Split Testing Offers and Networks

I’ve decided to write a couple more posts on split testing.  I’ve currently written one for both split testing ads and split testing landing pages.  In this post, I’m going to be talking about split testing offers and using different networks to do this.  In future posts, I’ll be talking about other things you need to be split testing.

Most blogs you read talk about split testing ads and then they leave it at that, however, as you’ll see from this blog there are many more things to split test!  I wasn’t going to do anymore articles on split testing because I wasn’t sure if it was necessary to touch on each one, however, after reading a post by Chad from CDFnetworks entitled Split Test Everything, I decided to go ahead and continue doing articles on split testing.

Split Testing Offers

Most affiliates leave this step out and in my opinion it’s a very important step.  In fact, some do start split testing their offers, however, after they find a decent one they all of a sudden stop!  Instead of pushing forward to try and find an even better converting offer, they become complacent.  So what exactly do I mean when I say split test different offers?

Split testing your offers is the same process as split testing your ads or landing pages.  In essence you are simply swapping out your affiliate link from one offer or network and replacing it with a different offer or network to see if that other offer is able to give you a higher ecpc.

So I simply try to find an offer with a higher conversion rate?

No, most affiliates fall into this pattern of looking at the conversion rates of offers!  So before I continue talking about how to split test offers and common practices, I want to clear this up!  You are looking for an offer that has a higher ecpc (estimated cost per click).  Let me explain why real quick…

If you have an offer that pays out one dollar for every lead and it converts at 25% that means for every 4 people you send you’ll earn .25 cents.  .25 cents is your ecpc.   That means that the highest amount you could bid in order to break even.

Now let’s say you have an offer that pays out ten dollars for every lead and it converts at 20% that means for every 5 people you send you’ll earn 2.00 dollars.  2.00 dollars is your ecpc.  That means you could bid up to 2.00 dollars on your keywords and still break even.

Of course that isn’t always true, sometimes you have an ecpc of .50 cents but if you raise your bids to .50 cents you’d start to lose money, however it gives you a general idea on what you could spend up to.  That’s why it’s important to ask for the ecpc for a particular offer when looking.  Simply ask your affiliate manager and they should be able to supply this information to you immediately.

Moving On

So, you’re not looking at the conversion rates, but the ecpc.  So after you have selected your first offer to run, you will want to allow time for data to come in.  Normally a week is about what I like to give each offer personally.  This allows me to make sure it’s as accurate as possible since some days perform better than other days during the week depending on the offer.

After you have run your offer, you simply replace it with another offer to see if it will perform better or not.  Okay, I know your next question…  How do I know which offers to try and which ones to stay clear of?  Well, unfortunately there isn’t any surefire way to tell if an offer sucks or not without testing it yourself in my opinion, however, there is a good way to get a starting list.

Simply email your affiliate manager and ask them if they could send you a list of all the offers they have for the niche you’re working in and ask them to include the ecpc for each offer.

NOTE: Make sure if you’re only running PPC traffic to it, that you tell them to give you the ecpc for search traffic only.  This also goes for organic traffic or email traffic.  That way you ensure that you’re receiving the most accurate data you can.

After you receive this list, you should have an order in which to test the offers out.  Starting with the offer that has the highest ecpc and moving down.  Easy enough right?

Testing the Same Offer on Multiple Networks

Did you know that multiple networks normally have the same exact offers?  Did you know that most even have the same exact landing page?  Okay smarty pants…Did you know that the same exact offer with the same exact landing page can possibly convert better and have a higher ecpc on a different network?

That’s right, your ecpc can vary depending on the network you’re using!

Not only do you need to test different offers, but you also need to test different networks.  That makes it a little more difficult, well not really difficult, just more time consuming!  I won’t beat around the bush, some networks scrape leads, although sometimes it’s not really the networks but the software they use…*cough* Direct Track *cough*

So the bottom line is you need to track both different offers and the same offer on different networks!

Finding a Great Offer with a Great ecpc

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, I see affiliates all of a sudden stop split testing offers.  Why?  Well, my guess is because they find an offer that does really well and have a great ecpc so they don’t want to keep testing and drop to an offer that does worse, however, you must also remember that you could again find one that does even better!

What I Recommend

If you find an offer that is doing exceptionally well, instead of split testing new offers across your entire campaign, only send maybe 10% of your traffic to a new offer in order to keep testing!  This will still give you an idea on offers and if you find one that is doing better in that 10% then try it across the whole board!

Question

Do you currently split test your offers?  Do you split test the same offer among different networks?  Do you feel that all affiliates should be doing this simple step?  If you could say one thing that could encourage some affiliates to start split testing their offers if their not currently doing so, what would you say?

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