19% jump in affiliate and advertising revenue for vehicle search engine website

Business	Content Website
Sector	Automotive
Optimized Conversion	Revenue per Visitor
Test	Hybrid A/B/n and Multivariate Test
Website	www.lemonfree.com
Case Study	Download Case Study PDF

Find out how Lemonfree.com, an automobile Search Engine, grew Affiliate and Advertising revenue per visit by a whopping 19% with a handful of tested changes to their listing page template.

The Client: LemonFree.com

LemonFree.com has changed the paradigm for buying and selling vehicles. Unlike other automobile marketplaces, LemonFree.com encourages greater transparency than available on dealer-sponsored websites by offering unbiased vehicle and dealer information to shoppers
The company’s business model is supported by multiple pay-per-click and pay-per-lead revenue sources, including Advertising and Affiliates

The Business Need

Over a six month period, the traffic to LemonFree.com more than doubled, reaching over 8 million page views per month. With no sign of traffic slowing down, company management began looking for ways to maximize the revenue from this increased traffic, including improving the conversion rate through testing, but without changing the user experience enough to it.

The Challenges

In-house conversion optimization tests on advertising and Affiliate links had prove difficult to implement and the results challenging to measure, despite LemonFree.com management’s fluency with testing technologies.

The LemonFree.com team faced four primary challenges:

1. Maintaining or improving a great user experience for Lemonfree.com users
2. Measuring revenue lift vs. Click-throughs and Form-Fills
3. Merging and analyzing Google Website Optimizer (GWO) and Google Analytics (GA) data
4. Calculating statistical significance of GA results

LemonFree.com management’s understanding of their limitations with conversion optimization testing led them to seek the help of outsourced conversion optimization experts.

The Solution

LemonFree.com management chose to engage WiderFunnel, a full-service conversion optimization testing agency, to develop and execute a conversion optimization strategy for their site-wide listing page template. This key web page in the LemonFree.com business model contains detailed vehicle information and is accessed directly from an on-site search results page.

To ensure the accuracy of metrics, WiderFunnel kick-started the process with a planning phase to prioritize revenue streams and develop a reliable method for tracking revenue from each source.

Using its proprietary LIFT™ Model to uncover problematic areas on the web page and identify testing hypotheses, WiderFunnel recommended a hybrid test with A/B/n and Multivariate characteristics.

The test was executed through GWO but, in order to capture revenue data by source and provide actionable information, WiderFunnel customized GA to track revenue goals in parallel.

WiderFunnel created a total of six redesigned web page Variations with small yet crucial changes such as placement and type of Advertising and Affiliate links and used an A/B/n test structure to isolate variables similar to a multivariate test.

While detailed information on the key hypotheses tested is confidential, the test’s included considerations such as:

• Using a lightbox to open up new pages vs. using a new tab
• Swapping different on-page forms
• Adding and removing links
• Placement of Advertising Banners

THE RESULT: 19% Lift in Revenue Per Visit

Of the six Variations tested, all reached statistical significance and beat the original (Control) listing page within 10 days of launch. Essentially, all hypotheses tested had a positive impact on revenue growth. The top performing page design, Variation F, lifted total revenue per visit by 19%!

By making small but critical changes to remove distraction, implementing a hybrid A/B/n-Multivariate test structure and skillfully tracking results, WiderFunnel delivered a winning test page that had a direct and immediate impact on LemonFree.com’s bottom line.

Fig. 1: Original (Control) Listing Page Template

Fig. 2: Winning Test Page: 19% Lift in Revenue per Visit

What our client says…

 

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