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, Copy Test, PPC Landing Page Test, Email Opt-in Offer Test, Ecommerce Store Test, Blog Interaction or Conversion Test, Video Test, Advanced Testing Tactics.

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.

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!

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.)

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!

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.

1. Displays the free DVD that you will receive.
2. Shows a successful and happy couple.
3. Shows a successful, smartly dressed business woman.

Which do you think would result in the highest response rate?

For this test, we are using an optimization type which we only make available for Full Service optimizations. In this case, it provides for up to 6 headlines, 3 images, 3 headers, 3 form placements, 3 greetings, 3 body copies, and 3 urgency appeals. This means there are over 4000+ combinations we will be able to look at!

One of the things I try to emphasize is that no matter what optimization system you are using, if you put garbage in, you are going to get garbage out. This means that a truly great creative writer can probably do more with A/B testing than an ordinary person could do with any of these advanced methodologies. So much of the ultimate success of an optimization campaign is controlled by the quality of the creative inputs.

Factor selections and level selections can be broadly divided into two categories- “creative” and “mechanical.” Mechanical variables are things like font size, color, background color, image size, etc. Creative variables are those like headline copy, ugency type, or call to action. In this case, improved copy will be a key to the optimization. Looking over the factor list, most of the factor selections are of the “creative” type, rather than the “mechanics” type. There is one notable exception- The form position.

Here is our test design, flushed out with the level selections:

Headline

1. Why watching this DVD could be worth an extra $10,000 a year
2. Before your next performance review, make sure you’ve watched this
3. How watching this DVD could keep you off the pink slip list… for good.
4. How to get a raise on your own terms
5. Starting -date- get paid what you’re worth
6. At last a surefire tactic to get a raise on -date-

Image

1. DVD only
2. Lifestyle- Woman
3. Lifestyle- Couple

Logo Header

1. UAC Logo only
2. PB Logo only
3. Both Logos

Form Position

1. Right Side
2. Left Side
3. Bottom

Lead In

1. Here is what…
2. Dear Bookkeeping Professional…
3. None

Body Copy

1. CONTROL
2. Show you first
3. What you will learn first

Urgency Appeal

1. Limited Time Offer
2. Free for a limited time
3. None

Over the coming days we will share some of our thoughts and strategy as we optimize this landing page using the Taguchi Method, and post live results to our blog. Our goal is to increase the lead conversion rate of the landing page at http://www.bookkeepingbiz.com/knowaccounting/ Currently it performs at a relatively anemic 15.5% on traffic from Google Adwords. (This is the conversion rate to date since 6/1/2005).

Using the Taguchi Method, we have identified 7 variables or “Factors” on this page design which we will test:

1. Headline
2. Image
3. Header
4. Form Position
5. Lead In/Greeting
6. Body Copy
7. Urgency Appeal

Check back to this blog regularly, as we reveal some of the secrets of increasing conversion rates, and what we learn on this optimization. In the next post, we’ll find out about level selection for the test!