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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

One of the challenges of designing multivariate tests is getting everyone in your organization on the same page. Thats where Fleck comes in. This browser extension lets you add “sticky notes” to annotate any web page.

We just started use it to mark up pages and indicate where variables are and even provide guidance on proposed variable options. This vision can be shared around with multiple people in multiple organizations before the test assets are actually built and the optimization is running.

Here is an example of a test design for my ebook site TheConversionLab.com:

http://extension.fleck.com/?sh=788d04e7f5d3dad9de1c4bf0b9315f16f3fad065

Note: Fleck is currently in beta, and appears to choke on the CSS layout of this page slightly. It goes to figure that this is the only site I have ever seen Fleck have an issue with.

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!

What is Multivariate Testing
Wondering about the buzz surrounding Multivariate testing? Check this article for a plain English explanation about why you need to start doing it.

Multivariate Optimization vs. A/B Testing
Whether to use A/B or Multivariate testing is a question most marketers face. This article helps you understand some of the important differences.

Taguchi who? I don’t speak Japanese!
This article describes the origins of the Taguchi Approach and summarizes a Taguchi testing framework.

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!

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!

“Test, Test, Test” they say!

The strange thing is that there has been nary a guidebook or source of best practices information on testing techniques. A huge majority of people have left with a great idea, but no way to implement it in their business. Now, for the first time ever, Vertster CEO Scott Miller is going to open the “war chest” and share with you precious information on using the powerful Taguchi approach to site improvement.

[Download it Now]

This is information from a new e-book which will be available only to Vertster’s highest paying consulting clients. For a limited time, I am making an excerpt available as a whitepaper, free of charge. You can follow the links here to or visit our site to download the new whitepaper.

[Download it Now]

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

Listen to the interview now!

In marketing, very few of these so called noise factors can be controlled. In fact, very few can be identified at all. Marketing is extremely noisy. One of the best ways to combat noise is to run multiple tests against the same (or similar) sample. On the web, this is easy. Run a two week test cycle (to balance day of the week) and then repeat. Unless there has been a world catastrophe or your first cycle included the holidays, you should have a pretty similar audience.

Taguchi has also been used for direct mail and email optimization. Getting good results in this medium has proven elusive, yet there are some “experts” out there claiming to be able to do it. Personally, I have seen the results and they are dubious. The reason is simple… you get one shot with a given audience. Once you have mailed your list, it starts changing. People come and go from the list. Folks have been exposed to your brand one more time, altering the way they would react to a subsequent mailing. This is on top of the huge amount of environmental noise that is present in marketing.

Although it is possible to control all these things and get a good result in email or direct mail marketing, it is definetly trickier than on the web.

The fact is that AB testing is not disappearing any time soon. Taguchi can show you what things on the page are the most important. Once you know this, using OFAT on them is a smart strategy for “fine tuning” your key elements.

Back to factors… what can you or should you test? Start with the stuff that appears above the fold. Recent research shows that web visitors make a nearly instantaneous decision about your page. Improving your “engagement rate” can have a major impact on overall response. If your page is not engaging visitors, how can it possibly close with a conversion.

Things to consider: Your Logo, Tagline, Headline, Font, Face, Color, Size, Position, Hero Shot, Image Size, Caption, Subheadline, Greeting, First Sentence of Text, Top Bullet Point, First Paragraph, Inclusion of Advertising, Top Navigation Choice, Hackersafe, BBB, search boxes, just to name a few.

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.

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!

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!

Before you will understand multivariate testing, lets review some facts about statistics and testing. In science class we learned something called the scientific method. This specified that to scientifically test a system, we should only change one thing at a time. By only varying one element in the system, and measuring results before and after the change, we could learn the relative impact of that change.When attempting to optimize a web page this way, we would make just one change to the page at a time. After repeating the experiment enough times, we could prove our results with some certainty.

Multivariate testing refutes the above notions. Using mathematical formulas and specialized arrays, it is possible to test many aspects of a system at the same time. Not only are you able to learn what worked and what didn’t, but also what the optimal combination of page elements is to maximize the response rate. This creates the net effect of doing many simple experiments at the same time.

In fact, it becomes possible to run the equivalent of thousands of tests simultaneously.

How will it help me sell more on my site?

Through the magic of Multivariate experiments, the possibilities are virtually limitless. You can rapidly learn the best combination of page elements- things like your headlines, product images, and price points, to maximize sales or lead flow.Stop guessing what the ideal design for your page is, because you don’t have to. Through Multivariate experiments, you can learn if the picture of the girl with the white background, or the man with the blue background works better. Find out if the long form with detailed instructions works better than the short form with short instructions.

Not only will you learn which works better, but also, which combination of elements works better. In the above example, you might find out that a long form with short instructions actually works best. You never even included this in the original test. Or you might find the best combination in the first example is a man with a white background, another combination that you never considered.