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4 Ways to Clear Browser Cookies for Just One Site

Oftentimes when you are “testing” a test, you should clear your cookies each time through- to make sure you do not have old values stashed away that could prevent you from seeing your test operate correctly.  Luckily, there are some great extensions available for the Firefox browser that make this a trivial operation.  If you are using one of the other browsers, follow our complete instructions below:

1. Firefox with the Web Developer toolbar: First of all, this is definitely the easiest way to clear cookies for the Firefox browser.  If you do not have the Web Developer Toolbar installed, head over to the Firefox Add Ons site and grab it.

To use it, click on the Cookies menu on the left, and select “Delete Domain Cookies”.  Pow.  All the cookies for the site you are currently on will be removed!

Web Developer Toolbar

2. Clearing a Specific Cookie on Safari: Safari makes you do a little more mousework to get to the listing of cookies in the system, and you have to specify which you want to remove.  To get started, go to the preferences menu, and open the “Security” Options.  Partway down the page is a button labeled “Show Cookies.”  Click this.

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Once you have clicked the “Show Cookies” button, you will be shown a listing of all of the cookies your browser has stored, along with a handy search box.  Type the current domain name into this search to see a listing of cookies set by the current site.  From here, you can select and delete the cookies.

Remove Cookies for Safari

3. Clearing a Cookie on IE 8: Internet Explorer before version 8 made it a real hassle to delete cookies for a given domain, but now version 8 includes a component called Developer tools which is modeled after the Firefox Web Developer toolbar.  This makes the process dramatically easier.  To begin, select to tools menu and choose “Developer Tools.”  This can also be opened by pressing F12.

IE 8.0

Once the developer tools window opens, choose the “Cache” menu option on the top and you will the the choice to “Clear Cookies for Domain.”  Click this and pow, the cookies will be eliminated for the current domain you are visiting.  Super easy!

IE 8 Developer Tools

4. Clearing a Specific Cookie on Chrome: Chrome makes it fairly easy to clear cookies for a single domain, and works similarly to Safari.  To start out with, click on the wrench icon on the right side of the address bar.  This will drop down a number of choices.

Google Chrome

Choosing “Options” brings up another dialogue and if you scroll down a bit, you will see a button for “Show Cookies.”  From here there is a convenient search function for quickly locating cookies you wish to remove.  Enter the hostname you are looking for and then select the cookies from the list and choose “Remove.”  Simple.

Chrome Cookies

Conclusion: It has gotten easier to delete cookies for a specific domain over the years- and now is a relatively painless process.  It used to be that many people would delete all of their cookies at once, which is not ideal given that you may loose autologins, personal choices, and other site functionality.

Chances are you need to test your web applications and sites in each of these four most popular browsers, so refer back to this guide in the future to remember how easy it really is to remove specific cookies.

Filed under: A/B Testing,Developer Resources,Resources,Taguchi Testing,Test Design,Testing 101 —

Are your test results *really* that proprietary?

One of the things I constantly see is clients treating their test results as if they’re the secret recipe to time travel or something. Thing is, are they really that proprietary?

There is no doubt that a well optimized offer page, e-commerce system, etc. can be an incredible competitive advantage. But let’s rewind for a moment and consider what a perfectly optimized offer is…

As I said at SES three weeks ago, optimized offers combine the perfect benefit, perfect amount of risk reversal, perfect amount of scarcity, and perfect unique value proposition for the state of mind the customer is in at the moment they see they offer.

Now unless your offer is identical to your competitors, and your customer’s are the same, your “optimized” offer is going to be different than theirs. The only time offers truly converge is in a commodity marketplace, where nearly every competitor is identical and everyone competes on price.

Now I am not saying to go posting your secret optimized recipes for the world to see, but its food for thought. Do you really need to be paranoid? I think not.

Warm Regards,

Scott Miller, CEO

Author of “The ConversionLab.com,” The worlds first “How to” guide to testing and optimization. Visit http://www.conversionlab.com/ for a special offer!

Filed under: A/B Testing,Conversion,Multivariate Testing,Taguchi Testing —

Free audio interview on split and multivariate testing

I have always wondered about podcasting, and even though I know a very small percentage of the internet listens to these, I had to give it a go. Listen in on this 20 minute interview I gave for Ed Forteau’s Success Rainmaker class a couple weeks ago. In the interview you’ll learn about:

  • The difference between split testing and multivariate testing
  • What things to test first
  • How Vertster got started
  • and more…

Listen to the interview now!

Filed under: A/B Testing,Multivariate Testing,Taguchi Testing —

Katrina in your test results?

Even if you live nowhere near the gulf coast, hurricane Katrina could be having a major impact on your test results. This is a classic example of a huge environmental noise factor, something that can shift the buying sentiments of an entire population. If you live near the affected area, or cater to a local business, this will be obvious.

But what about us who live hundreds or thousands of miles away?

The press coverage has been more than constant- its been downright transfixing. Anyone who knows someone living near New Orleans or who has been through a hurricane probably spent a little extra time watching the news today… and a little less time surfing the web or “taking care of business.” Not to mention the pervasive online news coverage and blogs pulling eyeballs and dollars away from our sites.

To make matters worse, the threat of spiking gas prices has many people hitting the brakes on purchase decisions. We noted a significantly lower conversion rate today on at least a couple of our “key indicator” tests. It seemed more like a Saturday than a Monday.

We use the term noise to refer to any uncontrollable factor that can affect the outcome of our tests, whether it is a positive or negative change. Split testing helps to disperse the effect equally within the test battery, but it doesn’t always eliminate an uncontrolled bias from entering the test results.

Take for example, a site that sells flood insurance. If this was you, today was probably a great day for sales, perhaps even record breaking. Would today be a good day to get repeatable test results? I think not. The winning creative today probably would be the one with the shortest and easiest order form. Today, many people wouldn’t need much convincing. Normally, the best pulling message might be a completely different appeal altogether. Basing your test results on today’s data, even if statistically significant, would lead you to erroneous assumptions.

Filed under: A/B Testing,Conversion,Multivariate Testing,Taguchi Testing,Test Design,Testing 101 —

A/B Testing Secrets Revealed!

Dr. Flint McGlaughlin and his crew at MarketingExperiments.com did a real nice job at providing an overview of split testing tactics today. You can listen to the audio portion here and view the visual materials that went along with it.

The webinar started off with an audience interactive “vote for the winner” comparison of three different landing page approaches. The vote was a bit tricky because there was little background given on the circumstances surrounding the page. I won’t give it away here, but I will say that I guessed incorrectly which was the “winner.”

I highly recommend if you are new to landing page testing, or want to pick up some tips on A/B testing, that you give this a listen. It runs just over an hour, and is packed with tips and real world experience. The only thing I would add is that you run your tests in 7 day blocks, especially if your test lasts more than 14 days. This provides an equal helping of weekdays vs. weekend days. Running a short test that does not balance the days adds a significant noise factor and can produce unreliable results, even if your sample size is large.

Filed under: A/B Testing —

Did you know there are two types of A/B Testing?

When most people think of A/B split run testing, they are thinking in a “classic” sense. Change one thing at a time, and you will be able to understand the results of your change. Good or bad, you will learn some useful nugget about your marketing.

There is another strategy. This is one I call the shotgun approach. It never teaches you as much as the first, but it frequently brings in better results. The analogy is similar to firing a shotgun. Hopefully a few of the pellets will find their target, which in this case would be a more profitable landing page.

Rather than meticulously varying one element at a time, take a big picture view and vary the whole thing. Change the offer, the major benefit, the headline style, everything. Just try to keep them in line with each other. Although you will never know exactly which change resulted in the bigger results, you just may find a more profitable page! Now is where classic split testing becomes handy. Use it to fine tune your new page by focusing on things like the headline.
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PS- We are discussing this and other interesting topics in the new Vertster forum at http://www.vertster.com/forum/ Feel free to join in!

Filed under: A/B Testing —

The Worst Thing About Best Practices

MarketingProfs published a scathing attack on best practices written by Michael McLaughlin in todays issue. His article describes the use of best practices in sales presentations. I thoroughly enjoyed it and think most of what he has written definetly applies to Landing Pages and online optimization.

Here are Michaels top 4 reasons for why best practices suck:

1. They rarely work
2. It’s a followers strategy
3. Change comes from within
4. They don’t come with a manual

One of the fascinating things we learn through testing sites is how wrong the “best practices” are in many cases. Every site, sale, or offer is unique, and the only way to know what really works is to test it and find out!

Filed under: A/B Testing,Internet Marketing,Landing Page Optimization,Multivariate Testing,Taguchi Testing —
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