Split Testing Your Marketing Elements

If you're not familiar with split testing, here's how it works:

Instead of running one ad, run two. This could be either newspaper ads, Yellow Pages ads, pay per click ads… Anything.

Realize this: what you're going to be testing is the effectiveness of one ad (how much you make from running the ad) verses the effectiveness (or conversion rate, or pull) of the other ad.

Testing in the offline world, such as newspapers, phone books or even newsletters can take time. Since phone books come out once a year, you could grow old and die before you know the results of your ad effectiveness. I don't recommend using a Yellow Pages ad to do split testing.

First, create two ads. They don't have to have any similarities. Run them both. Let the ad run long enough to give you a reasonable amount of exposure. In the case of pay per click, you can assume that 500 impressions, or more than 20-30 clicks will give you a reasonable result. In the case of newsletter marketing, a form of direct mail, you can test different elements with each issue. When you start making changes keep track of what you change and tweak one, and only one, element at a time.

It is essential that you only change one element at a time. When you split test, if you change multiple elements you won't know why your numbers change. After all, split testing is about using the numbers to help you decide what's working and what's working better. So if you go from blue ink to black, and also put quotes around your headline, how will you know what made the difference from one newsletter to the next in conversion rate?

Elements you can change include:

• A word in your headline
• Bold or regular text
• An underlined word
• Quotes or no quotes
• Title case or sentence case

There are literally thousands of changes you can make. Split testing your ads never ends. Use it continually to improve your sales on an ongoing basis.

If you're ready to implement this or other strategies you find here at SiteSOHO.com, we're available to assist. Please see our Services and Fees page to find the level of service that's right for you.