Maximize ROI: Conversion Funnel Design & A/B Testing

1/09/2006 - Monday, January 09, 2006 -   

Landing Page A/B Testing

One of the advantages that I have as a web designer / marketer is that I have been doing Landing Page A/B Testing for the last 6 years. Now I am benefiting from learning from (literally) thousands of landing pages tests. Some winners and some losers. I learned a lot. Any what you really think is going to win... may very well not win. Sometimes the "ugly" designs actually convert better.

Now there are many companies doing landing page designs and homepage A/B tests. Today I opened my email to find an article on how How E-LOAN Improves Search Marketing ROI by Testing Landing Pages. It was a great read and very timely. The article focuses on how paid search marketing ads have become almost insanely competitive in the home mortgage industry.

This is an exact conversion that I had with client several days ago. They are contemplating would have the better ROI: Buying Phone leads or PPC. I recommended the later. PPC is completely trackable to maximize your ROI. Its simple, instead of paying $15 per phone lead that is shared among many mortgage brokers, create your own real estate landing page to gather your own leads. This way potential clients are coming to you with their info and possible get 5-10 leads for that same $15.

Then start to perform some Landing Page A/B Testing. The Marketing Shepra article explains it here:

Eloan A/B tested landing pages on keywords that saw a high number of searches but that had conversion problems. By testing and optimizing elements such as button color, image (happy couples vs. a picture of a house), layout, and headline, Eloan saw conversions jump as high as 165%.

People coming from a search engine are very impatient, and they know they have other options. "They can click the back button and go to the next search result." Don't make them make too many decisions right on the landing page.

Some take always from the articles:

• Grab their attention in first 30 seconds


• Headline should reflect ad copy


• Start application forms with easy questions


• Sometimes the idea that looks like it won't work is the one that actually works


• Offline media doesn't work very well. Don't try to use your slogan or other offline approaches.

Read the Landing Page A/B Testing article.