It’s clear that talented players are coming out of high school with more skill than ever before, and why should an adult (by legal standards) not be permitted to pursue their economic best interests? By understanding this, and by embracing it, Coach John Calipari of the University of Kentucky continues to get top ranked recruits running to put on the Kentucky blue.
So why did Calipari embrace this methodology, and what can that teach us about our marketing?
In 2006, the NBA established a rule that players had to be 19 years old or one year removed from their high school graduation, prior to entering the NBA draft. Players who now wanted to go pro straight out of high school, would have to wait and play elsewhere for at least one year. And why not with a coach that would embrace the fact that the player would want to move on as soon as possible. The Kentucky Coach has recruited the ol’ fashioned way, and had players come in for multiple seasons. But soon after arriving at UK, the heralded hoops coach made a drastic decision based on the pattern that he’d seen in the industry.
As business owners, we have to be able to find marketing initiatives that may have a positive impact on our results. But when we see our results, we have to find the best strategies, and jump in with both feet – Very similar to Coach Cal.
To that point, here are 6 things to remember when A/B Testing your website marketing.
1. Test the quality of your copy and pricing
How do you test things as obscure as copy and pricing in your ads? Here is an area where micromanaging A/B tests can lead you to wonder about wording such as “50% off or half off?” in your ad copy? You might be asking yourself, what appeals most to my customers and will encourage them to click? Are they concerned about quality? If so, an ad like this might just be enough to convince them:
Lose Weight at the Fat Turned Fit Gym!
Lose 15 lbs in 30 days. New equipment
Dedicated personal trainers. Open 24/7
www.thefatturnedfitgym.com
Or are they more focused on selection?
Lose Weight at the Fat Turned Fit Gym!
Dozens of personal trainers on staff
Find one who fits your needs. Open 24/7
www.thefatturnedfitgym.com
What about pricing?
Lose Weight at the Fat Turned Gym!
Memberships starting from $15/mo
Tell a friend and get 1 month free
www.thefatturnedfitgym.com
You’ll want to point these ads to landing pages that are also focused on those core elements to make the transition from click to conversion as seamless as possible. Test all of them, and let the numbers tell you what works best.
2. Cut out the Noise
Noise is any outside influence that skews your data. Suppose you launch a free e-book via your e-mail marketing and you record 1,000 downloads in a month. You’re silently celebrating a successful launch when you realize that a third of the leads are actually some very thankful students of a nearby university. Since they are not part of your core target audience, they are essentially “noise.”
Though a lot of these factors are beyond your control, you can do a few things to control noise at your end. In Google Analytics, you can segment data and ignore certain links and even IP’s addresses. For example, you can exclude visitors coming from certain websites if you feel they are only coming for exploratory reasons.
3. Run tests in increments of a week
If you run your test on a weekday but not on a weekend, you’re not going to get an accurate snapshot of your traffic because weekend traffic tends to behave differently from weekday traffic.
You can even see differences on weekday traffic (e.g. Monday traffic might respond differently from Friday traffic), so make sure you get a least a full week’s worth of traffic.
You’ll need to average across day of week or time of day, unless you’re specifically looking for the best weekend version and the best weekday during particular times of the day.
4. Gain Insights from site search
Checking your site search data on Google Analytics will tell you what your visitors are trying to find on your website. If a particular term is being searched repeatedly (for example ‘pricing’), you would now that know your pricing section needs a more prominent display.
Checking site search data will also give you insights into the language the customer uses. Suppose you offer various kinds of professional training — software training being one of them — and prominently display the services offered on your homepage. You think you are effectively selling your service but the site search data shows that users are anxiously searching for information on ‘IT courses’. This shows there’s a discrepancy between your terminology and the users’ vocabulary.
5. Study, and optimize your most commonly used conversion paths
Use an analytics tool like Google Analytics to track the most common conversion path on your website. Once you find out the most commonly used route, you can check where the maximum number of visitors are dropping off. Quickly plug the holes by adding CTAs on the pages with high drop-offs. And if there are more than one CTA on those particular pages, focus on the most important ones by making them more prominent on the page.
5. Don’t blindly follow your competitors success stories.
The worst A/B testing decision would be to blindly emulate others’ success stories. Even if your business models are similar, your circumstances are very different.
Changing the CTA color from green to red may have increased conversions for John Doe, Inc.. But the same test might not work for you as your website has a different design, target demographics and/or business goals. You should try to understand the concept behind each test rather than trying to reduce it to one single magic formula.
When A/B testing your websites and landing pages, be creative. Following the pack of competitors or the latest trend can only take you so far. Sometimes internet trends are like packaged food. Good enough for a meal when you are terribly short on time, but not so good in the long run.
In the end, finding out what’s working will allow you to run with it, like Coach Cal. And hey, it’s working out pretty well for him.
Topics: Social Media Marketing, Website Design, Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click Marketing, Email Marketing
It’s clear that talented players are coming out of high school with more skill than ever before, and why should an adult (by legal standards) not be permitted to pursue their economic best interests? By understanding this, and by embracing it, Coach John Calipari of the University of Kentucky continues to get top ranked recruits running to put on the Kentucky blue.
So why did Calipari embrace this methodology, and what can that teach us about our marketing?
In 2006, the NBA established a rule that players had to be 19 years old or one year removed from their high school graduation, prior to entering the NBA draft. Players who now wanted to go pro straight out of high school, would have to wait and play elsewhere for at least one year. And why not with a coach that would embrace the fact that the player would want to move on as soon as possible. The Kentucky Coach has recruited the ol’ fashioned way, and had players come in for multiple seasons. But soon after arriving at UK, the heralded hoops coach made a drastic decision based on the pattern that he’d seen in the industry.
As business owners, we have to be able to find marketing initiatives that may have a positive impact on our results. But when we see our results, we have to find the best strategies, and jump in with both feet – Very similar to Coach Cal.
To that point, here are 6 things to remember when A/B Testing your website marketing.
1. Test the quality of your copy and pricing
How do you test things as obscure as copy and pricing in your ads? Here is an area where micromanaging A/B tests can lead you to wonder about wording such as “50% off or half off?” in your ad copy? You might be asking yourself, what appeals most to my customers and will encourage them to click? Are they concerned about quality? If so, an ad like this might just be enough to convince them:
Lose Weight at the Fat Turned Fit Gym!
Lose 15 lbs in 30 days. New equipment
Dedicated personal trainers. Open 24/7
www.thefatturnedfitgym.com
Or are they more focused on selection?
Lose Weight at the Fat Turned Fit Gym!
Dozens of personal trainers on staff
Find one who fits your needs. Open 24/7
www.thefatturnedfitgym.com
What about pricing?
Lose Weight at the Fat Turned Gym!
Memberships starting from $15/mo
Tell a friend and get 1 month free
www.thefatturnedfitgym.com
You’ll want to point these ads to landing pages that are also focused on those core elements to make the transition from click to conversion as seamless as possible. Test all of them, and let the numbers tell you what works best.
2. Cut out the Noise
Noise is any outside influence that skews your data. Suppose you launch a free e-book via your e-mail marketing and you record 1,000 downloads in a month. You’re silently celebrating a successful launch when you realize that a third of the leads are actually some very thankful students of a nearby university. Since they are not part of your core target audience, they are essentially “noise.”
Though a lot of these factors are beyond your control, you can do a few things to control noise at your end. In Google Analytics, you can segment data and ignore certain links and even IP’s addresses. For example, you can exclude visitors coming from certain websites if you feel they are only coming for exploratory reasons.
3. Run tests in increments of a week
If you run your test on a weekday but not on a weekend, you’re not going to get an accurate snapshot of your traffic because weekend traffic tends to behave differently from weekday traffic.
You can even see differences on weekday traffic (e.g. Monday traffic might respond differently from Friday traffic), so make sure you get a least a full week’s worth of traffic.
You’ll need to average across day of week or time of day, unless you’re specifically looking for the best weekend version and the best weekday during particular times of the day.
4. Gain Insights from site search
Checking your site search data on Google Analytics will tell you what your visitors are trying to find on your website. If a particular term is being searched repeatedly (for example ‘pricing’), you would now that know your pricing section needs a more prominent display.
Checking site search data will also give you insights into the language the customer uses. Suppose you offer various kinds of professional training — software training being one of them — and prominently display the services offered on your homepage. You think you are effectively selling your service but the site search data shows that users are anxiously searching for information on ‘IT courses’. This shows there’s a discrepancy between your terminology and the users’ vocabulary.
5. Study, and optimize your most commonly used conversion paths
Use an analytics tool like Google Analytics to track the most common conversion path on your website. Once you find out the most commonly used route, you can check where the maximum number of visitors are dropping off. Quickly plug the holes by adding CTAs on the pages with high drop-offs. And if there are more than one CTA on those particular pages, focus on the most important ones by making them more prominent on the page.
5. Don’t blindly follow your competitors success stories.
The worst A/B testing decision would be to blindly emulate others’ success stories. Even if your business models are similar, your circumstances are very different.
Changing the CTA color from green to red may have increased conversions for John Doe, Inc.. But the same test might not work for you as your website has a different design, target demographics and/or business goals. You should try to understand the concept behind each test rather than trying to reduce it to one single magic formula.
When A/B testing your websites and landing pages, be creative. Following the pack of competitors or the latest trend can only take you so far. Sometimes internet trends are like packaged food. Good enough for a meal when you are terribly short on time, but not so good in the long run.
In the end, finding out what’s working will allow you to run with it, like Coach Cal. And hey, it’s working out pretty well for him.
Topics: Social Media Marketing, Website Design, Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click Marketing, Email Marketing
Published on March 18, 2015
About the Author: Tatyana Mournier
