Quick, Efficient Split Testing Guide For Businesses

You've probably heard it before... split testing is everything. If you can bump conversion even by 1%-5%, you can increase your net profits by several thousands of dollars.

Yet, most people don't do it.

And it blows my mind, because it's FUN as hell (and makes you a ton of money)

This is what I'm doing, it's dead simple, and I'll include the exact numbers so this will be kind of a 'case study' at the same time. I'm doing this for Hyperhour, which is a kick ass time tracking solution (and they have accepted to let me share their numbers)

Step 1.

Any way you cut it, you need a tool to split test. Results don't magically come out of thin air. I personally signed up for Optimizely because... well... they are f'ing badass and super simple to use.

But...

You can also use Google A/B testing as well (which is free, but it requires you to compile entirely new pages)

And I know there are a bunch of php scripts that will help you split test. But trust me, the simplest option I've found so far is optimizely.

Step 2.
Start with easy, yet significant changes.

For instance, right now I'm starting with the headline... and ONLY the headline. You'd be amazed if you saw how MUCH of an impact a simple headline can have. (And you'll see by the results.... it really DOES have a huge impact).

So for the headline, we want to have a gradient of headlines. I like to hit different emotional triggers and see how far I can push each one.

For example, I'll split test a range of emotional/benefits triggers: (Here's my brainstorm)
- Hyperhour increases worker performance (Gain)
- Hyperhour saves you money (Fear of loss)
- Hyperhour gives you control (Feeling of power)
- Hyperhour helps you feel secure (Peace of mind, paranoia)
- Hyperhour helps bring your team together (Friendship, love, etc)

Once I know all the emotional triggers I'm trying to target, it's time to start SPLIT TESTING the crap out of them!

Step 3.
Actual split testing is fun... and I'll include SOME of the results thus far because I know that it's the juice that everyone wants to see anyways

Here's me working specifically the SECURE, PEACE OF MIND angle.

Here are the headlines being tested:

#0 Original: Manage your employees, without being intrusive, without any maintenance…

#1 Little Aggressive: Track Your Employees Work, Without being intrustive, without any maintenance…

#2 More Aggressive: Track Your Employees and Know EXACTLY What Is Happening Inside Your Company

#3 Super Aggressive: Big Brother Employee Tracking: Screenshots, Time Reports For Your Business

#4 Aggressive Paranoia: Never Be Taken Advantage Of Again By Your Employees: Hyperhour Time Tracking

Cool, so as you can see, we have a small amount of headlines that have varying degrees of intensity. The idea behind split testing like this is that you can get a better read on what people REALLY want.

Do they respond well to the thought of their employees stealing? Or maybe they don't like that idea and they prefer the idea of saving money?

Step 4: Let the traffic flow!

Now if you already have an established funnel & traffic sources (for instance Hyperhour has a kick ass affiliate program, so people are constantly sending a bunch of traffic to them)

BUT

Let's assume you don't have affiliates sending traffic left and right... what do you do?

Simple, load up Google adwords, throw in $50 and "play ball!"

Seriously, $50 in PPC will get you more than you need to know in traffic, conversions, etc. Fortunately, we play with a much higher budget, but any amount in Adwords is a great way to get "near instant" split testing results... even if you don't know a thing about Adwords.

Remember, the idea isn't to make your Adwords campaign profitable... it's JUST to split test your changes to see which one is the best. Once you're done, you can go back to any traffic generation methods that you like.

Step 5: Results

Ok results, so what did the best? The conservative "Manage Your Employees" headline or the hyper aggressive headlines?

Well, it was a toss-up that I really didn't expect.

I tracked the conversion from index.php -> subscribe.php results... in other words, how many people saw the first page... and then went to the sign up page. (Obviously, I'm also tracking sales, but that's more private numbers. Over 46 sales were generated during the experiment as I type this)

#0 - Original Page 53.84615385
#1 - Little Aggressive 41.66666667
#2 - More Aggressive 44.44444444
#3 - Super Aggressive 28.57142857
#4 - Aggressive Paranoia 53.32384432

COOL!

So we learned a bunch of awesome stuff from a quick split testing session.

FIRST, the headline has a DRAMATIC effect on your product. Having changed nothing else, the conversions went from 28.57% to 53.84%.

SECOND, it gives us a great read on how people feel. Instead of having random headlines, we now know that people respond well to the idea of having a healthy team INSTEAD of being super aggressive. (Makes sense, but you have to test!)

They also seem to respond very well to paranoia... "Never be taken advantage of again!" seems to really hit home with businesses that have had less than honest employees in the past.

Step 6. Expand, improve and repeat

Cool, so now we've done a simple split test based on ONE emotional trigger... next we go and test a completely different category. For instance, the next category will concentrate on how Hyperhour saves you a bunch of money.

Once we have the "winners" of each emotional category, then we pit them against each other and have an ULTIMATE SPLIT TESTING BATTLE with all the winners. It's like American Idol for internet marketing.

Split testing gives you unbelievable insights on how your pages are doing, on your target customers and it's actually incredibly fun to do (because this is the part where you can try all your wacky ideas). I can't wait to start testing the next pages

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask me any questions,

p.s. Try to send a minimum of 500 (and 1000 visitors is recommended) to the site to get an accurate conversion assessment.