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Testing & Tracking | Article #294 : TESTING AND TRACKING – PART 1

In this first installment of our series on testing and tracking we’re going to introduce you to the topic and try to give you a feel for what you’re in for. This may be the hardest work you’ll do when it comes to your Internet business.

A lot of people think that they can just put up a website with any old product, post a few ads and the money is just going to come pouring in without them keeping track of anything.  If only it were that easy. The truth is, there are so many variables when it comes to promoting your business that you can’t even begin to imagine them until you’ve been doing this for a very long time. The checklist of items to go over is enough to choke a team of horses.

So why do we have to track and test our campaigns? What exactly is it that we’re looking for? Do we expect to find some magic formula that will give us the perfect combination of sales copy, graphics and whatever else we’ve thrown into the mix? Well, yes and no.

The magic formula doesn’t exist. If it did, everybody would be using it and we’d all be millionaires. Unfortunately, the numbers of variables from business to business and site to site make it impossible to put into writing a specific formula that will give us optimum results. That’s why we have to test and track. The testing is the part that comes first and then the tracking is what we do to see what effects our testing had.

Now, this would all be a lot easier if we could just test everything at once. Actually, the only time we ever really test everything it once is when we first put our site on the Internet and run our first ad campaign to get it off the ground. After that, you’re really only testing one thing at a time.  Why? Well, we’re actually going to get into that in future articles. The “why” we only test one thing at a time is the whole basis of testing in the first place.

Let’s take an example of testing something that has nothing to do with Internet marketing. Suppose you want to figure out the best angle to throw a bowling ball from on a certain lane condition. You want to throw it so that the ball will go right into the 1-3 pocket if you’re a right handed bowler.

Now, there are several factors involved with getting that bowling ball down the alley. There’s the bowling ball itself. Many bowlers have more than one bowling ball, usually a rubber ball and a plastic one. Rubber balls usually are softer and break sooner. Plastic balls are harder and break later or not as much.

Another factor is how hard you roll the bowling ball itself. If you roll the ball harder it won’t break as soon. If you roll it slower it will break sooner.

Another factor is whether you throw the ball directly underhand or throw the ball off the side of your hand, causing it to hook slightly. An underhand throw will cause the ball to go straighter.

Okay, taking all those factors, you are only going to change one thing at a time if you are going to test the best combination of things for getting a strike on that particular lane condition.  First you would change the ball from rubber to plastic and see if that helps or hurts. Then you would change the speed and so on.

This is exactly what we do when we market our products. We have to test one factor at a time to see what changes give us the best results.

See you next time.

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