Edition #166
UPDATE: This review also applies to the Affiliate Prophet software
I’ll admit it… up until now I have been failing at one of the most important aspects of online marketing:
Split testing!
Last summer on the set of The Next Internet Millionaire, one of the teachers said something to our contestants that really stuck with me.
He said, “a lot of people call themselves marketers, but they’re not even split testing!”
Since I’ve never been very keen on testing, I sort of let the statement bounce off me, and wrote it off as being an extremist viewpoint designed to prove a point.
But in the back of my mind it’s been nagging at me… after all, I DO call myself a marketer, and yet I’ve done very little split testing.
Quite honestly, the primary reasons that I haven’t made more of an effort to start split testing are:
1) It seemed complicated and intimidating to me
2) It seemed NOT fun
3) I didn’t think I really needed to
After all, why should I put forth the effort to split test variables when I’ve always made a good living just doing what I do naturally?
Boy was I wrong.
An Eric’s Tips reader named Peter Yoon has developed a very powerful split testing program called Conversion Prophet, and I decided to give it a try on a recent product launch with Joel Comm.
The results were nothing short of fantastic.
Not only did Peter’s Conversion Prophet software make all the difference to our launch, but it has forever changed the way I look at Internet marketing.
Using this program we were able to DOUBLE our conversion rate in one day.
What I learned is this…
Even if you THINK you have your target audience figured out, there are various on-page factors that can affect the conversion rate, and the ONLY way to determine the best set of variables is to split test it.
I shudder to think of all the profits that I’ve left on the table over the years. If I could just go back and split test all my products, and increase the conversion rate by a mere 1%, I’d be much wealthier today.
So obviously I answered my own question as to why split testing is so important.
But here’s the kicker…
It was EASY and FUN!
I installed the program in under 10 minutes, and was seeing results in the statistics area almost immediately. Peter designed it with the user in mind, and it has a very simple, easy-to-understand interface.
And what surprised me more than anything is how fun it was. Because of the intuitive “pre-conversion” statistics that are built into the program, you can start seeing results right away, even if you’re not getting very much traffic.
To be able to get that kind of instant feedback and make adjustments to improve the page was very gratifying.
Here are some of the things that I was able to determine in one day:
Now, you might be able to glean some tips from those results, BUT the thing you need to understand is that it will be DIFFERENT for each market, and for each product you sell/promote.
In other words, you need to TEST IT FOR YOURSELF. For example, just because someone has told you that such-and-such background color is the best, that doesn’t mean it will be the best for your situation!
If you’re not split testing, then you are marketing in the dark (like I used to do). I recommend grabbing a copy of Conversion Prophet and I think you’ll be enlightened to a higher level of marketing, as I have been.
There are two versions of Conversion Prophet available; the regular version, and the Pro version. The only difference between them is that the Pro version includes the ability to do “Taguchi/Multivariate” testing.
The advantage of the Pro version is being able to test more variables simultaneously with the Taguchi method, and thus get quicker results. In most cases, I think the regular split testing is just fine. So it just depends on whether you want to test a lot of things at one time, and if you need to do it quickly.
By the way, Conversion Prophet is also designed for PPC and affiliate marketers, and you will see testimonials from other marketers who have drastically improved their PPC costs as a result of using it.
Peter has made a HUGE discount available for Eric’s Tips readers, and you can get it by going to this page:
Click here to go to Conversion Prophet…
He’s giving it to you for less than HALF of the full price, so I recommend getting it through this special offer today.
I won’t go so far as to say you aren’t a “real marketer” if you’re not split testing, but you’re definitely missing out if you’re not doing it.
As always, you are welcome to leave your comments here on the blog.
Have a great day!
hi eric
thanks for your post.
i’m with you. i call myself an internet
marketer but i haven’t ‘got round to’ do split
testing. closes thing probably be having 2 ads for each running google adgroups.
but you know thats not enough. reading your post
sort of give a bit of kick in the butt to
get round to doing it!
thanks 🙂
I have seen others make much of split testing. One question always stirs in my thoughts and I have never run this past anyone explicitly so maybe you can help. Have you seen different trends among traffic obtained from different sources? In other words, have you noticed differences in response between different sources of pay-per-click traffic or those from your lists or even different lists that you may operate? I am fascinated in different peoples’ experiences in this area.
Hey Eric,
I have to admit, I’m guilty of “I-know-what-I’m-doing-and-split-testing-sounds-not-so-fun” thinking. In fact, split testing (what old schoolers would call “market research”) sounds as tedious as counting beans to me.
Nevertheless, your post has me gotten me thinking…it takes a whole lot of work just to launch a product or write a comprehensive product review based on the way I FIGURE is best…it might prove to be worth the extra work to get things done the way THAT’S FIELD TESTED to be the best.
So I’ll check out this product you’re pitching. Thanks for keeping us from getting stale and complacent with success.
Sabrina
Yes. I agree totally!
That’s why I give away 30 minutes of my
new audio book for FREE at my site:
http://www.creativeadvertisingservices.net
Mike
Hey Eric,
Yup, I am with you on that one.lol Even the name, split-testing, is NOT fun. But, you are right about it. I have the tracking but not the testing. I suppose that will be my next step. Thanks!
Thanks for the comments everyone.
Richard- to answer your question… Yes there is a difference between traffic sources. As a very basic example, the traffic that I’m sending to Peter’s site right now is going to be higher quality traffic with higher conversions than from random traffic he gets from the search engines. If you want to get technical, there are various ways that you can segment your traffic with different landing pages, and test them, etc. But I think the most important thing here to to START testing. If you’re just getting started with split testing (like me), then don’t worry about the traffic sources for now, and just test it for all the traffic combined. To some extent, there should be some behavioral factors (both conscious and subconscious) which are commonly held between the majority of the people who visit your site, regardless of where those people came from.
Eric, thanks for telling us about Conversion Prophet. Many of us that know about split testing don’t do it because of laziness. The new tool takes the tedious work out of split testing.
Split testing is not new. It is a well-tested and proven methodology that goes back to direct mail marketing. With the bigger direct mail outfits, several variations of a direct mail piece were mailed in sample batches. The piece with the best response became the “control”. The control was then used for the mass mailings. Periodically, new letters were tested against the control. When a new piece beat the control, it became the control. Split testing works for web marketing, too.
Hey Eric,
I’ve considered using Google’s Website Optimizer tool to start testing. What made you opt for this software over Google’s free tool as Google also provides free training with it?
Thanks Eric,
Chris
Chris, I’ve used some of Google’s tools and they are cool, but I really like the interface of Conversion Prophet because its so simple. The other big reason I opted for this software is I prefer to install things on my own domain, rather than using a 3rd party service. If Google’s tools are adequate for your split testing needs, then that’s great. The important thing here is to start testing.
CRAIG GREENE HERE.I AM DISABLED PERSON GOING FOR A GRANT THEY SAID I WILL GET TO HELP MY INTER NET SITE.I NEED TO NO FROM YOU IF YOU CAN DO WHAT EVER IT TAKES TO GET MY WEBSITE MACKING MONEY?BECAUSE I HAVE TO TELL THEM EVERY THANG ABOUT YOU. LIKE HOW LONG YOU HAVE BEEN DOING THANGS ON THE INTERNET TO MAKE PEOPLE MONEY ON THERE INTERNET SITE.I DON’T NEED THE INFORMATION NOW BUT LATER.IT SEEMS TO ME YOU REALY NO YOUR STUFF I FELL.WHAT I NEED TO ASK YOU TO IS .HOW MUCH WILL IT COST PER MONTH OUR WHAT EVER. I NEED TO NOW SO I CAN PUT THAT ON MY GRANT LOAN PAPERS.THEN I CAN SEND THE PAPERS TO THEM.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH ERIC GET BACK TO ME SOON CRAIG G
P.S I DON’T OWN THE WEBSITE. BUT I GET 5% OF THE PEOPLE THAT SIGN UP ON IT EVER MONTH AND I TALKED TO THEM ABOUT GETING IN TO THE WEBSITE AND DOING THANGS AND THEY SAID OK ON A LOT OF THANGS. BUT I WOULD HAVE TO TELL THEM FIRST BEFORE I DO THANGS TO THE WEBSITE.
I would like to start. Please let me know the tips how to join and what I have to do.
O.K. Eric, I,m sold. There is a question that comes to mind though. Would I be better off spending the extra $100. and get the Pro version so that when and if I needed it I would not have to spend a greater amount to upgrade.
and then the next question is what version did you get.
Thanks for all the good info that you provide us.
Victor
Split testing helps, but it is so tedious. But then, most things in the internet world that help are tedious. It is like the turtle and the hare. The one that does the grunt work wins.
Eric,
I’ve been split testing a few elements of my site MLM training site, but what do you consider a large enough difference in the results to warrant a change on your ‘control’ site? 2%, 5%, 7%? And how many clicks does it take to be reliable?
Also, is this tool able to do multiple elements at one time to test how they might work in certain combinations?
Thanks.
Victor- I have the Pro version. If you can afford the pro version I’d say get it. If it’s out of your budget then I’d say go for the regular.
Derick- I think it really depends on your site, the length of the sales letter, etc. But I found that with Conversion Prophet, 200 clicks was enough to make a decision in most cases. And it depends on the difference of % of the two pages. If one is beating the other by 10% after 100 clicks, then you can probably make a decision. But if one is winning by 1% after 200 clicks then you might want to test it some more.
And yes, the Pro version is able to test multiple variables at the same time.
Hi Eric,
I’m glad to learn of your blog and I’l try the software if it better than the Google Website Optimizer.
I’m a little slow because I’m beginner in the market and I know the English language a little so I have to translate your website and mails and
I have to understand them.
Thank you very much
Helena
Hi Eric
I read your blog and your newletter with interest and learning many things. I am new at blogging and slow in understanding. My blog is not working properly, URL does not lead users to a working page, have created a sitemap but can not upload it because Compressed (zipped) Folder is invalid or corrupted. Many other errors so please forgive if I have not bought any info. But you are doing a great job and I commend you for that. All the best.
Niranjan
Totally irrelevant but I’ve become a fan after your famous quote… “Twitter is gay”.
J-Mo
Hi Eric, well i really want your special teaching on how to creat a cute blog. Though am not good at that.
Is there a step by step software of link you have for that?
It seems that the phrase split testing is not actually accurate in how we re using it above.
Many of us are already doing A/B split testing on Google campaigns and it’s easy enough to do, aids with the continuous fine tuning and it’s extraordinarily results oriented since we test two ads and dump the one that didn’t work quite as well as the other, trying to replace it with something better.
Which gets a little complex/confusing if one ad in the pair produces high CTR but the other one actually produces noticeably more conversions.
However, in this case, is this split testing really not multi-variate testing?
And shouldn’t we be explaining the difference a little more strongly?
Testing many variables in a linear fashion can take literally 1000’s apon thousands of customers before trends appear.
The Taguchi or multi-variate method can start to give some results with as little as 40-50 potential customers, even across half dozen variables or more.
I don’t know what the exact numbers are with the Prophet program, but I am assuming that less than 100 potential customers can start to show trends that run fairly true in a short period of time.
Guys are we missing out something here????
Conversion prophet is not just about split testing, man, it predicts right from the start using the aida system what will win and what not.
You all know we love to know whats up with our future and stuff, right.
Well this tool tells us with a badass precision what the future of our campaign or keywords will be, success or failure.
What great power this give us.
This feature alone make it the best split testing tool ever created, the very best that beats tools yet to come.
Nothing else compares.
Rob
Hello,
It seems that your link is not working anymore.
How can we buy the software?
Is discount still valid?
Thank you.
Michel
Hello Michel,
The link should work again. They just switched over to a new payment processor.
Yes, you can still get a large discount!
Thank you.
The link is working now, but I do not see any HUGE discount available for Eric’s Tips readers…
Only the regular sales page discount, which make the software still very expensive at the moment.
Michel
Thanks Michel,
Unfortunately, I don’t have the price when Eric first wrote this review, and the discount that was offered then. That discount might also not be available anymore with the new payment processor.
I’m asking Eric about it!
Hello,
I wanted to know if Conversion Prophet tracks banner ads because I didn’t see anything about it on the sales page? Also, is the discount price still available to Eric subscribers?
Kindest Regards,
Fredrick
Hello Fredrick,
Yes, you can split-test and rotate unlimited number of pages and test multiple elements at the same time using Taguchi testing.
Yes, you can still get a large discount!
Hey Micah,
Thanks for responding to my question so fast, and how do I go about accessing the large discount? Can you provide me with the discount url website link?
Unfortunately, I don’t have the price when Eric first wrote this review, and the discount that was offered then.
It appears that they slashed the price for everyone when they moved to their new payment processor.
Hi Micah/Eric,
Is conversion prophet still available? Is the seller still supporting it? I have tried to reach out to him with some pre-sales questions but he does not respond.
Al.
Hello Al,
Here is what we currently recommend:
http://www.ericstips.com/test/
Did you check your spam folder for their replies? As far as we know, it should still be supported.
conversion prophet v3.241
getting an error message saying update failed.
Does anyone know where I can download a copy manually??