Advertising Testing Steps Up

Testing advertisements is the most important step in improving their profitability.

What is surprising is that every marketer knows they should test, yet 90% never do it more than once... if at all.

I remember writing a book on split testing back in 2002, and finding amazing apathy to the benefits it provided. Sales happened, but action on the contents didn't.

At the time, I tested every piece of split-testing software or service available and compared them. All were capable of huge increases in profitability.

Later, I bought and tested the rash of Taguchi software tools, and found they did not live up to the hype. Sure, they were much quicker to test a variety of elements, but they were so unreliable they were dangerous. Even the expensive ones. And they were a lot more expensive than their A/B testing predecessors.

I've just started putting a new multi-variate tool through its paces. It combines the simplicity and accuracy of split-testing with the speed of the Taguchi tools. And the developer is very derogatory about using Taguchi for online marketing tests. His early results have been phenomenal, on a variety of sales letters.

There's a good deal going at the moment, so if you want to run parallel tests that automatically fine tune the sales page as test results come in, give it a once-over.

What I also like, is that it's set-and-forget. You don't have to analyze results - the sales letter is automatically optimized. The ROI should be something to smile about!