Insiders’ Secrets to Google Website Optimizer

From the desk of Roy Furr, Friday, November 2nd, 2007

Yesterday I had my mind blown.

I’ve kept my finger on the pulse of Google’s Website Optimizer since the beta was first announced. By my book, the more people that use marketing testing tools, the better. And Google is helping by making their Website Optimizer available to anybody with an AdWords account — for FREE. (But I’ll bet only a small fraction of people are actually using it — stupid, stupid, stupid!)

Anyways… I thought that Website Optimizer was pretty limited in what it could do — either split traffic between two pages and track who gets to a conversion page, or rotate components on a single page and track who saw what and who got to a conversion page.

Well I was wrong!

Yesterday I sat through a 1-hour webinar on Google Website Optimizer. In it, they explained all sorts of advanced features and approaches to using Website Optimizer. The webinar revealed all sorts of insiders’ secrets to maximizing your use of this tool.

These included:

• Split tests
• Multivariate (MVT) tests
• Split-path tests
• Multi-page multivariate tests
• Time-on-page goal tracking
• Click-based goal tracking

It really revealed to me that this is a much more powerful testing platform than it appears at first (or second, or third, or fourth, or fifth) look.

What really struck me was the last three: the multi-page multivariate tests, the time-on-page goal tracking, and the click-based goal tracking.

Multi-page multivariate tests. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see how one element on one page interacts with another element on another page, and yet another element on another page to effect conversions? Now you can figure that out.

Time-on-page goal tracking. Want to determine what combination of elements keeps people on your page for longer than 5, 10, or 15 seconds — because you know the longer they stay the more likely you are to get a conversion? Now you can figure that out.

Click-based goal tracking. Running an affiliate site and want an effective way to track when people click through from your site to the product page for the seller (but you can’t put tracking information on the seller’s site or on their conversion page)? Now you can track that too.

It’s really amazing what you can do.

They said they’ll be posting the webinar recording on the webpage for Website Optimizer within a couple weeks — maybe sooner. I’ll look out for that recording and make sure I link to it from here.

For now, here’s the page for Google Website Optimizer: click here.

Need help making sense of Website Optimizer or implementing on your website? Don’t hesitate to contact me: 541-543-1438.

- R

Tags: marketing testing tools, AdWords, conversion, Google Website Optimizer, Split tests, Multivariate (MVT) tests, Split-path tests, Multi-page multivariate tests, Time-on-page goal tracking, Click-based goal tracking, testing platform, affiliate

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