, which relates to your content performance as whole combinations, the page section report focuses on which variations to each page section performed best. Keep in mind that simply picking the best-performing variations for each page section may not be as effective as picking a winning combination, since there may be interactions among variations that the page section report does not capture.

Relevance rating shows how much impact a particular page section has on your experiment. For example, if your headline page section showed a relevance rating of 0, you'd know that the headlines you used did not significantly distinguish themselves. Alternatively, a relevance rating of 5 for your image page section would show that there were one or more images which significantly differentiated themselves from the others, and that the images page section is important for conversions.
The other page section columns can be interpreted in the exact same manner as they appear in the combinations report, with the caveat that they're only meaningful among the variations of a single page section and only provide insight into how a variation performs relative to the original variation in that section.Marketing Management Marketing Online Marketing Project SMS Marketing with Mobile Website
