Do You Get Hung Up On Stats?

[Steven Wagenheim]

Don't get me wrong, you have to track things or you have no idea if what
you're doing is working or not.

But...do you get hung up on stats?

I'm talking about micromanaging them to the point of almost absurdity.

Like...

"Well, my CTR on my articles is 30.6%. Now if only I could get it to 31.7%"

I mean at what point does nit picking over every 1% get to be ridiculous?

Yes, I know, 1% of 100,000 views is 1,000 more views and if you're
converting at 2% that's 20 more sales.

But so what?

I mean if you have something that's working, keep doing what you're
doing, spend less time checking your stats and more time actually doing
work.

Sure, if you write a half dozen articles and you have 100 views for each
and only 1 click through for each 100 views, you have a serious problem.

But I'm not talking about the point in your tracking where you're trying to
get from ZERO to a respectable number. I'm talking about where you
already have a respectable CTR and you're sweating bullets over trying to
get it up another 1%.

Me?

I just keep doing what I'm doing as long as it's working.

How do I know it's working?

Because I'll submit an article and 2 hours after it's posted at EZA a sale
comes in. That's how I know. I don't worry about if I'm getting 30% CTR
or 40% or 20% or whatever. I have enough confidence in my procedure
that if I've done my niche and keyword research properly, I'm going to
make money.

I'll bet dollars to donuts that I spend less time checking my stats than
just about any marketer online who's actually making money.

Again, I'm not suggesting you don't keep an eye on what you're doing. I
just don't think obsessing over your stats is healthy.

Yes, it's my personal philosophy on this subject and I certainly know a lot
of people will disagree.

But I'd rather spend my time writing an article that I know once posted
is going to bring me traffic and sales than spend it going over my stats to
see where I can squeeze out another 1%.

So let's hear from some others.

Am I spending my time wisely, or am I making a big mistake not getting
every drop out of every little thing I do?

I'm curious to see who falls on what side of this issue.

[SolomonHuey]

I agree.

I tried to debate a similar point before, but it seems spending time trying to improve from 70% to 70.2% conversions is more important than producing more content for some people.

I'd rather spend that time creating another income stream and double my sales than nitpicking over tiny numbers and see a fraction of a percentage increase in sales.

Solomon Huey

[jhongren]

I feel it is ok to track the important
ones such as CTR for promo emails
and sales pages...

And it is ok to fine tune them a few times

But certainly we can't do it forever...

So a healthy balance is the key to
get rid of this stats-checking obsession.

My 2 cents,
John

[tommygadget]

Steven,

I'm a stats. freak, but you need to strike a balance otherwise your stats. checking will get in the way of real work.

TomG.

[zapseo]

Most people who at least start to track don't do so with "common sense".

What is "common sense" -- and, like they say, not so common ?

It means having a holistic view of the situation so you know what makes sense and what doesn't. It means understanding the underpinnings.

Most people learn a few things -- soundbytes -- and work to apply them.

Sometimes absurdly so.

And that's fine, it's part of an educational process.

The point is for people to not get stuck at the beginning, but move on to more fully understand how statistics work. what works and what doesn't work. What is a statistically valid statement? What is statistical confidence levels?

More than 1% point differences in traffic is Where is the best converting traffic coming from?

Start from your best successes and work backwards to see what makes them tick.

Frequently, people start with something that converts poorly and then waste horrendous amounts of time minutely testing various parts of the page to improve conversions.

No...throw the dang thing out and start over.

You're wasting your time & your life this way.

Your problem could be (and more often is) poor market research -- and no amount of testing & tracking on a sales page is going to get you to the promised land.

You can't fix upstream problems downstream -- you must fix them upstream.

Let's put this into perspective.

Many marketers have been taken in by the copywriter's siren song "you're just one letter away from mega-success."

That's like saying the keystone in the archway is responsible for the entire structural integrity of the archway! It's a very important piece, to be sure. But it's nothing without the other structural elements. If they are of poor quality, the keystone will not help them.

Live JoyFully!

Judy Kettenhofen, Profit Strategist/Copywriter
NextDay Copy

[Andyhenry]

Hi Steven,

I tend to put less weight on the actual numbers in my conversions and focus more on the changes in the number.

I'll test new pages/ads to optimise conversion and then I just watch the trends and changes.

Sometimes there are factors that are not obvious which make the numbers unusual and watching too closely can result in wanting to make unnecessary changes due to ignorance of the reason things changed.

Andy