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Split Testing Landing Pages to Boost Conversions

17 June 2011 | Kate Waite

A lot of time and energy might be spent on writing the perfect advertising copy, designing a great email newsletter and profiling the target audience to get them to your site. However, you can execute all these elements perfectly but the campaign still might not achieve the results you are looking for.

Optimising conversion rates is key for any online marketing activity that you are doing and ensuring that your landing page is converting those hard won clicks into the qualified leads you need.

Running split tests on campaign landing pages is an important way to test and optimise conversions.
 

What should I use as my landing page?

Your landing page is the page that your visitors are first arriving on. Ideally it should be customised for the marketing activity that you are undertaking, with consistent style elements and key messages to reinforce the message that brought the visitor to the page in the first place.

Ideally you should never use a page like your homepage, instead using one which focuses on the point of conversion, whether this is a newsletter sign up or product. Having too many navigation options will lead the visitor away from your goal (although by all means direct them there once they have converted).
 

How do split tests work?

Running a split test on the landing page allows you to use the same page, but with a couple of different elements to determine which is the most effective. The way this works is that you set up variants of the page and then, for example, send half the traffic to page A, and half to page B.  Whichever had the higher conversion rate you can then start testing against a new variant of the page (the challenger), constantly refining and optimising for maximum conversions.
 

Case study

We recently ran an email marketing campaign for Sun Country Airlines and used split testing on the landing page to build a database of people interested in purchasing flights to America. We ran a number of split tests on the landing page to push sign ups.

On one page in this test we ran starred elements below the sign up box to reinforce what they would receive. This had been tested with a number of variants and was achieving a conversion to visitor rate of 6.84%. However, sometimes less is more and we tested it against a variant that contained a simple strap line with a phone number instead. The second page in this version proved more effective with an 8.62% conversion rate.

Although the call to action may be a sign up, sometimes having other contact details, such as a phone number can reassure visitors. We then ran a new test against our champion page to include the phone number in the main copy.



This time the challenger did not improve on the conversion rate, converting at 5.84% and so we were able to establish that keeping a strap line with the phone number across the bottom but not including it elsewhere on the page was the most effective approach – allowing us to then try changing other variants on the page.
 

What to optimise

You can look at optimising almost any element on the page, from the copy to the colours. The key is to make small changes at a time, keeping other elements a constant to enable you to see exactly what is working and causing a change in conversion rates. Here are a few of our favourites for testing.

Data requirements
Long forms could be affecting your conversion rate. Ask whether you really need and use all the data you are collecting and test different forms to balance the amount of data you collect against the conversion rate. It’s better to request just a name and email over nothing at all, and you can always contact these subscribers at a later stage to request additional information.

Headings
Try different variants of the key headings on the landing page to find out which messages your audience respond to best.

Call to Action Points
Try out your pages with a couple of different call to action points. Use directional cues such as arrows and coloured buttons to guide visitors through to the point of conversion. Test how different colours affect the conversion rate.

Video and Images
Test your pages using different images to find out which has conversion appeal. Research by Eyeviewdigital has shown that adding a video to a landing page can boost conversion rates so experiment with video and images to see which works for your audience.
 

When to use split tested landing pages

Split testing your landing pages is effective for almost any online marketing campaign. It works particularly well on PPC and email marketing activity. If it is something you would like to try on your own campaigns drop us a line for a chat to see how we could help.