William Charlwood

If you are doing any sort of testing then you need to make sure you have enough data to make rational decisions. I recently ran a split test using my autoresponder. What I did was send out two different emails to a relatively small list (around 400) and measured the response rates.

It was a classic A/B Split Test in other words although the sample size was quite small.

Here’s Version A of my email

Hello Firstname

Recently I mentioned a free ebook that makes me good money.

I didn’t write it. It is free to read. You don’t need to supply
an email address to get access to it.

But if you read it you’ll discover something pretty neat.
The book is quite short and very punchy.

To make it work for you here’s a very simple idea: put your
link to the book as a signature in your emails.

You can copy the example below if you want.

With best wishes

William Charlwood

PS Discover the ultimate online super tip.
http://www.supertips.com/ultimate/x/?id=104

And here is Version B

Hello Firstname

Recently I mentioned a free ebook that makes me good money.

I didn’t write it. It is free to read. You don’t need to supply
an email address to get access to it.

But if you read it you’ll discover something pretty neat.
The book is quite short and very punchy.

To make it work for you here’s a very simple idea: put your
link to the book as a signature in your emails.

You can copy the example below if you want.

With best wishes

William Charlwood

Discover the ultimate online super tip.
http://www.supertips.com/ultimate/x/?id=104

.

Spot the difference!

Actually the only difference was the use of “PS” in version A.

Initially I was intrigued to see that Version A was significantly more successful in terms of click through rates. At one point there was a 91% likelihood that its relative out-performance would be repeatable. In other words, statistically it looked as though a similar exercise done again would show that Version A generated a higher click through rate 91% of the time.But as data dribbled in, the relative response rates got closer and closer. At the moment Version A has generated a click through rate of 23.5% and Version B a click through rate of 22.7%. These click through rates are quite high for emails and often one problem you face is getting people to read them in the first place.

The figures themselves are too close to separate and suggest that the results of this particular split test are neutral which is a shame! I rather enjoyed having made what looked like an interesting discovery, namely that using PS as opposed to not using PS made a difference.

But I was wrong to leap to this conclusion too early.

Just for completeness, the subject line of both emails was the same:

A Quick Suggestion

If you are running Google AdWords campaigns you may want to know what a good CTR  or Click Through Rate is for your ads.

The answer will depend on a number of factors. First if there is little competition in your niche so that few other advertisers are showing ads then your click through rate is obviously going to be higher than in an area where there are loads of ads showing.

Second, it will depend on where you ad is ranking. An AdWords ad in the first position is almost bound to attract a higher CTR than an ad that ranks in 7th position.

As a guideline I like my ads to get at least a 2% CTR (meaning that for every hundred impressions it gets 2 clicks) but of course the critical thing is the profitability of the clicks. I’d rather have a 1% CTR and be profitable than a 5% CTR and be losing money.

As with many aspects of AdWords, whenever you change one aspect of your Campaign there will be side effects. Increasing the bid price is highly likely to increase you ranking and thus increase your CTR. And the converse applies too.

One thing to bear in mind with CTRs though is that by using strong copywriting skills to write AdWords ads that get the clicks, you can afford to let you ranking drop by reducing your bid price because a well-written ad will naturally attract more attention than a poorly written one.

Joel Comm’s AdSense Secrets is a powerful book and if you are remotely involved in AdSense I recommend you buy it because at the current price of only $9.95 it’s a steal.

So what’s my tip?

Get it fast.

Sometimes marketers realize that they’ve got the pricing for things wrong and they raise the price if demand is strong. I can’t see how demand is going to be weak for this ebook because at 230 pages it must be THE AdSense reference book at the moment (and I say that as author of the first ever AdSense ebook).