In an excellent post, Lily Chiu at Omniture discusses marketers’ shared belief that testing web content will increase the conversion rate – and their inability to sell their belief up the chain. She then provides readers with “an arsenal of reasons why your company can’t afford to delay testing another year”.

Here are the highlights:

1) Testing Drives Results:
In a recent survey, 92% of marketers who conduct online tests saw positive ROI – that’s NINETY TWO percent, folks! How many other initiatives can you say that about? This is very validating for me to read, since I know by looking at our clients’ tests results that it is completely consistent with WiderFunnel’s experience.

2) Optimizing On-Site Increases Off-site ROAS (Return On Advertising Spending)
Chiu believes, and I concur, that companies are still missing out on opportunities to increase relevancy and engagement on their sites, negatively impacting their Return on Advertising Spending.

Yes, yes, everybody talks about this. In reviewing postings to my question posted in LinkedIn groups “How are you planning to manage the coming reduction in your marketing budget?” one of the main themes that emerges is that marketers plan to “increase relevancy and engagement” on their sites.

But it’s simply not happening.

Why? Several reasons:

1. Media marketers aren’t aligning their messaging with site marketers, so the ads that drive traffic to the site and the landing pages where traffic arrives are disconnected (I sometimes wonder if they even understand this is the right thing to do, and why they are not motivated to do it… but that’s content for another posting)

2. Site marketers don’t have the tools to change anything about the page or put up a new content aligned with the ads in time

Not increasing relevancy and engagement on the site is a huge missed opportunity to deliver a healthy Return on Advertising Spending – just think how your Bounce Rate would decrease if web visitors saw an immediate payoff on the landing page to what motivated them click- through in the first place!

3) ‘Hope’ is Not a Strategy
Are your ideas always right? Let’s be honest: no, they aren’t.

On the same survey, marketers were asked whether their pre-test hypotheses were always correct. “100% of survey respondents admit that their pre test hypotheses are not always correct.” 100% means not one single person can say he or she has always been right.

What this means to you is simple: if you are not testing your ideas for web content presentation with a statistically valid methodology, you have been wrong at least once about a new idea or design that’s been taken live.
Testing, on the other hand, allows you to understand whether your ideas actually impact your success metrics. By testing, you make data-driven decisions instead of “hope-driven leaps of faith.” (I love that sentence!)

At WiderFunnel, our methodology starts by creating a large number of hypotheses and testing them live. At the end of each round of experiments, we compile the findings in a Learning Compendium that becomes our clients’ very own best practices manual.

4) Time is of the Essence
Chiu believes that “the window of time to get a head start on the competition is closing quickly” as 69% of marketers who have not already begun testing plan on implementing it within the next year.

Yes, that means your competition is either testing or planning to very soon.

Testing and optimization is a way to innovate and be ahead of the competition which gives you a huge advantage, especially around cross-channel integration and your ability to present a unified view of your brand.

At a time when there are few edges to be found, conversion rate optimization might just be the easiest win.

5) Arm Yourself With Data
If you have analytics running on your site (and if not, why on earth not?!) you already have data to help you identify which pages you need to optimize. Just think about what you could test in those areas to improve your success metrics, and then bring both the data and the correlating ideas with you.

In closing, Chiu very realistically writes, “Implementing a new culture of testing and data-driven decision-making does require changes in your organization, there’s just no way around it. It doesn’t happen overnight and it doesn’t happen without someone to enthusiastically support it, preferably someone high up on the food chain. But let’s also recognize that while change can be scary and political, it is also necessary for any company trying to keep up online today. And hey, the goal is not to keep up, the goal is to win?”

Note: If you need help planning your conversion rate strategy and execution, contact a Conversion Rate Optimization expert. We would be more than happy to help!