Think you know what is going to convert the best?  If so, put your ego where your mouth is and head over to WhichTestWon, the new site from Anne Holland (founder of MarketingSherpa) to see how good you are at picking the winner from a selection of split tests.  Even if you have no idea which won, there is still a lot to be learned from this collection of test results.

This week,  a test run on the Vertster Optimization Platform appeared on WhichTestWon.  In this test, two significantly different home pages were pitted against each other.  One featured traditional sales copy, and the test version had a big video, as well as use of an authority endorsement.   Place your vote for the winner and read the full case study on the site!

In this experiment, a banner campaign was used to drive visitors to sign up for an on demand webinar.  Two versions of the banner were tested, with the goal of increasing sign ups.  One banner included a picture of German analytics and testing expert Dennis Kruger, and one did not.  Also the button “View Now for Free!” was shifted to the left or right to make room for the image.

Both banners drove traffic to same landing page. So it would stand to reason that any change in the number of conversions was a direct result of more people *clicking* on one or the other banner.

Here are the two versions of the banner ad.  Which do you think resulted in more conversions?

or

Text Translation:

On demand webinar
Landingpage Optimization 101

Contents: Introduction Conversion Optimization, Benefit of landing pages?, What are good landing pages? Best practices for successful landing pages. Conversion clinic.

View now for free

Results:

The second version generated 65% more sign ups.  This clearly shows that including a picture of yourself is something that needs to be tested!  In our experience, unless you are super hot and wearing a bikini, or super famous, the picture is better left off your page.  What is interesting to note is that moving the button to make room for the image could have actually helped the head shot version- because in western countries we read left to right and left button placements often outperform right placements.  (This is an example of a possible interaction effect- best sorted out with a multivariate test.)