Now that you’ve learned about the basics of split testing, let’s take a look at some specific examples in which split testing has yielded real world results for companies.
NuFACE is a skin care company that was getting good traffic, but people were abandoning their shopping carts at an alarming rate. They decided to do a split test to figure out if offering free shipping would decrease abandonment, and the results were astonishing!
They found that by offering free shipping, they increased their orders by an incredible 90%, and also increased their average order value considerably. Those are some pretty amazing results!
Electronic Arts decided to test a promotional offer for a pre-order of their new version of the SimCity game. They originally had a huge banner at the top of the screen offering $20 off the customer’s next purchase when they pre-ordered the game, assuming this would increase conversions, but what they found was exactly the opposite.
Their test revealed the variation with no promotional messaging actually drove 43.4% more sales! If they’d simply assumed the promotional offer would increase purchases, they would have lost a tremendous amount of money.
Express Watches (a UK-based watch retailer) added a “Seiko Authorized Dealer” to their product description pages to help boost buyer confidence that they are buying authentic brand-name watches. This boosted their conversions up to 107%!
ComScore decided to run a test with different variations of their testimonials in order to see which one got more attention and helped increase conversions the most. As you know, testimonials are great social proof. But the way those testimonials are presented can actually have dramatically different results.
ComScore found that using a vertical layout with the customer’s logo at the top increase conversions on product pages by 69% compared to their original version. Again, huge results!
As you can see from these few examples alone, split testing has extraordinary potential to increase your bottom line!
Split testing can be a little technical, but if you can create a website or blog—and you probably can since you’ve read this guide—it’s worth the little bit of effort it takes.
Even if you “only” manage to increase your conversions from 1% to 2%, you’ve doubled your conversions (income or leads) practically overnight! Not only is this beneficial to your own bottom line, but to any affiliates you might have, as well. No affiliate wants to send their hard-earned traffic, or even paid traffic, to a page that hasn’t been proven to convert well.
No matter what results you’re looking for—sales, email opt-ins, etc.—split testing can help you maximize those results.
Please don’t think that split testing is something reserved for the “big dogs”. Even if you only get a few hits per day, you can perform split testing. It may take a little longer to get the results you’re looking for, but it will still be worth it in the end!