Aweber's "Split Test" Functionality

Autoresponder company Aweber offers a great "split test" option to its customers that I just found out.

Imagine you have a subscription box on your web site, just like I do here in the right sidebar.

Let's say 1% of those who visit your web site are actually signing up.

The question is, could that have been 2% or more if you tried a different sign-up box and/or you gave out a different download premium... Wouldn't you like to find that out?

Aweber allows you to test exactly that by running a "split test."

This is how you do it:

1) You design two different sign-up boxes, with perhaps different text, different colors, different font family and font sizes, or a combination thereof.

2) You either link those different boxes to the same free download (or what Aweber calls a "message"), or come up with a second free download for the second signup box.

3) Then, you tell Aweber the probability with which those boxes should be displayed every time their page is viewed. (There are other and multiple pop-up options of displaying the box as well.)

For example, you can have Box A displayed 50% of the time and Box B displayed the other 50%.

4) Aweber composes a Javascript code for you based on the above steps. You copy that HTML code and insert it in your web page, in the appropriate location.

And you are done!

Not only your boxes are displayed according to the probabilities you have defined, but detailed statistics are provided about the performance of the alternative sign-up boxes. That way you can easily determine if your design changes have improved or actually deteriorated your conversion rate.

A very useful functionality that should help you improve the performance of your web site through a controlled and scientific method.