The PPC Guidebook: How To Run a Split Landing Page Test

The world of pay per click marketing can be a confusing one at times, and you can end up wasting a lot of your ad budget if you don’t know how to use all the features that Google has available for you. Fortunately, we’ve got you covered. Welcome to PPC Guidebook, a Genius eCommerce series on how to run more efficient and more profitable PPC marketing campaigns. For today’s entry into the PPC Guidebook, we’re going to be talking about how to run a split landing page test.

If your PPC ads are placed correctly they’ll capture traffic, but a high click-through rate won’t necessarily turn into ROI if your site doesn’t convert that traffic. All kinds of elements go into that conversion rate, your site’s design, the ease of your checkout process, the quality of your products themselves, etc. The particular element that we’re going to focus on here is the landing page. The landing page is where your potential customers end up as soon as they click on your ad. If the landing page you’re using isn’t relevant to the customers you’re capturing with your PPC ad, you’re going to see a high bounce rate and a low ROI for your campaign.

It may seem simple to pick a relevant landing page for each PPC ad, but Google Adwords provides you a way to be sure you’re using the page that’s best suited to your ad. When you know how to run a split landing page test you can set two possible pages up against one another, and see which one converts better. The more tests you run, the more you’ll be able to hone your campaign, and the better your ads will perform.

How to Set It Up:

The first thing to do is select the campaign you want to test in, and then create a draft campaign which is a duplicate of that campaign. Let’s say that you want to send half of your visitors to my homepage, and half of your visitors to a category page, to see which performs better.

First, you create your draft campaign and name it. Once in your draft campaign, I navigate to your ads.

You select the ads you want to include, then click edit and change ads. You change the final URL to the category page you’re testing against my homepage. You confirm this by clicking Apply.

Up in the top right, you click Apply and choose Run As Experiment. From the Create an Experiment settings you can choose both how long you want the experiment to run for, and how much traffic you want to send to each campaign involved in the experiment. A 50-50 split is typical for an A/B test.

How To Read Your Results:

After your experiment has had time to run, you can take a look at your results. You’ll compare the outcome of your Control campaign (the one you already had running which leads to your homepage) and your Experiment campaign (the draft campaign which leads to your category page). You’ll be able to see which campaign led to more impressions, clicks, and conversions. To test the effectiveness of a landing page you’ll want to compare how many people clicked on the site and how many of them converted in either case. You’ll be able to recognize big changes in outcomes pretty easily, but if the variables are close, you may want to use a statistical significance calculator. Statistical significance is a calculation which is done in order to determine if the results of an experiment are likely to be due to a chance occurrence, rather than the factor of interest that you’re testing. These calculators are available for free online. You can even make your own with formulas in an Excel spreadsheet.

I’ve run the click and conversions in the example above through a statistical significance calculator. The conversion rate is slightly higher in the Experiment group, but not enough to be considered statistically significant. That means we can’t rule out chance as a factor in these results and need to collect more data in order to be certain of what landing page works better.

That’s a quick entry into the PPC Guidebook on how to run a split landing page test. Keep an eye on this series for more guides on running a successful pay per click marketing campaign. Happy bidding!

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How to Best Utilize Social Media for eCommerce

How’s Your Social Media Presence?

It’s a band-aid that every eCommerce business has to rip off eventually: the painful realization that your sales will be forever stunted if you don’t have any social media focus. What a hassle, right? In some regards, you’re correct. It is annoying. It is hard. It is also, however, absolutely necessary to your success in eCommerce. Don’t let the looming pressure of extra work keep you from starting this important venture!

In reality, it’s all about tactics. You won’t have too much trouble with social media if you do it correctly, and that’s what Genius eCommerce is here to teach you. It can be a pain, sure, but it can also be quite enjoyable! With the right methods, your social media presence will bring you closer to your customers and broaden your online reach. So, let’s talk strategy!

Have Content

I’m sure that headline was met with a groan. “Of course I need content,” You’re thinking. Well, take a moment to consider that most profiles are devoid of any actual content. Clickbait is a prevalent and deadly disease, and if you’re not careful, your social media might do more harm than good. Make sure that your account includes an intricate profile with a detailed explanation of any field that is applicable. You want your bio to show customers who you are and what you stand for. If you’re on Twitter, use your limited space to promote keywords that you’d like to be associated with.

The most important aspect of your feed is content that has value. Don’t post needless articles; always post and share relevant and fresh links that you would read yourself. Most importantly, don’t only post links. You don’t want your audience to assume that you’re a bot.

So, what kind of posts should you rely on? Data, Opinions, and News. Think about it, do you like or trust seeing the same kind of content repeatedly throughout the day? Nope. Not only is it boring, it comes off as insincere and lazy. When you post your own opinions from time to time, you give people insight as to who you are. Backing up these beliefs with data from time to time is necessary to prove that your opinion has a basis. The news keeps people updated on the happenings in your industry, and people will flock to you for that kind of information. Without all three functioning together, you’ll either come off as preachy, bland or simply wrong.

Follow and Like Accounts That Matter

Just like real life, who you associate yourself with matters. That means that, ironically, you aren’t just on social media to socialize as much as you’re on it to gain social capital. You need to be following legitimate accounts that post relevant news, ones that your own audience flocks to. On occasion, these accounts will follow or like you back, and that’s great news. Anything that connects you to those who have a higher social status than you on social media is going to point their own audience in your direction.

Don’t just add people, see who they add. If you follow a brand on Twitter, and you’d like to get to their level on social media, check out the other brands that they associate themselves with. That’s the best way to get a grasp on which accounts are helpful and which are not. Not only this but participate in your community. Get an idea of which groups discuss your industry, and dive into those discussions. Tote your brand like you would your fashion sense on a night out. It’s time to show off!

Consistency

How can one build trust if one isn’t concrete in their ways? Unpredictability is not a quality that people search for in their social media content. If you’re going to present yourself as an authority in your field, you need to be posting adequate content on a constant basis. There shouldn’t be dips in quality; you don’t have the option to slack off. Your followers are one post away from ditching your page, and you always need to give them a reason to stay. Always stay on top of your game in this department!

Listen to Customers

At the end of the day, social media is a tool for communication. That means that your customers should want to communicate with you. If they aren’t, you’re not creating content that warrants engagement. Engagement is exactly the end goal, and you want customers asking questions and contacting you through your posts. If a customer asks a question on your post, see it as a golden opportunity! Every comment is a chance for discussion, and any discussion leads to excess content.

If you actually consider yourself an authority in your industry, you’ll have no problem publicly solving your customer’s problems. This doesn’t mean offering free work, either. You can actually solve their issue with an offer or a promotion. Extend your services as a means to work through the commenter’s issue! If it’s a question that warrants simple advice, offer that advice! If your audience is participating, you’re doing social media correctly.

Your Local eCommerce Guru

Speaking of authority, we’d like to take the time to remind you to continue to follow Genius eCommerce for helpful content. Stay ahead of the game and always up to date on the latest news about the online world of business! You’re always a click away from content that can steer you in the right direction and give you great ideas for your own eCommerce storefront.