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I recently spoke on the multivariate testing panel at eMetrics in San Francisco. You would think that I dropped a hand grenade into the room when I opined that the Taguchi Method was a bad fit for landing page testing. This is a well understood fact to anyone with a solid understanding of basic statistics. Unfortunately this seems to leave out most landing page testers…

In the world of landing page testing there are two common mathematical approaches: A-B Split testing, and parametric Multivariate testing. A subset of Multivariate testing is known as “Design of Experiments” (DoE) and is also called “fractional factorial”. A common fractional factorial approach is called the “Taguchi Method”.

Some online marketers consider A-B Split testing to be kind of wimpy, and endow fractional factorial methods with an almost mythical quality.

I spend way too much of my time explaining to people that at least when applied to landing page optimization fractional factorial methods are a really bad idea. Despite this, the illusion persists that this kind of testing is somehow state-of-the-art, when in fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

For a lot more detail (30 pages worth), download the whitepaper - “The Truth About Taguchi”.

Testing is composed of two important activities:

- Deciding what to test and coming up with good ideas
- Finding the best solution among your tested alternatives

People claim to get really good results with fractional factorial multivariate testing, and they credit this to the method that they use to analyze the data.

In reality, the improved conversion rates are the results of the great ideas for new landing page elements that go into the test. If all of your alternative landing pages designs are better then the original, it does not really matter what method you use to confirm that. Fractional factorial approaches may actually miss the best version of the landing page in your test and often lead you to a sub-optimal answer.

There is a huge mismatch between the original environment in which fractional factorial testing was developed and how it is usually applied to landing page optimization. It was basically transplanted to online marketing because it is relatively easy for a non-mathematical audience to understand, and not because of its appropriateness or fitness for the task.

The principal drawbacks of fractional factorial methods are:

• Very small test sizes
  
• Restrictive & inflexible test designs
  
• Less accurate estimation of individual variable contributions
  
• Drawing the wrong conclusions
  
• Inability to consider context and variable interactions
  

If you plan on using parametric (i.e. “model building” )approaches for landing page testing you should always use full factorial data collection regardless of the subsequent analysis you plan to do. It greatly simplifies your test design, and produces better estimates of the main effects.

All parametric methods (including fractional factorial) are also outclassed by newer non-parametric testing methods such as the SiteTuners TuningEngine, which can be licensed to run your own tests in-house and have the following advantages:

• Very large test sizes (1,000-10,000 times larger with the same data rate)
  
• Much faster data collection (on the same data rate)
  
• More accurate results (consider variable interactions)
  
• Flexible test construction
  
• No knowledge of statistics required
  

A new update to AdWords tracking has been reported by the guys over at AccuraCast. Seems they have improved the conversion tracking allowing users to separate different things to track to conversion.

This ability to track email, sales, and other conversion elements individually will be a great help for online marketers. Plus they can be seen in summary form of overall conversion total and the unique conversions to the elements a user sets up.

Good job Google, now if you could only ban my competitors….

Traditional marketers and PR folks have been using good deeds for marketing purposes for years; so why not online marketers? In today’s Link Building column, “Link Building from the Heart: Giving to Get,” Justilien Gaspard shows how giving back to your community on a local, national, or even international level is a great way to build links.

All new parents think their drooling, wailing, wrinkled little midget is beautiful - and that’s as it should be. The same seems to be true of landing pages. If an online marketing campaign is making money, it’s taken as proof the landing pages are beautiful–and don’t need further improvement.

In fact, landing pages typically range from barely acceptable to horrible. They are often at direct cross-purposes with the desired conversion action and stated goals of the business.

In this sorry state of affairs lies a terrific opportunity - fixing your landing pages can often lead to long-lasting double or even triple digit gains in conversion rate. This can change the economics of your business overnight.

Landing page optimization is no longer optional. It’s one of the core activities that all online marketers must pay serious attention to. Landing page optimization spans the important topics of usability, copywriting, web design, and information architecture.

But landing page optimization also requires a proper grounding in math and test design. The messy reality of real-time marketing rears its ugly head. Organizational considerations required to build a testing program are key. You may need to change the mindset within your company.

I’ve covered these topics and more in my recent book Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions (John Wiley Press 2008). The book even got a really nice unsolicited writeup from SES London Chair Mike Grehan in his How To Avoid A Crash Landing column (and I didn’t even have to pay a dime from the giant stash of payola money that I have available for such plugs).

I want to start a conversation and a revolution, but first we must break down the walls of denial:

Repeat after me: “My baby is ugly…”

Wired? Or Weird? The Matt Cutts Interview on Epicenter in The Wired Blog Network.

The Question is no longer: “Is Google God?”

Wired knows the answer: Matt Cutts is. A god with a little g. Or at least “like” a god. Not just any god. An Internet god.

“Among search geeks and online marketers, Matt Cutts is like an internet god,” wrote Betsy Schiffman in her blog post.

Last week when soliciting reader questions, Betsy called Matt one of the most “feared, loathed and revered men on the internet.” He was “Google’s search stud.”

Perhaps it was inevitable that Matt Cutts would be deified. We just thought Wired might have made him a saint first. (cat god = inside joke for Cuttlets)

Nothing against Wired. I love Wired. So much I paid full retail price (less my Barnes & Noble discount) for the print magazine just to read Chris Anderson’s “Free-conomics” before it was available free online.

Before readers reach the Q&A they have to hear the porn cookie guy story. Again.

Wired or Tired? You decide.

USA Today reviewed “The Google Story” by David A. Vise and Mark Malseed back in November of 2005:

“Take, for instance, the developer of Google’s SafeSearch filter, Matt Cutts, also know as ‘porn cookie guy’: “Cutts got his moniker by giving out his wife’s tempting homemade cookies to Googlers who help him find unwanted porn.”

Then there’s Porn Flakes, the Google cereal story (via SEL?). Thanks but we’ll have our breakfast of champions with attribution, Betsy.

Cereality! Matt got his own cereal box on the Google campus. No mention of Raisin Brin, LarryO’s or Porn Flakes?

Danny posted today about Rand’s Feb 29 video interview with Matt.

Last week I linked to Eric Enge’s phenomenally popular, full text Q&A interview with Matt Cutts.

Today I’ll link to Aaron Wall’s #1 ranked (in Google for “matt cutts interview“) done in 2005.

All Matt Cutts All The Time: our new Search Engine Watch mantra.

So in the interest of fair use, here are the 7 Deadly Questions Wired asked Matt:

1. Does SEO (search-engine optimization) work?
2. Where do you see search in two to five years?
3. What about social search?
4. Will you ever roll out for-fee webmaster tools?
5. On video search, is there a bias toward YouTube videos?
6. If you were to start a web-based business tomorrow, what key things would you do?
7. What’s going on with Google bombs — are you still seeing them?

Continue reading for three Matt Cutts Wired Quotes of the Day:

Click to read the rest of this post…

CNN wants news mojo from the people — and will soon launch iReport.com for citizen journalists.

News sharing is a natural next step, because people already send far more videos and images than CNN could ever show online or on air. According to MediaWeek, CNN uses only 10 percent of all contributions through its current iReport functionality.

Today when you upload video to the CNN site, your content is thoroughly vetted. With this News “You Tube” service, both terrific and terrible videos will get shared there.

Susan Grant, EVP of CNN News Services, welcomes all the noise. CNN will allow all content to be shared, but remove objectionable items when they feel it’s necessary.

Unfortunately, CNN won’t get the most mojo! They decided to launch a new iReport destination, and even spent $750k to secure two domain names. There could be many reasons for doing this, but traffic didn’t enter into this decision.

From a search marketing perspective, it’s baffling that CNN isn’t able to leverage their brand, authority, link love and traffic within the mother domain. My sympathies are extended to CNN’s online marketers and techies, who are figuring out all possible ways to optimize this new destination. It’s a lot more work.

To me, it would be far better if CNN tried to create a nice, big searchable world of professional and user-generated news content. If CNN really wants mojo, then they should open up directly to people — at least on a branded CNN sub-domain. Take a calculated risk here.

Over half (55%) of the 2,000 marketers surveyed by Datran Media reported that they expect the ROI from email to be higher than other marketing channels like search or display advertising.
 
The vast majority of them (82%) plan to increase their use of email marketing.
 
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