Most people underestestimate the value of testing different stuffs. I mean most don’t even know they should test things. Testing plays a key role not only in online business but also in every aspects of life. Sometimes, it can be risky and most of the times it will help us learn and gain knowledge based on what we have observed. With affiliate marketing, I really love to test stuffs out. I mean when I was doing Adwords early this year I was very receptive on committing mistakes and learning from them. I put up different landing pages and different color schemes and see how they flop! On that way, you know you could do better the next time.
There are tons of ways wherein you can test something and do a case study. Like for instance in this blog, when I was promoting Pepperjam Network here. I think I made over $100 with an affiliate banner at the sidebar (when there are few advertisers yet). Why is that so? Basically I just rotated every type of ad that Pepperjam gives. I give my users different views of the ads which I think have helped both of us. What you are needing to do is make your users avoid banner blindness wherein they just go w/your site and say “these banners again”. That’s why as much as possible I ask for different types of ads from advertisers so that they can maximize their exposure from this blog.
Now someone can say “It’s risky to test things and I don’t think I can afford it”. Well its true but most of the times it is not really as risky as what you might ever think of. What you have to do is always look and observe what you’re visitors are doing. How they respond to it. It’s easy sometimes to say, “oh what I did doesn’t really make much sense” but you will benefit a lot from it on a long term basis. How if it doesn’t work? Then it doesn’t work, leave it! If you believe you have exerted a better effort with stuffs that flops then you can always drop it and start again. I know many are afraid but it’s just business and life I think. You will succeed and you will fail
I know some of you also do testing and some “under the microscope” experiments. Maybe you can share yours and what you have learned from it.
Great one. The same can be said with an offline business. My Dad used to fail a lot and well we thought he’s ventures were going nowhere until he pulled several million dollars after spending nearly a million every week. Btw, great blog looking forward to reading it more…
I tested pepperjam. Didn’t earn any. Didn’t lose any in testing it.
I am currently building a following and hopefully going to start testing ad networks in a few weeks, but it is difficult to do when you have very few page views. You need to develop a pretty large and consistent sample before you start changing to many options.
For example if you test ads and only have 10,000 page views a month and then change them and test new ads when you have 20,000 page views a month your statistics will be skewed so make sure you take that into consideration.
Adam
you’re right. You have to have something already built for you in order to make the test worth it.. but again it doesn’t cost you to test..
whew, you’re dad has a lot of courage huh… 😉 I guess you were living on a cinderella life thats why he was able to afford it…
Hi Melvin,
this my first visit to your place. i really agree with your point on the necessity of testing. I would add two things to your point :
> it is easy to do test : with your friends, relatives you can learn a lot, just make sure they are telling the truth
> testing is an art of interpretation so do not take what testors say for granted.
C U
Effectiveness of any web product is related to an effective metrics , which in turn is related to testing of your landing pages , PPC campaigns ,ads etc.
Testing is an integral part of your marketing mix, if one needs to move to the next level
It is very important to test everything that you can. If your really determined to make money off of your blog, then try every way you can to make money.
I’m currently testing out AdSense on my blog for a case study. Check it out if your interested.