Understanding the Importance of a Solid Testing Strategy

Any seasoned PPC advertiser will freely admit that not every campaign was a success.  The most successful advertisers will tell you that they took those failures, analyzed them and turned them into a success.  They accomplish this by continual analysis and testing of landing pages and advertising strategies.  You should already be reviewing conversion data but if you never do anything with that data then your conversion rate does not improve.  Failure to improve your conversion rate ends up being not only more costly for you but decreases your competitive outcomes in your niche.

Before you start testing, you need to understand the basic elements that should be considered when developing your testing strategies.  First and foremost, understand that testing has to be an integral part of your campaign—not an afterthought!  You can test using multi-variate testing or you may want to try the Taguchi method (NOTE: there are multiple people and organizations available that can perform these tests for you if you are not comfortable with doing them yourself but be prepared for the expense should you decide to go this route).  The Google Website Optimizer utilizes the basic A/B multi-variate testing method and is fairly simple to navigate for a first time user.

When testing, think about different elements that can be tested.  This part of the process is not the time to be narrow-minded.  Realize that there are multiple features of a campaign (some seemingly insignificant) that can have major impact.  Consider the following:

1. Vary the times and days your ad is running.  You may be convinced that your target audience peak time is Monday through Thursday 2 pm to 10 pm but unless you run that specific ad during other times, you really do not have a proper frame of reference.  Your audience may be shifting times or even better, you may find a new audience to target all together. 
2. Speaking of new audiences…don’t narrow your focus too much.  You want to target your audience but not at the risk of alienating another potentially stronger audience.
3. Test different dimensions of your campaign

• Creative-alter the visual appeal of your ad (color, graphics, etc.)
• “The Pen is Mightier..” Try different ad copy to see if different words trigger different (and more successful conversion behaviors)
• What is your targeting model? Are you targeting based on a list, consumer behaviors, certain triggering actions, etc.?
• Your offer-Keep in mind that different buyers are all at various phases of the sales funnel so consider testing the benefits of a financial offer vs. a process benefit (loyal customers get certain perks) as well as thinking about changing up your calls to action
• What measurement metric are you using?  Yes, a direct sale is great but it’s not the only measurement of success.  Referrals, returns, frequent visits, bookmarking, etc. are all markers of success.

I’m sure I don’t need to remind you why tweaking to maximize your conversion rate is so important but just in case: higher conversion rates mean more money in your pocket that can be used for other media outlets, product diversification, etc.  Ultimately, the key to remember is that the 40% conversion rate is not impossible but you absolutely must commit to continually testing and tweaking your ads to maximize your success.  If you are currently converting at 10%, then that means that 9 out of 10 people are completing your call to action.  IF YOU ONLY GET ONE MORE PERSON OUT OF TEN TO CONVERT YOU HAVE DOUBLED YOUR CONVERSION RATE!  So, even the slightest change can have a dramatic impact.  Stay tuned for a follow-up post where we’ll discuss how to make use of Google’s Website Optimizer in your testing strategy. 

**Bonus Tip**

Don’t forget that you should also test your autoresponders too!  Your goal is to maximize delivery and open rates.  Here are a few things you should be looking for when testing autoresponders:

• Time of day mailed out (What time seems to get the highest response?)
• Number of mailings sent in a week (are you sending too many? Too few?)
• Day of the week (e.g. Do people open more on Tuesdays but click through and convert more on Wednesday?)
• Content vs. Promotions

These are just a few ideas to get you started!