Types of Landing Page Tests

Multivariate Testing

Multivariate (or multivariable) testing allows you to test many experiments simultaneously within a single page and identify the impact of each individual change. Images, headlines and body copy are mixed, paired, and viewed in a variety of ways, with technology tracking the performance with each of the multitude of variations. With greater creative latitude, you can broaden the discovery process for finding the best path for conversions. It's a great way to dramatically and quickly improve performance on your website and in your email messages; however, the greater the number of variations, the more time required to get a statistically valid sample of visitors to achieve valid performance measurement.

A/B Split Testing

Simple, efficient, and fast, A/B testing allows you to compare a baseline control sample with a variety of single variable experiments to improve conversion rates. A classic direct mail tactic, this method of testing is easy to deploy and is a great starting point for testing copy, layouts, images, and colors. Experiments are typically distributed equally with the original control sample. Conversion results are measured and tracked for comparison and performance analysis. This method is different from multivariate testing, which applies statistical modeling for experimentation with multiple variables within the distribution.

Usability Tests

Web usability is an approach to make it easy for a reader to intuitively take action on a web page without ambiguity of consequence of action. Best practice usability methodologies maintain a straightforward and concise presentation of information, offering clear choices in an obvious way, with the most important information in the right place on a webpage or web application. Usability testing is part of A/B and Multivariate testing methodology and is aimed toward narrowing down the most efficient placement of information to improve performance and conversions on a page. Eye tracking is used in usability testing and KISS (keep it simple, stupid) principles are advocated by web usability experts.

Template Variation Tests

Experimenting with template layouts can increase conversion significantly, especially if your existing template is noisy, cluttered, and confusing. To test template changes on a dynamic site while providing a consistent look to users across many pages, the testing framework needs to simply be involved in specifying a cookie that the website code then uses to choose a template. Here's how it works using Google's Website Optimizer: Customer enters site, Google testing framework sends test "content." This content is a <script> block that calls a JavaScript function that sets a cookie if it does not already have a value. If that function sees that the cookie is being set for the first time, it will also reload the page so that the server can get in on the action. On a request from the browser, the cookie should be tested for and the selection of the template should be changed accordingly. If the template is no longer valid (after the test cycle ends), then the default or current winner should be chosen. Even if that visitor returns to the website, the cookies remember who they are and what template to display so that you can test and learn what works.