How One Stupid A/B Test That I Never Thought Would Work Created a 50% Increase In Conversions

Stupid A/B Test Creates 50% Increase

As you probably have gathered over the past few months of reading my emails
I love testing things.

There’s landing page that I have created that hasn’t undergone some form of a/b test.

It’s amazing the difference you can create with a simple a/b test.

For clarity – that’s when you divide the traffic you are getting to a page ( let’s say for example a landing page) over 2 or 3 different versions of that page to see if you can find a particular combination of words, colors, design and calls to action that perform better than others.

That is measured by a single goal: a mailing list subscription, a purchase, a facebook page like… whatever you are trying to achieve.

So on one of my sites I have done nothing but split test like crazy just for the fun of it and the other day something interesting happened…

Usually on a landing page I would be trying to achieve a signup…
So for that reason I would not normally have anything on that page that didn’t lead directly to achieving that purpose.

I like clean simple design and minimal graphics except for those that are working to convert people to my list.

So on this new page I created I had already tested the headline (which is usually the first place I start)

Then, using the best headline , I tested the call to action above the button…
Then with the best headline and the best call to action I tested the words on the button: Get instant access | watch now | load my free video etc…

All of these changes made small but noticeable differences…

Then a friend suggested something I would never have normally associated with a landing page… putting a popup with a form on the page…

Why would I not normally do this?

Well redundancy mostly… they are already looking at the page which is asking them to sign up… why would you then have a pop up which asks them to sign up?
…also I would have thought that it was an annoyance or a distraction…

As I always tell clients though – you just never know until you test it… so I tested it…

Now let me be clear: all the other changes on the page… the headline, the call to action, the button text made around 4-8% difference to conversions which was small but valuable difference…

The popup?

I can understand adding one to a blog where people are coming to read the content on that page but on a landing page???

Seems to me that it is doubling up on what’s already there… and it’s a distraction and there are all kinds of other reasons why it shouldn’t work…

But here’s what it did…

Increased registrations by 50%

I nearly fell over.

WE ARE NOT TESTING THIS POPUP – OVER A LANDING PAGE THAT SAYS ALMOST THE EXACT SAME THING TO SEE IF IT INCREASES THE WEBSITE CONVERSIONS. YOU CAN GET THE SCRIPT WE USED – HERE

Now the thing to test is whether using the same bullet points on the popup as on the page will work best or whether it’s better to use different bullets on the popup compared to the page will further increase those results.

Anyway if your business is being built on collecting prospects for your list so you can send them great information then you owe it to yourself to make sure that you have got an effective pop up working on your website.

And once you get one up and running start testing it to see if you can improve those results.

You can check out the popup script we used to do this HERE – it’s very easy to use and works brilliantly.