PewPew 2.0 - Blogs about marketing

Click Here, I've Been A Jerk to You.

I've fervently believed that using "click here to whatever" on one's links is always a terrible idea. After all, "click here" doesn't mean anything; it doesn't tell the visitors (or the search engines) what's on the other side of that link. "Click here" seemed to me to be a completely useless, lazy, and dangerous forerunner to mystery meat navigation. Even Jakob Neilsen said don't use it.

Recently, I've read an article that convinced me that I'd been unfairly harsh to "click here". It's still true that "click here" isn't appropriate for navigational use, or for informational pages. But landing pages have a completely different goal - getting the visitors to do one specific thing - convert.

When a web page has a specific goal, many of the general rules of web design don't apply. When on a landing page, users very quickly decide whether they are interested in the goal, and if interested, will try to do it. In this case, best to tell the users what you want them to do, and why they should do it. Being direct is generally quite effective, and there's nothing more direct than "click here to whatever".

"Click here", I hope you'll accept my apologies. I will be nicer to you in the future, and I pledge to remember that the actual goals of a website determine what user navigation (or herding) techniques are appropriate.

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Yes, that Widemile.

My company, Widemile, finally made our big awesome secret announcement today. And we had a website to go with it. :) This is really huge news if you're a marketer who spends money on pay per click advertisements. Or someone who provides web services for one of those marketers.

For about 2 years, Widemile has provided full service landing page optimization. A landing page is where you go after clicking an ad, such as the ones at the bottom of my site. Each time those ads are clicked, the advertiser pays a few bucks to the ad-server (Google, for instance) and the clicker is taken to the advertiser's webpage - the landing page. A well designed landing page is going to entice visitors to convert - for example, to sign up for a newsletter or buy a shiny new widget. Landing page optimization is the process of refining those landing pages to get visitors to convert; to do whatever it is that the advertiser wants.

Widemile has an awesome platform that we use to optimize the pages. Our platform automatically tries various elements on the page, and measures which elements are effective in getting visitors to convert. The big announcement is that instead of just doing this for our customers, we're going to let partners use the platform to help their customers out.

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When to Use a Split (or AB) Test.

Hey marketeers; here's a little blog on page optimization and testing. Are you wondering whether to do a split page test or a multivariate test? These are the situations where split testing is appropriate:

• A split test is the best choice for campaigns with a smallish volume of conversions - about 100 conversions or less per month. If you have more volume than that, you're wasting time by not testing all of the elements that a multivariate test would get you. You never know what will drive conversions unless you test.
• Page layout tests (multiple pages with the same content, but different layout and styling) are also perfect for split tests. Be sure to keep the content exactly the same between all the candidate pages, or you won't know which part of the winning layout was actually influencing the conversion rate.

All other situations really do call for multivariate testing. You can get a lot done by using multivariate (not full-factorial) testing.

Remember that any testing campaign should be run for a minimum of two weeks. Doing so is a critical step to smooth out traffic spikes due to the season and statistical anomalies.

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Superbowl 42.

It seems fitting that The Answer is also the universe's answer to Tom Brady. I had a great time watching the Superbowl. We really wanted the Giants to win; I much prefer the underdog story to perfection and alleged cheating. But it had been so long since our team had won that we thought we were cursing the teams. It was very exciting and heartwarming watching Manning the younger and his stunning defense shut down Pretty Boy Brady.

The ads were okay. No monkeys — not even a Trunk Monkey. There were only a few dot-come ads that stuck out to me. The Career Builder "Follow Your Heart" ad was very good. GoDaddy's implication that you might see some boobies if you went to their site was... odd. I'm not sure how large the crossover between Superbowl-watchers and domain-name buyers is. At this point, I think that Go Daddy keeps buying Superbowl Ads because owner Bob Parsons has a major bone to pick with the network censors. On the other hand, perhaps the strategy is simply to keep a reputation as the thought-leaders in domain registration. Lastly, there's SalesGenie. They dropped a few million on their ad last year, and did a couple ads this year. They've got a very confusing homepage - I keep thinking that they should get some landing page optimization from Widemile. But Salesgenie's already using Omniture, so I guess that's working out for them.

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Yeee-haw! Linky linky time.

I've got round-up of links here that are worth the attention of your eyeballs for a minute or so.

• Pew Pew Legos! - This video is courtesy of my mom. She's now watching YouTube, and sending me videos. :)
• WGA Strike Garners Sympathy - There's a slight chance you haven't seen this already. Note David Cross of Arrested Development as the scab.
• Microsoft Designs the iPod - Yet another example of "funny 'cuz it's true".
• If you're into Halo 3, you can buy the new map pack for $12 now. Or wait until spring, and get it for free. I recommend the free route - of course.
• Wired had a "Saddest Cube" contest last month, and here are the "winners". There's nothing like an office by the toilet to remind you how good you have it.

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