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A Blog about Conversion Improvement

We’re collaborating on and sponsoring the WhichTestWon testing awards… enter now!

By Scott Miller on November 3, 2009

WhichTestWon.com is a cool new site built by Anne Holland.  In case you are not familiar with Anne, she was the founder of Marketing Sherpa.  This site is sooo much fun if you are into testing and doing site conversion optimization.  Basically, each week the site features a real test- and asks visitors to “use their gut” to pick which version resulted in more sales, more conversion, or higher stickiness- before showing the correct answer and some expert analysis.

The first annual awards were announced last week, and you have until November 20 to get your entry submitted!  There will be an awards webcast in the beginning of December (we’ll announce it here or you can follow whichtestwon.com to stay up to date.)

Winners will get links from us, whichtestwon.com and a number of other sites that choose to cover the awards.  Furthermore, you get a cool badge to place on your site indicating that you were a winner.  Plus it’s a great resume bullet to say your AB test won an Award!  This has the potential to earn you or your agency a lot of free publicity!

The categories  include things like Best: Homepage Test, , , , , , , .

The rules are pretty simple, but one important thing to note is that your test does not have to use Vertster.  In fact if you have a good test to enter that you did with Google Optimizer, Omniture, or any other software, feel free to enter it!  We’ll keep your results anonymized as well!

So hurry up and enter- the deadline is Nov 20.

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Filed under: A/B Testing, Case Studies, Landing Page Optimization, Multivariate Testing —

Ecommerce Home Page Test- Featured on WhichTestWon.com

By Scott Miller on October 15, 2009

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!

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Filed under: A/B Testing, Case Studies —

Case Study: Did a headshot help or hurt webinar signups?

By Scott Miller on October 8, 2009

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.)

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Filed under: A/B Testing, Case Studies —

How A Real Life Test Can Help You Get Your Wallet Back!

By Jason on July 20, 2009

We are testing junkies and we do it for a living on the web. But we always appreciate a good multivariate or split test, whether it’s on the web or not.

This interesting article popped up recently about a test done in Scotland for lost wallets. What variables combine to entice the finder of the wallet to return it?

The variable was a picture and the options were, an elderly couple, a family, a baby and a puppy.

The picture was supposed to elicit an “Ah that’s cute!” moment and “Somebody is going to want that back!” feeling. The desired action? Return the wallet!

Which picture do you think got the most returned wallets? Keep in mind that each wallet was completely void of cash and didn’t contain any credit cards, only typical wallet items. But the picture was prominently displayed.

If you guessed the baby, you guessed right. Here are the return rates.

80% of the baby

53% of the puppy

48% of the family

28% of the elderly couple

A wallet with a charity donation receipt was also tested and had a 20% return rate and wallets with no special items(The Control) had a 15% return rate.

It just goes to show that when you want someone to take a desired action, whether it be on a website or on the street, you need to play to their emotions. Emotions play a huge role in marketing and if you can hit the right triggers, you can elicit big responses from your multivariate tests!

I’d like to try the wallet test again, but this time let’s add some money to the mix!

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Filed under: Case Studies, Test Design, Testing Ideas —

Yahoo loves (and designs by) testing too

By Scott Miller on March 26, 2009

Shortly after Google’s Lead designer resigned due to Google’s fanatical testing practices, along comes this gem from e-consultancy: Yahoo loves multivariate testing

Apparently the new Yahoo home page was the result of testing 141 different versions!  The goal of the testing was to find out which design resulted in the greatest site stickiness.  This makes sense, considering that Yahoo primarily makes money when people view and click on search results and ads.

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Filed under: Case Studies, Multivariate Testing, Test Design —
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