Digest...

The Touchstone tool (beta version) seeks to make truer predictions of how a proposed subject line will perform in practice and to suggest better alternatives.

Its analysis of words in its subject line database doesn’t ask “How well do subject lines using this word do?”. Instead, it asks “How well do subject lines using this word do compared to other subject lines used by the same sender?” So, all things being equal, it’s more likely to capture the incremental effect of wording on success. Second , it encourages you to upload your campaign history so it can apply its algorithmic analysis to your list and emails.

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Advanced/ Digest...

1. Which software do you use most often for A/B testing and why?

-Google Analytics and Optimizely. GA for test planning and hypothesis and Optimizely for running the tests; I probably don’t need to explain why we use GA for analytics.

-The software usually comes down to the size of the company of the company and their budget. For most clients we use Visual Website Optimizer and Optimizely. But many medium to large companies are using Hubspot and some use Marketo.

-We also do a lot of A/B testing using email systems like MailChimp and iContact. For small lead generation and landing page projects we also use LeadPages and Unbounce.

-We use Optimizely for pretty much all of our A/B testing. Having considered other testing tools, the speed of deployment, flexibility, control and advanced feature set available, made Optimizely a clear choice for our business.

-I mostly use Optimizely, Google Content Experiments, tools that are built-in to the ecommerce platform, or whichever other tool the client happens to be using.

2. If you had zero budget for A/B testing an ecommerce site what option would you recommend? 

-Optimizely’s basic package is inexpensive and it also offers a free trial. I’d say, run a trial, hopefully you’ll be able to get a result that can demonstrate an ROI for the basic package cost. 

-Google Content Experiments is also a great free product and it’s incredibly powerful. 

-I tend to recommend Visual Website Optimizer for any budget. I like that it's easy to use and that you can set up the pages to track revenue and other KPIs. Plus the heatmaps and flexibility of the product make it a winner. 

-Use Google's Content Experiments: It's free and, even if less flexible than other tools 'out of the box', you can still do loads with it, learn a lot, and - perhaps - build a case to get some budget for further testing.

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Basic/ Digest...

Phone Call Tracking

Phone call tracking allows you to track phone calls based on advertising campaigns, traffic source, and search keywords. The two industry-leading phone call tracking tools are CallRail and Mongoose Metrics.

Form Tracking

The concept of form tracking is a fairly new way to measure and understand your audience. It involves recording the actions of your audience when they start interacting and filling out forms on your website. [The author has] only used Formisimo and can only recommend them.

Website Heat Maps

Website heat maps are a graphical representation of data that shows how your users move around your website and which links or buttons they’re most likely to click on. The two most popular website heat map tools are CrazyEgg and ClickTale. In case you’d prefer a self-hosted open source version, give ClickHeat a shot.

Split Testing

Split testing is a way for you to test different variations of Web page elements or compare a few completely different designs and layouts to find out which one is the most effective for you. Between all the split-testing tools I’ve used in the past, the two I recommend the most are Optimizely and Visual Website Optimizer.

Speed Testing (three different types): GTmetrix , Google Page Speed , Pingdom 

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