Multivariate and A/B Split Testing

Mon, Jul 28, 2008

web For any kind of internet marketer to truly excel in business, they must constantly test and retest all aspects of their campaigns.

Probably the most important aspect to test is your landing page. The is where multivariate and split testing is the most important. After all, once we get a customer to our landing pages, we want to take the neccessary steps to help get them to convert.

Split testing your landing pages is a must to get the most bang for your buck when it comes to your advertising budget. It’s not unheard of to increase your conversions by over 100 percent just by changing 1 small element on your page.

Simple A/B Split Testing

A/B split testing involves testing 1 element on your page at a time. This is the most simple form split testing to analyze, since it only gives 2 separate pages to to track. For example, say the image above is my hero shot, I might try another image in its place to see if it converts better. If it does, then I would make that my “control” and try another split test on it until I find the best image for my hero shot. After I’m satisfied that I have the best image, I would then move on to another element on the page to test and start the process again. Common elements to test are:

Headlines
Calls To Action (such as Buy Now buttons)
Images and Hero Shots (i.e. product images)
POA (point of action) assurances such as guarantees
Forms
Copy

Multivariate Testing

I wouldn’t try this unless you are already comfortable analyzing simple A/B results as it involves testing multiple variables at once. This makes analyzing the result much harder if you are not a statistics guru.