Monday, September 26, 2005

Tracking sales

I just added a "sales letter version" key to one of my sales pages.  I wanted to track the conversion percentages for each modification I made to the sales letter, now matter how miniscule.  I was tracking conversion percentages by day, but now I'm also tracking by "version."
 
Here's the breakdown:
 
Sales Letter Version (the version number of the text that's currently active)
Version Date (date the current version went into effect)
Splash Count (number of people that saw the sales letter)
Scroll Count (number of people that scrolled down, and presumably read, the sales letter)
Scroll % (scroll count / splash count)
Checkout Page Count (number of people that saw the checkout page)
Checkout Page % (checkout count / splash count)
Purchase Count (number of people that purchased)
Purchase % (purchase count / splash count)
 
With this quick overview, I can run a new headline for a day or two and see if it's more or less effective than the previous headline.  If I make changes frequently to my sales copy (which I do, daily), this method isn't very scientific.  First of all, it doesn't gather a large sample size if you change it too frequently, secondly, it doesn't take into account things like seasonal or day-of-week shopping patterns (like Wednesday sales traditionally greater than Monday sales).  The better way to do this would have been to run an A-B test for a longer period of time, sending some customers to each version of the sales letter and measuring them against each other.  But... this will do for now!

--

>> There are only 10 kinds of people in the world - those that know binary and those that don't.

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Name: Travis Giggy
Location: Fort Collins, Colorado, US

I am passionate about business on the Internet. This blog is my personal archive of lessons learned while conducting business on the Internet.

I started programming web sites 11 years ago.

In 1997, I started my first Internet business, called Carryout.com. It was an online food ordering service that allowed you to order food from a local restaurant right to your door. At the time, that was pretty cool!

The fire was stoked, and I started learning as much as I could about Internet marketing and copywriting. I became an expert at measuring and testing.

I've been a success and a failure many times over.

Now, a decade later, I still learn every day what it takes to be successful in online business. This blog is how I record those lessons. Since I started this blog, I've learned the value of keeping a written record of my Internet business experiences. As long as I keep learning and growing, I'll keep writing about it.

I doubt I'll ever quit learning.