Webtrends Optimization

I just got news that Google Web Optimizer is out of beta. In addition, it doesn’t even require an AdWords account to use it anymore. This is great news for the testing industry and for all online marketers. Check it out here. In addition, there now is a dedicated Official Google Web Optimizer blog.

I’ll see if I can get some tests running just to see what the isolated tool looks like versus the integrated one. They also upgraded the setup of multivariate tests for all versions.

On another note, it’s good to see that Google saying things like “it’s hard to find a serious advertiser who doesn’t at least plan to do content testing this year.” They even mention some best practices that I’ve talked about at this blog:

• “don’t be shy: big changes generally yield big differences in performance”
• “We recommend letting your experiments run for at least two weeks, no matter how much traffic you get and how strong the results initially appear, just so the data has enough time to normalize.” – I recommended the same things in my Multivariate Testing Primer.

Also there’s a forum for Google Web Optimizer users, which isn’t new, but expect it to grow quickly with this latest announcement.

If you’re waiting for the last post in my 3 part series about difficult test results, I apologize. I’ve been sick all week and wanted to go over my last post with Vladimir Brayman, Widemile’s chief scientist, before I posted it for the world to see. It’s a very important topic and a challenging one too. I’ll try to get it out next week for sure.

Edit: I fixed all the links in this post.  Copy and pasting is getting the best of me!

I recently came across a few great posts that I enjoyed and wanted to pass onto you all. The first is from Tim Ash, who has written a great book on Landing Page Optimization. One of his more recent entries discusses how to write effective copy to increase conversions.

One of my favorite bloggers, Avinash Kaushik tells marketers to embarrass their managers in order to succeed at their campaigns. Testing tops that list of course, but his other techniques are great methods at “working the system.”

Lastly, Lenny de Rooy, wrote a guest post at SEO Scoop about 5 misconceptions of Google Web Optimizer. It goes slightly beyond just GWO itself and into testing methodology