The Cranky Marketer

I was recently asked by one of my mentoring students about split testing landing pages. Obviously, split testing should be standard practice for most internet marketers to use in order to gain the greatest insight into which combination of elements work best and create the most effective conversions. But when it comes to split testing, should a marketer remake an entire page and test one page versus another, or should we make small, incremental changes in a landing page and see what sort of results they produce?

The problem when testing one full page against another is that you can never be certain which changes resulted in a gain (or loss) of conversions. For example, a change in background color from one version of the page to another might increase conversions by 4%, while at the same time, changing the headline on the same page actually reduces conversions by 1.5%. When comparing the two pages against one another you’d be pleased to find that you’ve experienced a net 2.5% increase in conversion rate, but the fact of the matter is that’s a blended result. You could have achieved a 4% bump in conversions had you changed the background color but left the headline alone.

My advice: make small, incremental changes in landing page design and then test each change over enough traffic to ensure that you’ve created a valid comparison. Here are my top three items you should consider modifying for split testing:

1. The Price
The most obvious element of your offer that can have a dramatic effect on conversion rate is the price. Split testing on price doesn’t always mean going lower. In fact, you may determine that charging a HIGHER price results in increased sales. If you’re selling a product for $27, consider split testing a price of $29 or even $34 or $37. Don’t make the assumption that dropping the price will increase sales.

2. Your Call to Action
“Buy Now” versus “Download Instantly”? How about “Get your FREE e-Book!” versus “Download your FREE Report”? Your call to action can have an even greater impact on conversion rate than price, even though we tend to believe that all of our potential customers are price-sensitive or driven by price alone. The fact is, how you try and convince your target buyer or list member to partake of your offer is far more important than price. Just because one marketer tells you that a certain call to action converts at a higher rate for them doesn’t mean that it will for you. Test, test, test.

3. The Headline
Some people are afraid to touch their headlines. They find a headline that they believe works and stick with it until their product sales dry up. The simple truth is that effective headlines don’t always remain effective. Changes in attitude and buyer opinion can often cause a once good headline to go bad. When it comes to headlines, don’t be afraid to experiment a bit. Try soft, try hard, try in-your-face, try mellow. Try positive headline versus negative headline. Pull all of your headline writing tricks out of the book and create a pool of a dozen different headlines that you can match up against one another.

That’s it, the three simplest and possibly most effective landing page elements you can change up for split testing. Now go get to work!