If you’re in marketing, you know that a little experimentation can make a big difference in engaging prospects. When you’re trying something new with your site, you may gain more engagement than before, but you won’t exactly know what is working or increasing engagement unless you experiment and monitor the difference through A/B (or Split) Testing.
A comparison test can give you metrics to work with. Where is the engagement coming from? Who is clicking? How many more than before? Taking note of what affects change and drives results is the best way to hone your landing pages and perfect them for your audience.
Why Do an A/B test?
Marketing is part science and part creative. The science half requires guided experimentation and careful tracking of results. A website has many small components that all contribute to the overall success of a campaign.
When an explainer video is thrown into the mix, there could be even more to consider. Video analytics platform Vidyard provides an easy way for companies to conduct an A/B test on their thumbnails – the still image of the video before it begins. Not surprisingly, the choice of image has a big impact on clicks. In addition, you can play around with how the video interacts within the web page itself. How does the video fit in with the rest of the design? Does changing how it is displayed or its placement have an effect on video plays?
Where to Begin with A/B Testing
If the conversion rates on a landing page aren’t what you want or expect, use a third party service like Optimizely to change and monitor variables on the page. Leaving the original content in place and measuring it against the new variables will allow you to track the results in terms of how you define success. If your experiment didn’t meet your hypothesis, change another variable and test it again. This is going to take a few tries before you develop the “perfect” landing page.
The truth is, small changes can make a huge difference in engagement. In other words, just altering the headline on top of your video can increase the number of people who watch it significantly. Even the splash screen or placement of the video can affect how people interact with your video.
When it comes to split testing a video landing page, there are different variables you can change – the title of the video, the call to action button, the placement of the video, etc. – and decide how you want to define success. There are many ways to define success such as the number of people who sign up after watching the video, the number of people who watch your video, or even how long people spend on your website.
Simple Changes Go a Long Way
Brad Geddes, founder of PPC training platform Certified Knowledge, wrote a blog for Wordstream with a story that showed how a very simple alteration can be the basis for a successful test. Geddes was working with a client who had landing pages that were less than ideal. You had to click on a button, which then took you to an additional form to fill out. After changing just one thing – embedding the form directly onto the page – conversions increased by 76%.
We also conducted a simple test for Rypple to demonstrate how an explainer video increased conversions. In our experiment, we tested an animated explainer video against a live action testimonial from Facebook and a control page that had just images and text. Through the test, we found that the animated explainer video increased conversions by 20% over the other two landing pages.
Know Where to Start
According to Search Engine Watch, by focusing on three main criteria, you can quickly find ways to increase conversions. To determine a starting point for your experiment, ask yourself three questions:
- Is the landing page relevant to the audience?
- Does it demonstrate the value of the product?
- Is there a clear call to action?
Using these three elements, or what Search Engine Watch calls “the Conversion Trinity,” you can quickly determine what needs the most work and start there.
Why settle for the landing page you have if you could be increasing conversions simply by changing a few elements such as the title of the video or using a new color for your CTA button?
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