A landing page or landing site is one of the most important aspects to an affiliate marketing campaign in my opinion. Your visitors can convert or leave based on your landing page. You control the conversion rate and can easily take a campaign losing money and turn it into a campaign that is a winner simply by your landing page. One simple way to do this is to split test your landing pages, however, unless you know what your doing wrong, split testing won’t do you much good because you won’t know what is causing the problem!

This topic will explain some common mistakes that people make when creating landing pages. Hopefully after reading this post you’ll be able to clearly understand the problems your landing page may be causing!

1. Your Call to Action is below the Fold - Your call to action is what causes your visitors to go from your landing page to the offer or service your promoting thus the reason it’s called a call to action. This could be a big red button that says sign up for free, or a list of features with a sign up now button, etc. So, why would you want your call to action below the fold when you automatically lose ~30% of your visitors if they have to scroll down?
2. Trying to Collect too Much Data - Trying to get a visitor to sign up for a newsletter is fine for future sales to an email list you put together, however, you may be hurting your conversions! The more information that you try to collect from your visitors the more likely they won’t end up completing the offer. Try to keep your data collecting to a minimum and only collect information that you truly need!
3. Missing Testimonials - Testimonials can greatly increase conversion rates and instill trust in your visitors eyes. They tend to help the visitor realize that the product/service your offering is worth their time in filling out any necessary information or even whipping out their credit card. If you can use testimonials in your niche, your only hurting yourself by not at least trying them out on your landing page!
4. Too Many Call to Actions - As said above you need to have a clear call to action above the fold. You shouldn’t ever have more than 2 call to actions on a landing page. Asking a user to sign up for an offer or service your offering would be one call to action, asking them to sign up for a newsletter would be another call to action. Asking users to subscribe to newsletters, subscribe to your RSS feed, give you a call, etc may sound like a great idea to get return customers and build up a great list, having too many can cause confusion and also end up making the visitor forget why they even came to your site, thus, you lose out on a commission!
5. Not Split Testing Landing Pages - Another mistake I see people commonly make is to not split test their landing pages. I recently wrote an article about split testing landing pages, how to do it, what parts of your landing page to split test, etc. If you haven’t check it out already, you need to as split testing can greatly increase your profits and allow you to find out which landing page(s) work best!

So there you have it, five reasons your landing page may suck! Get to work and correct the problems on your landing pages and immediately see the results. You’ll be amazed at what a few simple things can do to your conversions!

Popularity: 49% [?]

We all hear about split testing when it comes to affiliate marketing. When we normally hear someone mention split testing, they are talking about split testing ads. In this article however, I want to talk about split testing your landing pages.

Split Testing is basically the process of testing different variations of Ad Copy (Ads), Landing Pages, Your Price, etc. The reason that we split test and especially in affiliate marketing is so that we can increase our conversion ratio or ROI (return over investment). Basically what that means is this…

Let’s say you start a campaign for dating. Let’s also assume that for every one dollar you spend on advertising via PPC you make two dollars. Now by split testing you can increase how many people that come to your landing page convert. By doing so, now when you spend one dollar on advertising via PPC, you make 3 dollars!

Split Testing allows you to make more without spending more!

Now, I’ve already wrote an article on Split Testing Ads which you may also wish to check out if your completely new to the idea of split testing or just want a refresher course.

Okay, now that I’ve explained what split testing is, let’s dive into why you should split test your landing page, the benefits of split testing your landing page, and how to split test landing pages.

Benefits of Split Testing Your Landing Page:

The benefits of split testing are numerous but I just want to touch on the most important in this article. So without further adieu…

Increased Conversion Rate - The single most important reason for split testing your landing page is to increase conversions. Increasing conversions allows you to spend the same amount of money, yet increase your revenue while paying the same amount for advertising if your using PPC (pay per click).

Quality Score - Another benefit although not always as easy to test, is the ability to increase your quality score that you receive from Google Adwords. Again this is hard to test as the quality score can take a couple days or even weeks to recalculate each time.

Again, there are several other factors that split testing can accomplish, however, in order to keep this article short and to the point I’ve decided to only list the top reasons in my opinion.

What should I split test?

Okay, so you now realize the benefits to split testing landing pages, but how do you do it? Which parts of your landing page do you change? Do you have two completely different landing pages or two similar ones with only certain parts changed?

The answer to this question is that there really isn’t a right or wrong way, although if you do use two completely different landing pages for your testing, once you find one that works well, I would recommend moving on to the latter.

So, in reference to that, below is a list of things you may want to consider changing to increase landing page conversions.

1. Split Test your Heading! Your heading is the first thing that people notice when they come to your site. Thus, people could stay or leave your site based just on that one main headline! In fact, people will leave or stay based on your headline. I’ve seen a headline instantly increase conversions by three hundred percent to five hundred percent!
2. Split Test your Sub-Headline! Your sub-headline is probably the second most important thing you should split test following right after your headline. Again, by creating another landing page with just simply your sub-headline changed you could increase your conversion rate by one hundred and fifty percent to two hundred percent!
3. Split Test each Paragraph! Split testing your paragraphs can take a lot of work, and most of the time you really only need to focus on split testing your first paragraph. Personally I only worry about the first paragraph when I’m split testing and very seldom split test my others. I will however rewrite the rest of my paragraphs once I have split tested my first paragraph and know what works for the niche I’m currently working on!
   TIP: Using 3-5 bullets stating the main points of the offer/service you are promoting generally works extremely well for your first paragraph! This is probably because most internet users will skim pages instead of taking the time to fully read each paragraph.
4. Split Test your Call to Action Line/Button! Does a green button work better than a blue button? How about a red color one? Does Order Now or Order Today work better? Can you use the word free? Your call to action button can make a customer leave your site even if they’ve read and looked over everything else. Your heading, sub-heading, and article/description could be perfect! Yet, you’ll still lose visitors if your call to action doesn’t well….call the user to perform an action!

As you can see, there are several factors to test when your split testing your landing pages, and hopefully the above steps will help you get started!

Okay, so now your wanting the code in order to do this easily correct? Well the code below allows you to test two different landing pages and each time a visitor comes to your site it will randomly send them to one or the other. Then you simply switch out the worse performing landing page with a new one every couple of days.

PHP Code for Split Testing Landing Pages


<?php
if(rand(0,1) == 0) {
header("Location: http://www.example.com/split1");
} else {
header("Location: http://www.example.com/split2");
}
?>

In the code where it says split1 and split2, you would replace that with whatever you call your two filenames.  Make sure you also put .html or .php after the filename depending on which extension your using.  Also, don’t forget to change www.example.com to your sites URL!

So, there you have it!  Now get out there and start increasing your ROI by split testing your landing pages!

Popularity: 61% [?]

I was talking with a friend of mine today whom has just gotten himself started in affiliate marketing about 3 months ago. He asked me a question that got me thinking. He has hit his first goal of 5,000 dollars a month from his affiliate marketing business, however, he now feels stuck and is having a difficult time growing his business.

This post will hopefully provide him as well as all my readers some tips on growing your affiliate marketing business with ease and simplicity.

Offers Come and Go!

One of the first mistakes I saw him making was focusing on niches that come and go. He was doing a lot of seasonal offers like taxes for example. Now, these are really great niches to get into and seasonal niches can really bring in a big buck in a short period of time, because a lot of people don’t worry about seasonal offers at all, including myself! ::embarrassed::

However, he was mostly only focusing on these seasonal niches, so he would get a campaign doing well, and then it would fade in a month and he would have to basically start from scratch.

Also, even regular campaigns you setup, you need to realize that any day the network could pull the offer that your running, or the company could end the affiliate program. So you should always be prepared. I’m a very big believer in scaling a campaign as much as you can, but I’m also experienced enough to know that you shouldn’t only be concentrating on one or two niches!

So my advice to you if your in this category is to work on setting up some other niches, some niches that are pretty safe in terms of they’ll be here for a while. Just some examples, ringtones, dating, insurance, etc. Continue to do your seasonal offers as they are a great way to make a good income, but don’t rely totally on those niches.

Don’t Spread Yourself Too Thin!

Another problem I see a lot of young affiliates do is spread themselves too thin.  They start making money and instead of focusing on scaling their campaigns or starting new campaigns, they instead decide to start a blog on affiliate marketing, etc.

Now, I have no problem with an affiliate starting a blog about affiliate marketing, in fact, I encourage it eventually because it’s great for several reasons which I’ll talk about at a later time.  The thing you need to remember is in the beginning your working on growing your affiliate business.  Blogs and other side projects take a lot of time, and they don’t normally supply the money like your current affiliate marketing business would if you scaled it some more.

Another point of affiliate marketing is too not try to start up too many offers at the same time, or have too many campaigns that require your daily attention running at the same time, etc.  If you start campaign after campaign without actually finishing and scaling a previous campaign your going to neglect campaigns you’ve already done and before you realize it they are going to start losing money as others compete against you in your niche and win!

Become Friends With Your Affiliate Managers

One of the quickest and most effective ways to make more in any given niche is to get a higher payout on an offer that your running.  The best way to do this isn’t bringing in tons of volume, okay maybe it is for a really big payout, it’s simply becoming friends with your affiliate managers.  Talk to them, chat them up a bit.  That doesn’t mean IM them and ask them a ton of questions, they get enough of those everyday, instead maybe ask them if there are any offers you should be running and then strike up some small talk.  It works wonders!

Make Sure Your Tracking at The Keyword Level!

I get the question of how do I scale/grow my affiliate business all the time, yet when I ask them which keywords are converting for them currently, they can’t tell me!   They aren’t tracking at the keyword level.  Yeah you can make money in this crazy game we call affiliate marketing, but if your not tracking your keywords its near impossible to scale without just throwing in a bunch more keywords and hoping for the best.  Tracking is key in this business!!!

I wrote a post about Keyword Tracking via Google’s Adwords Pixel, and I’m soon going to write one about using Yahoo’s Pixel to track keywords.  If your not sure how to track keywords at the keyword level you may want to check the post out as it gives you one good option.  There are several ways to do it.

Make Sure Your Split Testing Everything!

Another quick and easy way to increase your income is by split testing.  You should be split testing your Ads, Your Landing Pages, whether broad, phrase, or exact match works best, etc.  SPLIT TEST EVERYTHING!!!

Split testing allows you spend less yet make the same amount of money by increasing conversions, increasing your quality score which allows you to bid less for the same position, etc.  Make sure you doing this!

I wrote an article recently about split testing ads and how to do it!  You may want to check it out if your not sure how it works.

Conclusion:

I hope these tips well help you grow your affiliate business and give you a starting point when your not sure what to do.

If anyone has any other suggestions for affiliate marketers who are already making a little each month from affiliate marketing but want to grow their business please let us know in the comments.  I would love to hear your suggestions.

Popularity: 63% [?]

Welcome to Split Testing Ads 101. In this article I hope to explain to you exactly why you need to be split testing your ads, when is the best time to start split testing ads, and also exactly HOW TO split test ads.

What is Split Ad Testing?

To put it very simply split ad testing is where you have two ads per adgroup in which basically the ads are competing against each other to see which ad can receive the highest CTR (Click Through Rate).

Why Do I Need To Split Test My Ads?

Split testing your ads allows you to constantly work on improving your CTR. By increasing your CTR you can raise the position of which your ad is show on a search engine and pay less for that spot. Each search engine page typically shows ten ads per page going down the right side of the organic results. In order to get in the top spots you either need to increase your bids to bid your way to the top or you need to raise your quality score.

One of the most effective ways of raising your quality score is by having a high CTR percentage. This is especially true with Yahoo Search Marketing and also with Microsoft Adcenter. Google Adwords has alot more involved in their quality score algorithm, however, CTR is still very important in Google Adwords and in terms of your adgroups overall quality score.

When Should I Start Split Testing My Ads?

The answer to this question is immediately! Most people think they need to have a ton of data first before they start doing any split testing whatsoever, however, even if your only receiving a couple hundred impressions a day thats more than enough to do split testing with your ads.

Normally, the way I do it is to give a new campaign a day or two to run depending on how many impressions you are receiving. But within two days you should be looking at your current ads and replacing the ad with the lowest CTR with a new ad. Then you should continue to do this every couple of days. If your receiving enough data to do it every day you should be doing that.

Alright, I Get It! So How Do I Split Test My Ads?

Split Testing your Ads really isn’t that difficult and you really only need to remember one thing! Small Changes can Yield Huge Results!

Before I go more into that let’s explain one more time exactly what your doing. When you create a new campaign you have several adgroups in that campaign. In each adgroup you should have two ads. These two ads as I said before are basically competing against each other to see which one can get the highest CTR.

When I first create two ads for my adgroup, I create two ads that are relevant to my group of keywords in that adgroup. I don’t make them similar to each other, in fact, I typically try to create two different styles of ads.

Once you have your first two ads and you’ve gotten enough data to see which ad has the highest CTR its time to move onto the next step. Also, keep in mind that whenever you are split testing ads you want to make sure that the ads are being shown equally and that you don’t have optimize ads turned on. You want both ads to receive an equal amount of impressions to make sure the data is as accurate as possible.

Next, you open up your adgroup and lets say you see something like this…

As you can see the ad with the title Free Auto Insurance Quote has the highest CTR currently at .12% whereas the ad with the title Save Big on Insurance only has a CTR of .05%. So since we know which Ad has the highest CTR we simply delete the ad with the lowest CTR.

We are then just left with this Ad…

Free Auto Insurance Quote
Save Money Today When You Switch.
Compare Quotes to Save Big!
GetInsuranceQuotesNow.info

Do you remember what I said was the most important thing at the beginning of this section on how to split test ads? I said Small Changes Can Yield Huge Results. Most people when they create their new ad in this part just make up another ad, however, the best way I’ve found to do this is to take the ad you already have and rewrite it with just a small change or two. So our new ad would look something like this with the changes in bold so you can see what I changed.

Free Auto Insurance Quotes
Save Money Today When You Switch!
Compare Quotes to Save Now!
GetInsuranceQuotesNow.info

Now by making the above changes I increased the CTR on that ad from .12% to .96%. So as you can see by taking my current ad with the highest CTR and just changing a few small things I raised my CTR quite significantly.

So there you have it! The How, The Why, and The When to Split Testing Ads.

Popularity: 35% [?]