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.

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...

Multiple Test to Single Conversion Page

One of the issues I ran into while setting up Google Optimizer was whether or not I needed to add more tracking code to the conversion page since it already had tracking code from another experiment. I ran into an error when I didn't do it, so I pasted another set of conversion page experiment scripts below the first set on the page.

The first experiment was an actual test, as I mentioned in a previous post. It was a fake Test Page, but a real conversion page. Now I've stopped that experiment and Google Optimizer directs you to remove the code scripts from the Test Page and Conversion Page.

This prompted me to go to the Conversion Page and compare the two tracking scripts from the two different experiments. One line seems to identify the experiment, for it is the only line that is distinctly unique with each experiment:

urchinTracker("/2964349575/goal");

(note: I changed the number slightly because at this point I'm not sure whether I should publish this number....probably doesn't matter but I'd rather be safe.

The script from the other experiment was identical except only for the number (all text the same)

In conclusion, with something like a sales purchase thank you page on a large site, you have the potential to have many different experiments all pointing to the same Conversion page. This will create a long stretch of multiple tracking scripts...unless there is a cleaner way to do it?

Delay in Google Optimizer Data Posting

Assuming I got everything set up correctly - there seems to be a significant delay in conversion data posting. I had some conversions overnight, the last one at 2:30am EST, and its now 8am and Google Optimizer is still showing zero.

Not a big deal - Google Analytics is the same way. Im just in this state of "did I set it up correctly or not". G Optimizer did check for my code and said ok...we'll see.

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

Some Initial Thoughts From the First Google Optimizer Test

What I had in my head the whole time I searched for an A/B tester was that I would create multiple versions of the pages I was testing. In Google Optimizer, you actually define sections of code you want to swap within a page. I haven't tried it yet but I assume you can just define the whole page or just the body etc.

So I already had my first test in mind which basically took a sales page, where I was selling 3 eBooks, and swapped out the way I presented the books. The default setup was to show all three eBooks as a "package" for a single price. The 'test' was to show the primary eBook, which is the one most of my traffic is driven by, as the eBook for sale, and the other two as Free Bonuses for buying the first. In addition, I was going to put in the ole' regular higher price crossed out graphic above the actual price.

With this in mind, when I got in to G optimizer for the first time last night (moments after finding my beta invite email in the spam filter!), I struggled with whether I should do such a test for my first try.

See, the way G optimizer is setup, having you define sections of code, required me to pinpoint the exact start and stop points within the larger page - I guess I could have done the whole body - but I was still a little anxious. Another thought was if I do the whole body, what if I want to test something smaller, within the body test section tags? This would be "nested testing" as I see it...and I thought about it a lot while lying in bed a few hours ago. I think I'll test nested testing today, and make it the subject of My next post. In any case, the way its setup I think will ultimately be fantastic for it will give incredible flexibility to testing - and that's the point...test 2 headlines on a page in combination with 4 different sales pitches and just let G optimizer tell you what the best combination of the 6 variables is - which combo makes the most conversions? For those of you who have taken the gmat or other similar tests - think permutations - then think about how much time this "section of code" testing is saving you over doing it a full page at a time. In the 2 headlines and 4 sales pitches, you would have to make 8 pages if you used a straight full page a/b tester.

Another thing I stumbled on and pondered a bit was the "percent of test" setting - I wasn't quite sure if this meant "% we will swap the pages" i.e. your test page will be shared 50% and 50% between the original and the optimized - or whatever - in any case it cant be this with all the different variations - it's just how much you want the test running vs. how much you want your standard pre- google optimizer pages running.

What is an Experiment? Another stumbling point - do I setup an experiment for a site, a page, a part of a page....I set up a G Optimizer "experiment" for a page, with multiple tests under that experiment. Sort of like a "Campaign and Ad Group" in AdWords. So, my experiment is the sales page (the "test" page in the setup) - I named the experiment "Sales Page Old Price and Bonus" to correspond with the two tests I mentioned earlier. Within that Experiment, I have sections of code tagged and some alternate html setup to swap (this is easy to setup in "new experiment' process) for each section. For example, with the "old price" graphic, which is just the higher price crossed out above the current price, I defined a section of blank space above the price, and the alternate or test code was simply the html to place and center the graphic there.

I was about to continue with another issue of tracking code and templates, but I think it deserves it's own post...

Why Are We Here?

About a week ago I was actually shopping around for A/B testers when I first heard about Google Website Optimizer. It was definately time for me to stop jumping from one new marketing project to the next, and begin fine tuning what I already had out there. I'm a big fan of stats, analytics, and such so I knew what I needed to do, I just didn't have the right tool.

Over at the Warrior Forum I made a post asking what A/B test tools folks used and someone said Google Optimizer. I searched and soon discovered it was an invite-only beta so I signed up to be a tester. I read some info. on it and knew that G Optimizer was the tool I needed. I just needed to be patient and wait for the invite.

The more I thought about it the more excited I got about split testing every little aspect of my landing and sales pages...I checked my spam filter twice as much as usual in case the invite got sucked up there. Sure enough, it did. I found it last night and spent the next couple hours setting up my first test. Note: this would have taken much less time if I was not using DLGuard on a separate domain from the site I was testing...and since that was my first of a few stumbling blocks, I'll focus on that issue for my next post.

I'll make separate posts for each major issue I run into, resolved or not, as I jump into the world of G Optimizer...