G Cache Taking Over Updates?

I've done a lot of testing before posting this but I'm quite sure that G cache actually takes over site representation for a given user if they've been there for a certain instance of your test. I manage many sites and was trying to change a graphic image on a test page, of course just replacing it without changing the name and uploading, and after several attempts, even replacing via cpanel file manager, the new image does not show up. I opened up a new site and did a similar test in my developing environment and as usual no problem...I am very curious about this.

Are there limitations to changing files within a page while a test is active???

Product Price Point Testing Using Google Website Optimizer

I've just launch my first price point test using G OPtimizer and a new clickbank product. Here is how I did it:

First, I setup 2 addional CB products which are actually the same product just different prices. I use DLGuard download manager so I had to do the same thing there, point to the new CB product numbers for each price point.

The three price points are 22.00, 12.99, and 9.00.

The object is to determine which combination of volume x price creates the best revenue stream (expenses are the same for all three price points).

In Optimizer, I sectioned off (for those new to this blog see my terms post here) the portion of the sales page that had buy links and the price stated.

I use a link > redirect to help organize my buy link so I created 2 more of them (/buy.htm, buy9.htm, buy12.htm) so each one refreshed to the appropriate CB download link I created in DLGuard. For those not using DLGuard, you would simply put your different product link associated with each price point on the different pages. This can also be done directly in the variants if you use a direct buy link.

The variants each sectioned off three links to purchase: the buy now button, the image of the ebook cover, and the "buy right now" text. You can see it here:Buying a Mattress.

Thats it. All incoming traffic (see here for post explaining what traffic Google Optimizer measures)will be divided up among the three prices...and eventually we'll see a clear winner.


meegwell

Cleaning up a Variant Test on the Full Site Experiment - Plus Tips & a New Experiment

The Google Website Optimizer test I put together that basically created a whole new navigation system (see HERE) was daunting to say the least. I wasn't happy with the way the test variant looked, it was too crammed and busy - just messy looking. The goal was to cut down on the options of places to go and combine the sales page into the landing page. I have since cleaned it up a bit, added a new eCover and removed a lot of the other graphics. This taints the test a bit but it is slow going anyway given the small niche the book is geared toward.

One of the most important things when doing a large experiment like this is organizing your pages and code. I basically made copies of the pages involved, and had the old and the new open in my development window at the same time. Since I was redesigning the whole page, I placed the test section tags immediately within the body tags - this made it easy to spot and cut down on possible problems.

The Google Optimizer preview window (and the live site) played some games with the styles - although I was doing a whole body cut and paste, some styles showed differently in the test variant then the original - even though the code was the same for that given part (i.e. some text that was unrelated to the changes I made).

I'm still not sure why this happened. I am a bit guilty of sloppy coding - I'm not a programmer or developer - I just sort of wing that with the help of Dreamweaver.

I have my next experiment planned already and it is something totally different. I'm about to launch a new product and what I'm going to do from day one is test 3 different prices. I'll basically set up three products in Clickbank, which will all be the same except for the price. I'll change the text and the link info in each variant to reflect the different prices. There should be a lot of traffic for this campaign so I'll see results right away. I'll have to look at returns also since the price people pay will affect their decision to return a product.

I'm looking forward to that one.

Website Optimizer: What Traffic Does it Track? What Kind of Test is it?

I've seen these questions come up on various boards and such:

What traffic does Google Optimizer track? Does it only track AdWords?

Google Optimizer tracks and does the multivariant testing on all incoming traffic, regardless of source. You need an AdWords account because all the tracking and G analytics horsepower is housed within AdWords - Google Optimizer leverages off of this...why reinvent the wheel?


What Type of Testing Does it Do? (Taguchi, A/B, etc)

I've seen a lot of misinformation on this topic. Particularly around Taguchi - it seems that a lot of folks in the Internet Marketing world are a bit confused here.

Here is quick explanation:

Factorial Experiments allow you to test multiple 'factors' with multiple 'choices'. For example, a factor could be an image on a landing page and a choice would be various images being swapped.

Now, outside of automated efficient electronic type of testing, such as testing physical operations like machines or chemicals, the tests become very expensive with the more factors and choices you add. Remember permutations? The possible number of combinations expands greatly with each new factor and choice of factor.

So, we have "Fractional Factorials" which in a nut shell limit the amount of total combinations via statistics needed to get a meaningful result. Taguchi is a form of fractional factorial experiments.

So back to the web - It costs nothing more to do 10 factors with 20 choices then it does to do 2 factors with 2 choices....so there is no need for a fractional method like Taguchi.

Google Optimizer uses a full factorial method, where the factors are the "test sections" and the choices are the "variants" on a given experiment page.


Hope this helps,

Meegwell

More Google Optimzer Sales Page Results

The full site test at prowebvalue is still collecting data - I have yet to report on the issues I had there but will shortly. In the meantime, Im seeing some more clear results from the original sales page test. Here is the indivual page results:



As you can see, 2 of the 3 changes are beating the original on a stand alone basis. The top row shows an estimated conversion rate of .85 to 2.85. This is figured by factoring in the stated margin of error (see the +/- 1%?). The second one is similar, and the third has the original beating the new, with a similar estimated conversion.

I am going to make a request to G to clearly show an "improvement" percentage for this report.

The combo results tell a different story but I've got to catch a train and will report those tonight.

Landing Page Experiment: A Full Site Test!

My first test is still running fine and I'll get back to that one when more data has come in. Unlike that first test, which was simply swapping out some variations of different sales page elements, my second test was much more involved!

I just finished launching the second test, and quite frankly I'm a little nervous given all the changes that were involved. Here's the scenario:

This test became so involved I'm going to post the links to the new and old so you can get a feel for yourselves.

I wanted to change a the landing page of an old site of mine. The site sells a book that teaches professional valuation techniques, applied to websites. It was one of my first projects and is a small technical niche - kind of a "near the heart" thing and not so much for the sales.

The plan was to incorporate the sales page into the landing page, and eliminate some of the paths that needed to be taken before a visitor is presented with the option to buy the book. The problem is those paths were many, and in order to keep a good amount of information (like table of contents samples), many pages had to be duplicated and re-designed since the sales page was now the index (those other pages had links to the old sales page location). Can you picture this mess?

So I did it. I created the new landing pages, cut out a bunch of the duplicate links and paths, and just left the table of cocntents samples. For each sampl, I built a new page that sent the visitor back to the index, so they dont end up at what was the old sales page.

This basically creates a whole new site - the content being the same, but the whole navigation system is different...Im sure I screwed something up I'll catch tomorrow.

Problems and tips: these were o' plenty - but it's a bit late now so Im going to post details tomorrow. For now, I've setup the 'old' and the 'new' in a separate directory and kept all the linking for each as if Google Website Optimizer brought you to each page.

The old, original index was this: Original



The new index, and site navigatio and sample pages is here: New Variant




note: In order to put this "original" out there, I had to remove all Google Optimizer coding.

Like I said, I'll dive into the details of actually creating this test tomorrow...

Editing Experiments in Google Website Optimizer

When I went to edit my original Experiment so I could add more Test Sections, the first thing I did was Stop the test. Don't do this. The Experiment is then considered "done". I had to recreate the experiment and replace much of the tracking code. I thought at first, "no problem, all the tracking code and scripts are in place"...but as discussed in this previous post, that didn't matter.

So I re-pasted all the tracking code and scripts. There is a 'pause' feature which is probably the correct option for doing this - if that is even really necessary.

At first I was having a hard time figuring out how to go back and add more Test Sections to an exsisting Experiment (without "stopping" it!) - then I noticed the "edit" link on the right hand side of the checck list telling you what steps have been completed when you click on the Experiment name.

Take note of this: when previewing your variations, hit the save button first - after you paaste your variation code in the box - otherwise it wont show up and you'll probably think error first.

What I added: I put a variation on a blank space below the discounted price that read "limited sale price", and also replaced a large amount of data in a table. The table contained three books that are part of the package and also had many links to see samples of the books and other related pages. I thought I would test out getting rid of all the links (possibly distracting the potential customer) and re-arranged the books so the most popular selling book was up top, and the second two were listed as 'Free Bonuses'.

The way I handeled the variation code was pinpointing the TR and /TR for the set of three rows containing the info on the three books. I made the changes in Dreamwaever using the test editing page duplicate (discussed in this post) and then just cut and pasted into the variation box in Google Website Optimizer, taking note to cut from the same exact TR and /TR that I placed the Test Section Code in.

So I feel like I've come a long way in the past few days...Ive got a lot more experiment with and look forward to posting on the reports.

Ironing Out More Wrinkles Setting Up Google Optimizer Split Tests

The problem with the delay in conversion tracking I had was that I left the product password on the (off domain) download page - the one I disccovered earlier I couldn't use as a Google Optimizer converion page becasue it was on a different domain. My resolution to that problem was to tell the customer they needed to click "here" to get the password (and land on an on-domian conversion page) - which didn't work since they saw the password I left on the download page and went about their merry way without ever hitting my conversion page. I fixed that by deleting the "the password to open the .pdf is..." text from the download page.

More Things I've Learned & Updates:

OK - I've now tried to modify an experiment unsuccesfully, and then successfully...adding a significantly more amount of Test Section combinations. I learned a lot and have updated the Clarifying Terms post to better reflect the relationship between Google Website Optimizer Experiments, Test Pages, Test Sections, Variations, and Conversion Pages.

I've also discovered that you can't use the same Test Page script on all pages, originally thinking I could add it to a Dreamweaver Template in the header. I updated a previous post about that here.

My original Experiment, which simply added a graphic showing an "old price" (higher) crossed out and none such thing as variants above the actual price produced results of a .62% conversion with the crossed out higher price, 0% without (only about a day of testing).

Next I wanted to add some more Test Sections and Variations to this experiment, but ran into a fatal flaw I'll discuss in my next post...

Google Optimizer Terms Clarifications

I wanted to take a moment to clarify the terms I'm using here since it can get a bit confusing. I'm trying to stick with capitalizing official Google Optimizer terms, which I'll define below, but in earlier posts I wasn't doing this and probably using multiple terms for one meaning.

The most confusing is the term 'test' since I and many others use it a lot when talking about this type of subject, becasue hey, we are testing stuff and we do trial and error related tests just to complete our test!

In Google Optimizer and this blog, a Test Section is something distinct (notice the capital T?):

note: these definitions are not official, they are just my interpretation.


Test Section: a snippet of code within a page that is being swapped. There could be multiple Test Sections on a single Test Page. Exaples may be a graphic or text headline (html). Each Test Section can have multiple Variations.

Variations: Different versions of Test Sections. For Example, if you are testing a header that originally said "Flying Swamp Chickens Here!", you would section off that html for the text as a Test Section within your Test Page, then add one or more Variations such as "Big Flying Swamp Chickens: Gettum' Here!" and "Fat Flying Swamp Chickens Found Here!".

Test Page: The web page you are performing Tests on. Usually a sales page or a landing page, the Test Page will contain one or more Test Sections where images, text, prices, graphics, etc are 'swapped' for different visitors and those visitor's actions are tracked to see if they make it to a Conversion Page.

Conversion Page: The page that measures the success (by way of a visit) of the Tests on the Test Page. As visitors visit the Test Page, and different visitors see a different Test or combination of Tests, they may or may not end up at the Conversion Page. If they do, that information is tracked, or credited, to the Test ot Test combination that visitor was exposed to when they visited the Test Page. The Conversion Page is usually a "goal" like a visitor signing up for something, or purchasing something...i.e., a "thank you" page.

Experiment: A combination of a Test Page with one or more Test Sections, Variations of Test Sections, and a Conversion Page.

Test Page Tracking Code: The code placed in the header of the Test Page to track visitors and create the Tests.

Test Section Code: The code used to 'wrap' the sections of code on the Test Page that will be swapped with two or more variations. The sections are all given names within the Test Section Code.

Conversion Page Code: Code placed in the body of the conversion page that tracks when a visitor visits, and helps to associate that visitor with which Test Sections they were exposed to, given that particular combination of Test Section Variations credit for the conversion in the reports.

In a previous post here, I mentioned a delay in G optimizer conversion data posting...turns out it was a bit of user error...you know, a problem between the mouse and the chair...that may have caused it. I'll explain in my next post.

Helpful Tip: Setup a "Testing" Page to Grab Code

In G Optimizer you need to replace sections of code within a given Test Page (Experiment)with alternative code. I found it easiest to copy the page in my development environment, renaming it from sales.php to test_sales.php or whatever, with no intent to ever upload it.

From there you can tweak the various aspects you want to test, such as headings, sales pitch, price or price font size, whatever...all on the test_sales.php without worrying about screwing up your original. Then, you can copy and paste the code section into G optimizer more easily: the start/stop sections are easy to loacte since they are surrounded by the same code as the actual Test Page - this makes it easier for placing your Test Section code.

meegwell

Templates and G Optimizer Tracking Code

I use Dreamweaver for development and typically have a single "main" template for each site. G Optimizer requires you to put a script in the header of the page you will be testing for a given experiment, along with the tracking code on that page and your conversion page, as well as the start/stop code snippets to ID the sections of html to be tested, or 'swapped', on your test page.

I immediately ran into the problem of code having to be embedded in non-editable template regions of the page. What I did was place the tracking script in the header of the template, so all pages have that now. I've only experimented so far with testing sections within editable regions so the test section code hasn't been a problem....and then the tracking code can go anywhere in the body so that shouldn't be a problem with anyone.

UPDATE: You can't get away with posting the tracking code in the template for it is unique for each experiment. You'll need to put an 'editable attribute' section in the template head and add the script there for each test page.

I ran my first test of Google Optimizer on a pure test test page (that is , a page i made just for the test) but used an actual conversion page (the new thank you page I mentioned earlier with the DLGuard problem).

When I was satisfied I knew enough to be dangerous, I implemented on a real test page with a new experiment I planned on taking live (the sales page). I figured since the conversion page (thank you) was still the same, I would just leave the tracking code there and put tacking code, test snippets, and script on the new, actual, test page.

No can do. The "test that you didn't screw up your code" section of a G Optimizer experiment setup told me it didn't see tracking code on the conversion page...So then I wondered "what if I'm running multiple experiments with the same goal? No problem apparently, I've got two different tracking codes pasted into the same conversion page and although I don't have data posted to reports yet, it passed the smell test.

I havent tested multiple experiments to the same Test Page yet. After thinking about this, I dont think you should have to do that anyway. The way I see it, an experiment is page based. You experiment on a given page, with multiple sections tested within that page. One page is defined per experiment. I might test it out anyway.

G Optimizer Split Test Setup & DLGuard

The first problem I ran into when setting up my first G optimizer test had to do with the way I have DLGuard setup. At the advice from Sam at DLGuard, I set the download security software up so that the "thank you" pages are all on the same domain as the DLGuard software itself - this is necessary - and not an issue if you are dealing with one website. My multiple sites that sell products all direct the transactions through a single centralized domain w/ DLguard on it. This works fine.

G optimizer requires, at this point, that the "test" page (the page you are running a/b tests on) & the Conversion page (the page that measures the success of your a/b test) be on the same domain.

In my case, and many others I'm sure, the conversion page was my 'thank you' page for product downloads - on the centralized domain.

How I resolved this: this issue came up just last night as I setup my first Gooogle Optimizer test, so maybe I'll eventually figure out a better way to resolve it. For now, what I did was add some text to the download page (the page itself and the customize area of the DLGuard "box") telling the customer that they NEED TO CLICK HERE after downloading in order to get the password for the eBooks they just downloaded. I normally just gave them the password right there.

That clicks bring them to a "thanks - the password is blah blah" page back on the domain I'm running G Optimizer tests on. So now Im able to use that new page as my Conversion Page in Optimizer. It will be a day or so before the Gooogle optimizer data kicks in so I'll see how that goes.