I don't believe this! Higher opt-in rate, fewer sales

by Eduard
17 replies
Warriors, maybe some of you can explain this to me. It confuses the hell out of me right now.

A couple of weeks ago I started a split test for two squeeze pages. Page A includes a short paragraph about myself and lists in bullets points the things subscribers will learn from the free video they'll get access to when they join my newsletter.

Page B is minimalist: just an enticing headline (the same as page B), an opt-in box and barely anything else. Here are the results:

Page A opt-in rate: 19%.
Page B opt-in rate: 30%.

So, quite an improvement. Now, here's where it gets weird.

Sales generated by page A: 11.
Sales generated by page B: 5.

That's right. Page B has a considerably higher opt-in rate, yet in generated considerably less sales.

I could have understood if it generated the same amount of sales as squeeze page A. It would have meant that those extra opt-ins it created were not buyers, just freebie seekers.

But generating that fewer sales? I simply don't understand this.

I hope it's just that the sales sample size until now is too small and this difference in sales is just an accident, because otherwise I'm confused about this.

What do you think?
#don’t #don’t #fewer #higher #optin #rate #sales
  • Profile picture of the author jaypoole
    It's possible that squeeze page A gave you better qualified prospects. These people knew what they were going to get and decided to go for it.. So you got less opt-ins but those that did were more likely to want to sign up.

    Squeeze page B on the other hand had people who weren't sure what was going to be presented to them after clicking so were a totally different unknown. The probability of getting the type of prospects that you got in A is greatly reduced because you didn't qualify the type of lead you were after..
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    • Profile picture of the author pheonixrises
      Originally Posted by jaypoole View Post

      It's possible that squeeze page A gave you better qualified prospects. [...]
      I agree with this. Keep playing with it and see if you can find a sweet spot!
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    • Profile picture of the author Melvin Gonzalez
      Originally Posted by jaypoole View Post

      It's possible that squeeze page A gave you better qualified prospects. These people knew what they were going to get and decided to go for it.. So you got less opt-ins but those that did were more likely to want to sign up.

      Squeeze page B on the other hand had people who weren't sure what was going to be presented to them after clicking so were a totally different unknown. The probability of getting the type of prospects that you got in A is greatly reduced because you didn't qualify the type of lead you were after..
      That is right.

      The less info you show on your squeeze pages sometimes get you better optin ratios, as explained by jaypoole the fewer info bring curious people to the offer, that does not mean that is better to full explain the offer to get more sales, you are still getting new subssribers that can be monetized later.

      Is your job to educate your new subscribers to get them to buy the product in the subsequent emails, so if it is important to have a good autoresponder sequence when your primary focus is to promote an a specific product.

      Melvin Gonzalez
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Melvin Gonzalez View Post

        The less info you show on your squeeze pages sometimes get you better optin ratios
        No, I'm afraid not. Not at all, in fact: what you tend to get is "higher" opt-in ratios, not "better" ones.

        Typically, as so many people are explaining above, in our different ways, "higher" tends to work out "worse", not "better".

        As people who do proper split-testing - rather than assuming that "higher" is going to be "better" - tend to discover for themselves.

        Originally Posted by Melvin Gonzalez View Post

        Is your job to educate your new subscribers to get them to buy the product in the subsequent emails
        Not my job at all.

        And certainly not my idea of fun, thanks, Melvin.

        Marketing is about identifying what people are already looking for, and providing it for them.

        I'd hate to have to persuade people to be interested in what I'm selling: if I'd started with that kind of approach, I honestly wouldn't still be in business at all.

        I need people who are already interested in it.

        It's easy to make money if you opt in only people who don't need to be educated much. Selectivity is the key. As so many people explain above, in various different forms of words, trying simply "to opt in as many people as possible" is a real mistake: that way you end up with bigger lists, higher costs, more work, less convenience and fewer sales at the end of it. I can earn twice as much, with less work, from 400 people looking for what I'm selling than I can from 600 people who need to be "educated".
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  • Profile picture of the author wfhblueprints
    Originally Posted by Eduard View Post

    Warriors, maybe some of you can explain this to me. It confuses the hell out of me right now.

    A couple of weeks ago I started a split test for two squeeze pages. Page A includes a short paragraph about myself and lists in bullets points the things subscribers will learn from the free video they'll get access to when they join my newsletter.

    Page B is minimalist: just an enticing headline (the same as page B), an opt-in box and barely anything else. Here are the results:

    Page A opt-in rate: 19%.
    Page B opt-in rate: 30%.

    So, quite an improvement. Now, here's where it gets weird.

    Sales generated by page A: 11.
    Sales generated by page B: 5.

    That's right. Page B has a considerably higher opt-in rate, yet in generated considerably less sales.

    I could have understood if it generated the same amount of sales as squeeze page A. It would have meant that those extra opt-ins it created were not buyers, just freebie seekers.

    But generating that fewer sales? I simply don't understand this.

    I hope it's just that the sales sample size until now is too small and this difference in sales is just an accident, because otherwise I'm confused about this.

    What do you think?
    I think you might be right and your sample size might be too small.

    Did both A + B (Squeeze pages) have an equal number of signups?

    Regards

    Chris
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  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by Eduard View Post

    What do you think?
    I'm unsurprised. Honestly.

    In all the squeeze page split-testing I've ever done (ok, let's not exaggerate, I've done it only for 6 months, simultaneously in each of four entirely unrelated niches), I earned less money over the 6-month period from the bigger list.

    I think the explanation, in your case, is one of these two things:-

    (i) Your figures are too small for it to mean much, and it may reverse ... (or) ...

    (ii) They're "different people".

    In my case, it was explanation (ii).

    The easy thing to assume is that if one sort of opt-in produces a lot more opt-ins than another sort, what's happening is that you're getting all the "original" people (or their equivalents) and some "extras".

    It doesn't work this way.

    What you're really getting is two different groups of people (with less overlap than you'd perhaps think).

    More people will perhaps opt in to a "minimal" squeeze page, but those are people who don't buy as much, collectively. The people who make good customers are a different subset of traffic, a different demographic, and they're people who won't opt in to a bare squeeze page. Or some of them, anyway. Enough of them to make a real difference, though.

    I think the two main mistakes that people make in this regard are (a) not to split-test at all, and (b) to assume that building a bigger list is necessarily going to lead to a bigger income: not only is this incorrect, but there are sometimes reasons for the opposite being the case.

    Just my perspective.
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    • Profile picture of the author Eduard
      Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

      The easy thing to assume is that if one sort of opt-in produces a lot more opt-ins than another sort, what's happening is that you're getting all the "original" people (or their equivalents) and some "extras".

      It doesn't work this way.

      What you're really getting is two different groups of people (with less overlap than you'd perhaps think).

      More people will perhaps opt in to a "minimal" squeeze page, but those are people who don't buy as much, collectively. The people who make good customers are a different subset of traffic, a different demographic, and they're people who won't opt in to a bare squeeze page. Or some of them, anyway. Enough of them to make a real difference, though.
      Wow, this is golden! Thanks Alexa.
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  • Profile picture of the author laurenceh
    You probably want to keep testing over time to see what happens as your numbers increase, but my instinct is that like Jay said, those who opted in from Page A had a better idea about what you were offering, and learned enough about you to want to give you their details.

    Because they knew more about you they'd have been warmer when you came to offer them something.


    I'd be interested to know how many newsletters/emails they got between opting in and being sent your offer.

    I'd hazard a guess if you gave the subscribers from Page B a little longer to get to know you they'd be more inclined to buy.
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      It's starting to sound like an echo, but color me 'not surprised' as well.

      The two squeeze pages set different expectations. Especially if everything after the squeeze was the same. Your first version acted as a filter, causing some to opt in who might not otherwise and filtering out some who might respond to the more minimalist approach.

      As laurenceh pointed out, adding a message might help you get the best of both worlds. If you're looking for another test, you could try putting the intro material from version A as part of the welcome message for sequence B.

      I do tend to think you'll find that your original approach will be the most profitable, but you won't know for sure with your visitors until you try.
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    • Profile picture of the author Eduard
      Originally Posted by laurenceh View Post

      You probably want to keep testing over time to see what happens as your numbers increase, but my instinct is that like Jay said, those who opted in from Page A had a better idea about what you were offering, and learned enough about you to want to give you their details.

      Because they knew more about you they'd have been warmer when you came to offer them something.


      I'd be interested to know how many newsletters/emails they got between opting in and being sent your offer.

      I'd hazard a guess if you gave the subscribers from Page B a little longer to get to know you they'd be more inclined to buy.
      This makes sense, I only started the split test about 2 weeks ago, and I send an email about once every 2 or 3 days, so the subscribers from the second list may require more time to warm up to my offer.
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeTucker
    What Alexa said.

    And, your answer is in your own post:

    Originally Posted by Eduard View Post

    A couple of weeks ago I started a split test for two squeeze pages. Page A includes a short paragraph about myself and lists in bullets points the things subscribers will learn from the free video they’ll get access to when they join my newsletter.

    Page B is minimalist: just an enticing headline (the same as page B), an opt-in box and barely anything else. Here are the results:

    1. Nobody will ever trust you if they don't know something about you, and it is a basic truth that buying things is a risk, and trust is the only thing that can overcome that risk.

    2. You told them what they were going to get, rather than only asking for the sign-up. Sure, many may have signed-up out of curiosity, or to see if you had anything worth stealing. And, in Page A, some people chose not to opt-in because they weren't interested when they knew what it was-- you didn't have what they were looking for at the time. But those who did, they were actually interested.


    Hope this helps. And now, I refer you to Alexa's post above me once again.
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  • Profile picture of the author thetrafficguy
    How much traffic did you send and was it a split of the same traffic at the same time?
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    • Profile picture of the author Eduard
      Originally Posted by thetrafficguy View Post

      How much traffic did you send and was it a split of the same traffic at the same time?

      I've sent almost 2000 visits to each of the two pages, from the same sources, at the same time.
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  • Profile picture of the author alcymart
    I would think it has everything to do with your Ad copies and targets different folks simply. I fail to see any other reason.

    Bernard
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeTucker
    Generally when you split test something, you should only have one variable-- change only one single thing.

    That way, after a lot of traffic, you know which specific thing is better. Do this repeatedly and you will find what is most effective for yourself and the type of traffic you are driving.

    ...Then, if you change traffic types, you almost start all over.
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  • Profile picture of the author David Keith
    I actually do find this somewhat surprising given the information you have explained. You have experienced a more than 100% difference in buyers. That is a HUGE variance.

    Like Alexa mentions, the normal reason for the results your experiencing is in fact that you have attracted 2 different groups of people who don't overlap as much as you would think.

    However, in my experience this effect is more pronounced on really long optin pages vs very short ones. I have concluded that the long sales page style optin pages actually attracts more "buyer" types than freebie seekers. And the super short style are more often than not seen as gimicy by the "buying" crowd. The folks who read the whole long optin page were likely considering making a purchase, but they were pleasantly surprised to find the offer was free.

    In your experiment you don't seem to have added a bunch of content, so the huge variance in buyers is surprising. I am more inclined to believe at this point that you are just not dealing with enough information to make a clear statistical determination yet.

    Also, as a John pointed out, you need to quickly setup the expectations of those who signed up using the short page. Do this on the thank you page and the first few emails.

    Having continuity in your marketing plan is not something that gets enough attention. just changing the optin page style changed more than you realize about how you should be dealing with the "after optin" happenings.
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  • Profile picture of the author xxxJamesxxx
    You may need to run your split-test longer as your sales numbers look a little low.

    Also, your squeeze with the lower optin may of done a better job of pre-selling your product than the higher converting one. This happens more than you think.

    James Scholes
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