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As most of you know, WhichTestWon.com is the only weekly publication dedicated 100% to A/B and multivariate testing Case Studies.  The site’s journalists seek the best of the world’s marketing tests. In 2009, WhichTestWon.com founded the Testing Awards to celebrate the world’s ‘Best Marketing Tests’ as natural outgrowth of their mission as the only professional journalists in the world focused entirely on conversion rate optimization and testing.

So this past week, we were extremely proud to have earned not one but two Testing Awards:

Gold Ribbon: Lead Generation Tests for the work we did for our client Trafford Consulting

• See the Testing Awards mention here
• Read the complete case study here

Silver ribbon: Best Ecommerce Checkout Test for the work we did for ElasticPath on behalf of the Winter 2010 Olympics Games ecommerce site

• See the Testing Awards mention here

But the point of this blog post is a different one: it is about helping YOU win the Conversion Optimization “battle”

One of the most poignant issues our prospective clients often share with us is the challenge they face evangelizing in their own companies for the need to run statistically valid tests when making changes to the site, rather than relying on opinions and “gut feeling.”

And last week, WhichTestWon.com’s founder Anne Holland sent out an email to her readers with the most logical of recommendations on how to do it.

In her email, Anne encouraged her readers to attend the Conversion Conference coming up next week in San Francisco (March 14-15) — and to attend with a colleague:

“My *strong* recommendation,” she wrote, “is that you get two tickets to this conference — bring a Web department leader with you as the marketing department’s “treat”.   If both of you hear the same presentations, get inspired by the same Case Studies, network with the same experts… chances are any changes you want to make to your own organization’s site and tests will be FAR EASIER when you get home again.  You won’t be alone pushing for changes at the Web development meeting anymore, you’ll have a true partner in the Web department. In fact, if you have the budget to send two people, I think you’d be smarter sending a cross-departmental team rather than two marketers (or two web developers).  Anyway, that’s my .02 cents worth.”

Anne Holland is absolutely right, as she often is: to succeed in Conversion Optimization as a company strategy, you need to have a team around you!

I sincerely hope you (and a colleague!) attend Conversion Conference in San Francisco March 14-15

Chris Goward and I will both be presenting (see more info below) and we would welcome the chance to meet you and your colleague to discuss our Award-winning case studies, the many interactive examples we will be presenting at the conference – and any other subject that may come up!

Attend and save $250 – each! – at Conversion Conference in San Francisco

To make is easier for you and a colleague to attend, we have arranged for you to get a $250.00 discount on each ticket for the Conversion Conference in San Francisco March 14-15. SIMPLY USE CODE CCW918

Here is more info about the session Chris Goward and I will be delivering:

Monday, March 14th, 2011, 1:20-2:20 pm

Rapid Fire: Live Page Critiques (S6)

• Your landing page stinks – its just a question of degree. Bring your URL and our experts will give you some quick and actionable tips to immediately improve performance. Guaranteed to be an educational and entertaining session.

Tuesday, March 15th, 2011, 2:30-3:30 pm
Lead Generation: Getting the Form-fill (S17)

• Yes, landing pages are important – but what happens when visitors click through to your lead form? Discover how changing the way you perceive and guide your visitors in the ordering flow can double your return on marketing. Learn the secret behind using persuasion in the order flow, how to create test hypotheses that will generate dramatic conversion rate lift, and how to design a statistically valid experiment. This interactive session will include multiple lead generations case studies and give you the chance to test your conversion know-how by guessing the winning variations from tests performed for eBay, Epson, BabyAge and many others.

Hope to see you at Conversion Conference in San Francisco (and you save $250 – each!)

Yesterday, Anne Holland announced the winners of the 2009 Which Test Won Testing Awards and we are delighted to report that WiderFunnel won on three separate categories:

• Best PPC Landing Page Tests Gold Ribbon for our work with Rudder’s Free Registration Conversion Campaign

• Best Homepage Tests Silver Ribbon (B2B) for our work with Safe Software’s Homepage-to-Downloads-Page Test

• Best Big Giant Button Test Gold Ribbon for our work with W3i, LLC “Profile Pimp” PPC Landing Page Campaign

The awards were judges by web analytics guru Avinash Kaushik, renown copy writer Bob Bly, Vertster’s Scott Miller and of course, Anne Holland herself. Judges evaluated dozens of entries and, as Anne put it, “It was a tremendous task. (Inspiring, but still a lot of work).”

You will find all creative samples (control plus winner) and results data for 17 Award-winning tests, including homepage tests, lead generation tests, ecommerce tests, PPC landing page tests, video tests, as well as Anne’s personal favorite, the Big Giant Button Award – which WiderFunnel won!

(By the way, if you would like more detailed information on these Award-winning tests, you can read the case studies here: Rudder; Safe Software; and W3i’s “Profile Pimp“)

It certainly promises to be interesting!

Both Anne and I will be presenting four real-life Case Studies. Plus, we will also conduct a live Landing Page evaluation of one of the attending marketers’ landing pages and reveal specific changes the marketer should test to increase page conversions. This free evaluation offer is for registered sign-ups for the Webinar only.

But registration is limited to 100 seats – and we are almost full already (sorry to be blogging so late but Anne’s Twitters have driven an amazing amount of traffic to the registration page).

To make sure you get a seat, click to the Registration page right now!

Then, as part of that time waste, I came across MarketingSherpa and my life changed (well, at least my attitude did). I realized, after reading just one issue of this amazing online publication that everything I knew about direct marketing, database marketing, CRM and so on, could directly relate to marketing on the internet. Everything I knew about making marketing measurable and accountable could now be taken the next level on the internet – and I was hooked.

Anne Holland founded MarketingSherpa and was its president until last year when she sold the company and decided to do some gardening. Sensing a kindred soul, I had been in touch with Anne over the years, and I figured that her gardening days could not last long (I mean, the weather in New England isn’t that conducive to year-round gardening so I figured she’d get bored soon enough). So we got talking about collaborating and, I have to admit that from a career perspective, the day she agreed to sit on our Board of Advisors was one of the happiest days for me.

Anne is a passionate advocate of online marketing testing. She currently publishes the authority website Which Test Won? and I encourage you to check it out, as it’s all about A/B split testing and multivariate testing. Every week she’ll be featuring a new real-life testing example you can vote on, and then see how your gut stacks up against the actual test results. Plus, it’s got a 125-term testing glossary and heaps of “know-how” information.

Chris Goward and I, as well as our growing WiderFunnel team of testing experts, are thrilled with our association with Anne Holland, truly a leader in our industry, and look forward to continuing to learn together and grow the exciting field of conversion optimization!