Learn how split-testing your web pages can help increase your leads substantially.

Consider the following:

• How do you know your sharp marketing wit sweet talks users into signing up for your newsletter?
• Should you choose baby blue or chocolate truffle as your background color to increase your form submissions?
• Does a picture of a Lamborghini or Halle Berry better capture the attention of your audience?
• Do any of these factors even matter?

Split-run testing is not the answer, but the way to find the answer to these questions. The concept of split-run testing is simple. Serve different versions of the same content to different users and then compare the results. The success of these results is tied to any goal on your website (newsletter opt-in, contact form submission, etc.). The best part is that all of the page serving and goal tracking is done by a program that sits next to your pages on the web server. There are several different methods of split-run testing on the web:

A/B Testing - The Simple Solution
In this type of test, you create two different versions of your page, and then use a program that serves page A to half your visitors and page B to the other half. This is useful when you have two very different designs or have small amounts of traffic. While you will be able to tell if page A or page B has a higher goal rate, you won't be able to tell exactly what about the page affected this rate unless you've only changed one factor. This is where a more sophisticated type of testing comes into play:

Multivariate Testing - Sophistication at the Price of Speed
In a multivariate test, you can separate factors and test them simultaneously. Say you'd like to test 3 factors with 3 alternatives each, such as 3 background colors, 3 headlines, and 3 header graphics. First, you'd insert placeholders in the page code for the testing software to identify. Then, you'd input the different alternatives for each factor into the backend of the testing software. The software would then create all 27 different combinations as pages, serve them to different users, and track the progress. After enough traffic has passed through the site, the software will tell you which combination has the highest conversion ratio. The problem with this is the amount of traffic required to produce significant results, and it can be a lot. Imagine if you'd want to test 15 factors with 2 alternatives, that'd be over 32 thousand pages you'd have to test. That's not easily done with a website with only a few hundred hits per day. So the solution is:

Taguchi Testing - Smarter, Faster, Better
A Taguchi test is a new type of multivariate test with a smarter attitude. A simple explanation of this concept is that you do not need to test every single combination of factors to infer trends in data. With software that uses the Taguchi Method, you can analyze all of the combinations of a 15 factor 2 alternative test with a high degree of reliability with about 18 pages (instead of 32 thousand). This means this test requires orders of magnitude less of traffic - which means you can test many factors at blazing speeds. However, a small drawback to this method is that it does not consider strong interactions between factors (think black headline on a black background). So a final A/B test between the calculated best page and the original page is necessary.

Your webmaster should be familiar with how to implement these techniques,
so quit guessing and start testing. It's the only way to definitely, positively know, for sure, that your designs and edits are working for you and not against you.

Recently, the Media Department was challenged by upper management to know more about our markets. This had your humble blogger wondering, "What don't I know about my markets?" The answer was not what I had assumed.

For the last three and a half years, I've bought upwards of 30 markets, six or seven of those at a time. Everyday, I dig into the gutters of my markets, figuring out what TV station generated the most leads in Omaha last week (KXVO) or what weekday we can expect the least amount of lead flow in Toronto (Sunday) or even, what the best methods are to woo traffic managers into not preempting our spots (lots and lots of thank-you's).

What I didn't know about my markets, however, is exactly what our management challenged us to know. They want us to know more about our markets than our normal CPL and CPS knowledge base. We were challenged to know the markets as if we lived in them, knowing what's the biggest high school in the market? Or who is the largest employer? Or even, how long does it take to get to the campus from the most popular mall?

This challenge added an exciting twist to my normal day-to-day buying routine. The data that we analyze daily isn't just numbers and decimals and formulas. This data reflects the choices real people living real lives in these real cities have made. They have much labored upon decisions to focus on education to better themselves and their family.

Striving to know what our target knows (the best movie theatre to spend a Friday night or which Interstate is currently under construction, perhaps?) can only help us in our mission to connect with them on a daily basis, helping them realize there are options when it comes to furthering their educational and career opportunities. With this new challenge, I can now help to keep important CPLs stay forever low and add a new and satisfying dimension to my account load.

The 2008 political season is now over.  Thank God!   For the last few months, television airtime was being encroached upon faster than prime real estate.  Even at 2am, school commercials were getting displaced by an onslaught of political ads.  Who even watches TV at two in the morning?  Oh, wait.  That’s right … our target audience.

Let’s face it; the political season is definitely a headache-inducing time for all direct-response advertisers.  Political advertisers are guaranteed by regulation to receive the lowest rate on the station, which creates a trickle down effect for other advertisers.   The kicker is that stations are extremely diligent about not preempting the political ad schedules. Advertisers who normally run in those areas might then find that there’s less inventory available, and the look for lower-cost day parts to shift their advertising dollars.

Here at PlattForm – we took a proactive stance as early as mid-2007, believe it or not.  “The Media Team made it a point to get our 2008 annual rate holders in place well in advance of the actual start of the year,” said Media Director Danny Pumpelly.  “It was imperative that we secured our most effective rates before other DR advertisers clued in and started making plans to brace for the onslaught of political spending changing the television landscape for most of the year.”

In 2008, there was clearly a great deal of strain on TV inventory.  Mercifully, Pumpelly’s team had a strategic plan or two up their sleeves.   “Our goal was to keep our preempt levels to a minimum in this hectic time through proactive communication emphasizing everything from loyalty to spending power as reasons to keep our relationships on solid ground with fewer preempts,” said Pumpelly.  Or – in other words – money talks.  Long after the politicians have gone away – career colleges will still be spending big bucks in relatively obscure time periods.

And while not every candidate was successful this election year, at least our clients can still feel like winners.  Not to mention PlattForm’s Media Team.  “No matter who got elected – we’ve still have a department that feels like winners after making it through the political season,” said Pumpelly.  “Hilary should be so lucky.”

2008-11-06