A 670% split test win producing that much “lift” — in this case more leads — is pretty good, so I wanted to tell you about how we achieved this for a client this Summer. Split testing is part of smart Conversion Rate optimization (CRO) and so a key to the R.A.C.E. strategic marketing framework we use (the “C” stands for Convert).
I’ll begin by summarizing some key takeaways:
- Always be testing. Why? It is the single best digital marketing tactic for ROI, especially used in a smart sales funnel strategy. EVERY business can use this, B2B and B2C.
- Test everything from ads to landing page to emails… and in this case — popups.
- It doesn’t have to be a major design change you test — after hundreds of tests per year, we often find, as in this case” that a headline persuasion focus can make all the difference.
- Think persuasion psychology when writing headlines.
- Emails addresses are still gold — always deploy incentives your prospects want in order to get them.
- Use a tool that calculates how much data you need related to visitor traffic before you have a valid test. We’ll review one below.
- Always be testing and practicing the science and art of CRO — Conversion Rate Optimization.
Split Test Win — 670% Lift for Eagle Consulting Partners
First… the winning popup… can you guess the factor that made it beat the control popup so much? Note that this was an A/B split test, though sometimes we do A/B/C tests:
Webdirexion Split Test Sees 670% Lift for Eagle Consulting Partners, one of 5 healthcare industry clients.
There were only two changes we made to this popup (done in Bloom plugin for WordPress). First, we changed the background color from Navy Blue to Orange. But the main change we made was to the headline by adding a little persuasion psychology. The original headline read, “Get a Free Eagle Risk Assessment Jumpstart PDF”. What’s missing? Yes.. “Free” is a magic word for copywriters to use for incentive, but sometimes it’s not enough. In this case, adding a benefit with a fear factor (persuasion psychology) made all the difference: “To Protect Your Organization”. It also answers the question “why/” very nicely.
Here’s what we saw on the backend of the Bloom Plugin for data:
Above is the Bloom popup data tracking screen for this split test win in WordPress admin. area. We’re comparing the two Jumpstart pop-ups in this split test.
As you can see in the first column, the A version of the split test was shown 131 times, and the B version — the winner — was shown 119 times. How do we know if that is enough data to declare a winner? We like to use the online A/B Test Guide calculator. There are others, but this one is very robust and thorough. Here’s what we saw when we fed the data into the Calculator:
Above in the green box, AB Testguide’s calculator shows a 95% certainty that the B version will significantly outperform the A version.
In statistics for split tests, just like in political polling, there is scientific calculation to determine probability of accuracy. We could have continued the test to see of we could raise the confidence percentage, though in A/B testing 95% is very good But in many tests we run, the differences are not so dramatic so you do need to run the test longer which means you may need 3 – 6 times the traffic to a landing page or to your site where pop ups appear.
Assuming you plan to instill a culture of testing for your team, how can you look for a split test win of 30% or more? 30% to 60% is more common, but imagine how an increase of 40% pays off on an ecommerce site. Follow the guidance at the top of the article, and if you like, i will send you more CRO tips from my book on Conversion Rate Optimization. Just go to our contact page and request them. Also, note that from our Surge Power Plan up, we routinely do split testing fr our clients. Strategic conversions should be a key part of your WordPress content strategy.
