Conversion Optimization & Analytics Services

In this post we will talk about the consequences of ending your A/B test too soon. The idea came to me when I saw some A/B and MTV tests case studies, which after running only a few days were declared as winning by the testing tools. Then I got ‘lucky’ and came across this very good example, as one of our tests we were running turned out to be a winning one on the following day. Mind you, this was a site with a high volume of traffic.

Let’s have a look at this actual example below. The following day after we launched the test, our testing tool declared a winner. According to our testing tool, we improved our conversion by a respectable 87.25% with 100% confidence level. Great! Well, not really. What’s the issue?

Technically, if you input the data (conversions & visits) into any statistical tool, it would show that this test was statistically valid. So seems like no issue here. However the issue is that the test didn’t run for long enough.

If we stopped the test then and pat each other on the shoulder about how great we were, then we would probably make a very big mistake. The reason for that is simple: we didn’t test our variation on Friday or Monday traffic, or on weekend traffic. But, because we didn’t stop the test (because we knew it was too early), our actual result looked very different.

The actual test result after 4 weeks of running was 10.49% improvement with 99% confidence level. The actual results differ from the initial ‘winning’ result by -731.74%. How is this possible? The reason is, every day you receive different traffic to your website and each day’s traffic behaves differently too.

Now, back to the consequences if we stopped this test then. Let’s say you were running this test in checkout, and on the following day you say to your boss something like “hey boss, we just increased our site revenue by 87.25%”. If I was your boss, you would make me extremely happy and probably would increase your salary too. So we start celebrating, but at the end of the month, instead of having 87% more money in our bank account, we see the same money we had last month.

To avoid this type of blunder, always be patient and run your tests for a minimum of 2 weeks with recommended maximum of 6 weeks and confidence level no less than 95%. Also, once your testing tool declares a wining variation, don’t stop your test immediately. Run it for another week to see if the result is solid.  A solid winning variation should, during this ‘control’ week, hold its winning status. If it doesn’t, then you haven’t found your winning version.

If you test like this, you will keep bringing sustainable, solid improvements to the site and results you can rely on.

From my own experience, web analytics tag audit seems to be overlooked by the majority of small and medium size online businesses.

This is probably due to several factors.

1. Web analytics is still not utilized in this group of business to its full potential, and it’s used just to ‘check’ what’s happening on the site. This is from my observation when working at an online media agency.

And you probably won’t believe me if I tell you, that I came across an online business making over $1 million a month from its websites, and they didn’t even have Google analytics installed! However, 3 months after we installed web analytics, we increased checkout conversion by 22.32% which equals an increase in revenue by $106,769 monthly, and demo downloads by 10.49%!

Just to put things straight here; if you install Google analytics, or any other web analytics tool on your site, it won’t make a darn difference in your conversion. It only makes the difference if you mine useful data from these tools, then act on it, as in our case, by doing A/B testing.

2. Lack of tools and it’s not cheap. There are around 3 or 4 free web analytics tag audit tools I’m aware of. However, these tools will scan only up to 200 pages. The problem: if you have an eCommerce website or a site with a blog, then very likely you have more than 200 pages. Plus, it isn’t cheap, as normally this cost from $750 and upwards depending on how many pages your site has.

3. Seems like nobody knows whose responsibility is it. The current state is that SME businesses usually outsource their SEO or PPC to an agency. In most cases these businesses don’t have a dedicated web analyst, and as mentioned above, use analytics just to ‘check’ the data.

An agency obviously does its PPC or SEO job for its client, but many times doesn’t question data integrity simply because it’s very difficult, if not impossible to spot that your web analytics tags are missing, apart from when they have been removed from some of the top landing pages. Secondly, it’s not the agency’s job.

So the question is, whose responsibility is it? Technically, it should be a web analyst, who along with your monthly report should also audit the site, to ensure the data reported is usable data and not junk.

But as I described above, most of the SME businesses don’t have a dedicated web analyst. So the next person should be your marketing manager. In my opinion it should be their responsibility to carry out a monthly web analytics tag audit.

How do analytics tags get removed?

In most cases it’s during some development or design changes on sites. And usually it’s the last thing on anyone’s mind to ask about analytics tags and if they are still there.

Also, in some cases it could happen during the actual analytics set up process, when if a site is template based, we forget to add it to a header template which for some reason is being used on some category section.

How often should you do an analytics tag audit?

There isn’t a hard rule, but in my opinion any website team/owner that lives by the data and creates analytics dashboard reports at least once a month, then actually acts on the data and uses their analytics data to make marketing decisions, should do it when the data is being presented.

Does that mean if you don’t live by data, and don’t act on it accordingly that we don’t need to do it?

Absolutely correct! In this case it would be a waste of your money just to check that your site is tagged properly and is counting well.

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Get your analytics tag audit from £97 at AuditInspector.com

5 Ways to Improve Your Email Marketing Performance – Webinar Invitation

Event Date: December 14, 2010 at 10:00 AM PST

Email marketers today are facing an extraordinary challenge: how to increase email effectiveness in the face of decreasing budgets and staffing. So how do you optimize your email marketing channel with minimal cost and effort?

To turn your email up a notch, it comes down to focusing on the things you can do now to make your email performance shine.

Spend a valuable hour with Lyris Global Director of Deliverability, Email Strategy and Privacy Compliance David Fowler, and Sr. Marketing Programs Manager Shannon Titus, who will share industry best practices and their expertise. Discover the five things you can start doing today to raise your email marketing to meet its revenue-generating potential:

1) Subject Lines: Fifty characters could be all that stands between you and email success. We’ll show you what works, what’s a waste of time and why.

2) Email Content: Providing value with relevant, customized email messages and offers. Learn how to tell if your email messaging is in tune with what your subscribers are telling you they want.

3) Landing Pages: The hard-working “conversion genies” of email campaigns. Email conversion rates can increase by as much as 60 percent with a well-executed, professional landing page.

4) Design and Rendering: Optimizing for ISPs, opens and click-throughs. We’ll share technical and design best practices for creating email that renders the way it should and compels the response you want.

5) Deliverability: It starts with managing your online reputation. Learn how a commitment to deliverability best practices can help you build and maintain an online reputation that boosts ROI.

The times demand greater revenue and ROI. Get started by registering for this informative one-hour session.

Special bonus: all Webinar attendees will receive a complimentary guide full of best practices, tips and techniques that will help you rev up your email revenue.

62% web forms are abandoned before completion – learn how to design single and multi-page forms that increase conversions.

In this Conversion Academy webcast, you’ll learn:

• Best practices when designing forms and landing pages
• Long forms vs short forms
• Field order, and why it’s important
• Landing page optimization techniques and best practices
• How to Facebook can help you to increase form conversions

Date: Thurs, November 18th
Time: 12:00 EST | 11:00 CST | 9:00 PST | 5:00 GMT
Duration: 60 minutes including 15 minutes Q&A
Register today for this Conversion Academy led by SeeWhy conversion experts!

In this webinar “Email optimization secrets or what 1,397 marketers are doing to get better results” by Lyris.

Key Takeaways – Top techniques that online marketers use today:

1. Web analytics – to analyze the results
2. List segmentation

3. Opt-in list building – always ask your email subscribers confirm subscription to your email list
4. ROI measurement – what to measure

• revenue
• new leads generated
• new customers
  

5. Social media marketing – which social media sites produced the best marketing result

6. Deliverability optimization – tactics used to improve email deliverability

Also recommend to read this proven email deliverability best practices.

7. Email testing – a/b testing by splitting email lists into portions and/or more advanced multivariate testing.

This webinar will open in new window