Creating a split test program is an important part to any successful digital marketing campaign. If you’re not testing, you’re failing. Below are some helpful tips & tricks Justin shared with us at his DMC presentation you can use to create your first split test program.
Analyzing data you should know who your customer is. What traits they have. You should know that they don’t mind filling out a longer or shorter form. Long forms don’t always mean it will decrease conversions, because a long form can increase lead quality. It’s all about making the form have relevant items in that form. Here is a winning process:
Look at what you’re doing when it comes to your sales funnel. Syphoning through the data will help you recognize pain points for your customers. These are the funnels you should focus on:
There are huge benefits of testing multiple metrics:
Using a funnel analysis is your tests backbone. Pick pages that matter to evaluate your funnel:
By finding where users are spending the most time on page, it’s worth looking at to see why users are spending so much time there. Are there any shortcuts you can offer on those pages to help speed the conversion process up? Are they spending too much time on a mobile device? Would it help to add a different keyboard to the mobile process? Find what’s broken and fix it.
There should always be a stop time on your tests. Whether it’s an amount of sessions, a time a limit (2 weeks), or statistical significance has been reached. Make sure there is always a stop time.
Work backwards when testing:
“Conversion rate optimization isn’t about increasing conversions, it’s about creating an experience that is intuitive to your user.” Using detailed user research will help improve your testing program: heatmaps, user surveys, session recordings, usability tests, will allow your users to give feedback for your site.
Do users have a hard time finding price? If so, bring it to the top fold and make sure it’s noticeable. For surveys as a single questions, leave the question open ended (you’ll get less responses, but better data). Below are some example survey questions to ask:
Make sure to always contextualize the case study and identify the industry. You don’t want to run the same tests for a SaaS company as you would for an eCommerce company. After you identified the tested segments, is it the entire market or just part of it? Always be skeptical of lift percent. If you don’t see raw data, be suspect. It’s easy to manipulate data.
Over segmentation isn’t scalable and works for one but not the other. Be more granular in your segments. The more granular you get the smaller the sample size, which means the better the data.
Make sure you’re accounting for the time & day of the week. Some days on average will have more views than others and can alter the data. A good time frame is usually 14-21 days to run a test. Never exceed 42 days for a test. The only reason to go that long for a test is if you have 5+ variants for a test.
When it comes to testing, create a winning campaign/program by following the helpful tips & tricks above. If you’re not testing, you’re failing. To make the most of Justin's presentation, view or download his slides at the SLC | SEM SlideShare account