5 Common Landing Page Testing Mistakes to Avoid

Since you’re here at the ion blog reading this post, I’m guessing you’re already testing, or seriously considering it.  That’s fantastic and means you aren’t a victim (or at least won’t be for much longer) of mistake numero uno. Committing any of the other four mistakes will hinder your ability to succeed, so without further ado, please avoid these conversion killers:

1. No Testing at all - the biggest mistake! 
2. Not waiting for statistical significance - don’t jump the gun, give your tests time to run their course so you can be confident in your results (your testing platform will have reports to show you statistical significance).
3. Sequential testing - don’t test sequentially (run A then turn it off and run B then turn it off and run C),  run your tests at the same time for the most reliable results (A, B and C all run against each other in real-time). That’s the only reliable way to know what your true winner is.
4. All iteration, no innovation- iteration (testing variations of the same thing) is important, but should come after innovation (testing very different things).
5. Not getting executive sponsorship- sure you can get the ball rolling yourself, but with executive sponsorship you bring in company wide support and transparency, as well as greater opportunities for testing and information exchange. 

If you have already made any of these mistakes, don’t fret. The best thing to do is move forward with your new knowledge. For other little tips and tricks of the trade, follow @ion_interactive on Twitter. If you have a common mistake you’d like to share for a future post, tweet it our way!

If you’re a landing page pro who isn’t making any of the above mistakes, I suggest you head on out to the Conversion Conference and share your tips with everyone in the industry! Use the code CCW514 to receive $100 off! 

Comments

[Josh Summerhays]

Great tips, Anna!

Numbers 4 and 5 were very timely for me and helped me restart a push within our organization to make post-click optimization a key piece of driving results for clients.

Thanks for all the great work you do to promote the cause!

[Tim]

Victim of #2 - no matter what I do (stock options, ads, etc). I just realized yesterday I was wasting tremendous opportunities by pausing keywords I thought were bringing in junk traffic. Dumb ass

[Anna Talerico]

Tim - ouch, that's a bad one but at least you figured it out!

Josh, what can I say? You know better :) But sometimes we all (me too!) need a budge in the right direction.