Beyond Split Testing
Many new internet marketers are happy to simply generate traffic to their offers. However, it doesn’t take long before they realize that conversion rate is a more important measure, particularly if they are paying for traffic. Some give up at an early stage. However, others begin to recognize the need for testing.
One of the most powerful forms of testing is split testing. This allows you to compare different parts of your campaign. The simplest form is A/B testing where two different components are compared. This could be two different landing pages, two different ads or more simply two different headlines. Some systems have in-built split testing. For example, if you are advertising using Google Adwords, it is an easy process to compare both the click through and conversion rates of different ads. After a certain number of clicks it becomes obvious which ad is the better performer. The other ad is dropped and replaced with another one to test and the process is repeated. Over time, this results in having an ad which generates not only more clicks but more sales. More advanced marketers make use of split testing techniques, such as Taguchi testing, that compare multiple variables at one time.
By those in the know, split testing is a given. However, this is not the only type of testing that can increase the bottom line. Pay per click advertisers can use hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of keywords in a campaign. Some of these keywords will provide a good return on investment. However, many of them will be a drain on the advertising budget. While attracting clicks they may result in few, if any, sales. This can turn a potentially successfully campaign into a failure. The novice marketer pulls the campaign because it is costing money, not knowing that by tracking the conversion rate of individual keywords it could easily be turned into an on-going source of passive income.
An additional twist is to measure the average amount of time visitors spend on a site for each individual keyword. This gives information relating to the AIDA principle, which suggests that potential customers go through stages of Attention, Interest, Desire, and finally Action. The theory is that the longer a visitor stays reading a sales page the further along this process they are. Those keywords which result in visitors staying longer on the landing page are more likely to be winners. In this way, poor performing keywords can be identified quickly without having to spend a fortune waiting for a large number of actions such as sales.
Those who can use testing successfully are much more likely to be successful financially. Aspiring marketers should look not only to split testing, but other forms of analysis on which to base decisions.
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I am a computer programmer that got fed up with the corporate life. While I write the post I have since removed myself from the corporate life and am now doing affiliate marketing full time. It was not easy. I took a lot of slack from bosses that did not have the same vision that I had. But I continued to rock on and follow my dream.