You must have heard of how A/B testing helps increase conversions and you are looking at your analytics trying to figure out how to turn that 1% conversion rate into 2%.
Doing some quick math:
100,000 unique monthly visitors converting at 1% at an average order value of $50.00 = $50,000 in monthly revenue.
If all else stays the same and you create a better user experience to increase your conversion rate by 1%. (On average companies running 5 + tests a month will see at least 5x ROI with CRO services)
100,000 unique monthly visitors converting at 2% at an average order value of $50.00 = $100,000 in monthly revenue.
You didn’t need to invest to acquire new customers you just needed to create a better experience and you doubled your revenue.
So you get it and you want to convert like a Boss, yep that is the same tweet that won me a free ticket to the Unbounce Conversion Road Trip in Chicago June 5th.
I’m just trying to convert like a BOSS http://t.co/fh1YTcCXAV @inboundorg @unbounce pic.twitter.com/BoaAkp0pM8
— Luiz Centenaro (@LuizCent) May 6, 2015
So here is how you can get your first A/B test up and running in under 15 minutes.
1st, Choose a platform. (2 minutes)
You’ll have some options to choose from, I chose Optimizely who recently changed their pricing structure so you can run FREE A/B tests unless you get into the enterprise level which you probably should have some pros running A/B tests for you anyway.
2nd, Form a Hypothesis. (4 minutes)
Since Hammock Town, is a drop shipping business and you can find every product we sell on Amazon, ebay, and other eCommerce sites, testing giving an immediate discount for a new customer should increase our (ATC) Add To Cart metrics.
3rd, Start Simple (4 minutes)
I’m not a designer, but I love writing copy so start with something you are good at. If you are designer create a badass hero image. If you are a copywriter start by changing the main headline and create 1 page variation just to get your first test up and running. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just freakin’ do it.
Here are the 2 A/B test variations I am Testing
Control for the A/B Test
Variation for the A/B Test
4th Set A Goal (2 minutes)
Since this site is less than a year old and gets a low amount of traffic/conversions ~10 sales a month I chose the Add To Cart metric as a goal, I’ve set up some sweet cart abandonment emails and know I can bring back 15% of those lost customers.
5th Install The Tracking Code (2 minutes)
You’ll need to add this right below the start of your </head> tag and Optimizely has a nice tutorial on how to implement the snippet.
14 minutes later you hit start experiment and you are well on your way to converting like a boss. You’ll probably catch the CRO bug and want to start testing everything! (It’s a good bug to catch)
There are a lot of things I could have done better but in my opinion it’s better done than perfect and it’s about testing… so I’ll create more page variations and see what works.
Now if your site is seeing more than 100,000 unique monthly visitors it’s in your best interest to be running tests 24/7 – 365 days of the year and you’ll need to hire an in house CRO or outsource your experiments to a CRO company who provides ready to test pages and helps you create a CRO road map.
I’m biased but I recommend working with Experiment Engine. You can see from our CRO case studies that customers typically see an average of 5x ROI within the first 90 days.
