The Importance of Testing with PPV
You hear it a lot, the same generic advice, "oh just split test / optimize and you'll profit" and maybe you start to think that these people just don't want to help you - that they're holding out on some big money making secret. The truth is they're giving you one the most important tools available to an affiliate. Aside from picking the correct offer / traffic source (which your AM can help you with), split testing is something that can really make or break a campaign. To drive this point home, I'll give you a quick rundown of one of my previous campaigns.
I was running a Prepaid CC offer on PPV and utilizing proper split testing technique, I was able to take the campaign from negative to positive in 7 iterations. While these results in themselves are not amazing by any means, it shows the value of split testing and how it can transform a loser campaign into a winner. Never assume that some detail, however small or seemingly trivial, has no effect on your LPs performance. Even after you have been doing this for a while, if you start relying solely on your gut instinct rather than using scientific testing methods, you're headed right back to square one.
I assigned a test budget of $50 (roughly 5 times the offer's payout) per each LP modification to test across 64 targets (I recommend testing more targets if you're new to the vertical and don't have the demo locked in already). For an offer like this, a relatively safe starting point is to simply target competing offers. This is where having a fine tuned LP comes into play though, because popping over/under similar sites doesn't take a whole lot of creativity so there will be competition. However, if your LP is outperforming theirs, you can outbid them and drive out your competition so split testing is critical.
Results from Split Testing Landing Pages
| Page | Views | Clicks | CTR | Conversions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Original Page | 809 | 19 | 2.34% | 1 |
| Revision 1 | 815 | 25 | 3.06% | 0 |
| Revision 2 | 803 | 48 | 5.97% | 0 |
| Revision 3 | 812 | 39 | 2.83% | 1 |
| Revision 4 | 831 | 81 | 9.74% | 3 |
| Revision 5 | 826 | 77 | 9.32% | 4 |
| Final Page | 847 | 67 | 7.9% | 5 |
What Changes Were Made?
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Original Page
Very basic, I took the offer page, replaced the form with some sales copy highlighting the benefits of the prepaid cc (no check, no interest or late fees, etc). The performance was nothing to write home about but it was a start.
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Revision 1
Added a flashy border around the page (alternating orange / blue). Didn't help much, probably looked too much like an advertisement that these users get hit with all the time and may have actually detracted from the legitimacy of the LP.
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Revision 2
I swapped out the border / some of the language on the header, mentioning how you can get up to $5000 instantly on this prepaid cc. This doubled the CTR, but apparently my promise was too good to be true because there were no sign ups. Sometimes the LPs that get the best CTR aren't the best ones because they deviate too far from what the user realistically can expect to get from the offer.
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Revision 3
Switched back to the original language in the header - changed the picture of the family to a stock photo woman. CTR dropped a bit but I got a conversion.
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Revision 4
Replaced the stock photo with a less polished / more amateur looking picture of a single mom in her mid 20s with her daughter. CTR increased and I got some conversions so this was promising.
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Revision 5
I decided to swap the mom / daughter picture with a similar quality picture of a father / son. Similar results to the previous test for both CTR / CR. (I'd probably need to split test father / son v. mother / daughter over a longer period of time to tell conclusively which to stick with, but these were just preliminary tests)
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Final Page
Swapped out the image for a picture of a middle aged woman with her daughter. CTR dropped a little (she wasn't as attractive as the previous younger image tested) but I saw a promising increase in conversions from 3 to 5. Keep in mind that any results from this amount of preliminary testing data are not conclusive by any means so the amount that you personally want to test before you consider a test conclusive / thorough is up to you.
Another thing to consider with an offer like this is the demographic you're targeting. The family on the offer page was a black family so the images I used were of black men / women to keep the landing page consistent with the offer page. If possible, you should see if there are other LPs available or similar offers so that you can split test not only the LP but also the offer page. I recommend testing multiple offers within the same vertical as you'd be surprised how differently they convert sometimes.
This test is clearly not the end all of LP split tests by any means, but I wanted to impress upon everyone the importance of split testing. Keep your tests scientific though and don't get carried away. Try to only make one major change to the page at a time whether it be the header, body, image, or call to action. Otherwise your testing results will become convoluted and worthless.
Skillful split testing is one of the biggest differences between someone new to the game and a veteran. It takes a lot of hard work to fine tune a killer campaign, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. If you think those affiliates making 6 figures a month don't do tons of split testing / research, well then I have a biz opp to sell you.
Long story short - invest your time and energy into proper split testing and you will reap the rewards of your effort. There is a balance you should try to reach between spending sufficient time testing, but also knowing when to call it quits. Some campaigns just don't work with certain traffic sources, this is the reality of this industry. However, a lot of campaigns don't work because affiliates give up too quickly without exhausting their most valuable asset, their creativity.
