David Frosdick
Last Updated: February 2, 2023
Learn how to maximise your traffic, page conversions and revenue by running powerful A/B split-tests.
Every time you go online you are participating in some kind of online test or tracking process where a company is tracking how you interact with their brand.
When you open an email from a company they probably tracked what time and where you opened it, what links you clicked, what browser you used, what device you are using, what t-shirt you have on, ok maybe not that part but when it’s done well they will target you afterwards with exactly what you were looking for in the first place… all without you really knowing.
Recently a very large social network even tested peoples emotions by showing different content… scary huh…? point is you never even know it's happening but there are tools available that we can use to track and test our own customers.
Do you ever ask yourself the following questions:
“What if this sale page had a different headline...”
“What if I used a different colour order button…”
“What would happen if I change the order button text?”
These are great questions and exactly what you should be asking especially if you sell your own products, run PPC campaigns or joint ventures. Having answers to these questions will help you understand what your market wants, what Call To Action (CTA) buttons work, what converts and more importantly what gets you more long term customers.
Using Google Analytics and OptimizePress you can easily start running your own split test experiments, silently in the background, without affecting your visitors on-page experience. You now become the company doing the testing. Once you know how to split test pages you'll never run a list building campaign without split testing the traffic to find a higher converting page.
Here are some things can split test into your OptimizePress landing pages:
Some companies will tell you they have tested thousands of landing page designs and they hand pick the highest converting pages for their customers. This is great if you know exactly what niches the landing pages were tested in.
While a landing page with a big red headline, video and order button may convert well in the Internet Marketing space it certainly won’t work in other niches where the user excepts more engaging copy and images.
This is why you must split test your own landing pages and sale pages.
First create a Google Analytics account if you don't have one (don't worry it's free) and then add your site under the Admin menu.
Create New Account (New Site).
When your first create your new site you are presented with the Tracking Code, take a copy of this code.
Next you add the analytics code to your OptimizePress site.
To do this, you will need to insert the code globally across your website.
On your WordPress website, go to Plugins > Add New and search for the plugin 'Headers and Footer Scripts'.
Install & Activate the plugin.
Next, with the plugin installed and activated, Go to Settings > Header & Footer Scripts inside your WordPress Dashboard and paste in your Analytics code in the Header section and save the changes.
Once you've done that, you now have analytics installed on your site, and it will be applied across all of your pages.
Next, create three OptimizePress pages, for this example, I've created:
Page A (/page-a/)
Page B (/page-b/)
Confirmation Page (/split-test-confirmation/)
You now have three pages to use in your Google split test experiment. Keep your browser open or make a copy of the URL's of these 3 pages, you'll need them later.
The "Confirmation" page we created above will be the last page in your split test. If you are tracking lead conversion then this page could be the "Thank You" page users see after they opt-in or it could be the "Download" page after they opt-in or the "Thank You" page after they complete a survey.
REMEMBER it's the final stage of your split test Google calls it the Goal page.
The next thing you want to do, under the Admin menu, you want to go over to Goals.
Click on Goals > Create New Goal.
From here choose Custom.
You will see some predefined templates like “Sign Up” that you could use for exactly what we’re doing but to keep it simple I am going to choose Custom and I click Next Step.
From here name the goal e.g “Split Test”, and select Destination this is where the user is going to end the experiment. Then click “Next Step”.
Next enter the Destination in the field, this is where we copy in our URL from our split-test confirmation page that made earlier.
On the left here, we also have three options “Equals to”, “Begins with”, and “Regular Expression” we use either:
Equals to - this is the exact domain.
Begins with - would be used if the URL of the site begins with what you entered and anything after is ignored in the experiment.
Click Save Goal.
The Goal is now ready!
Next, we’re going to Reporting in the top navigation menu > Behaviors on the left then Experiments.
Click Create experiment.
Name your experiment e.g SplitTest 1 > underneath choose an objective (goal conversion point).
This is where we select the goal that we created. Watch the video back if you are not sure about the objective.
Click Advanced Options > Turn ON Distribute traffic evenly across all variations.
This means everyone who lands on the experiment pages will get a 50/50 split between the Page A & Page B.
From here, we’re going to click “Next Step”.
Now your split test will come to life. You need the URL's of Page A and Page B that we copied earlier.
Copy the URL's into the fields:
Original - Page A (/page-a/)
Variation - Page B (page-b/)
Enter the URL's and click Next Step
Click the button Manually insert the code and copy the Google Analytics Content Experiment Code.
Next, go to Page A on your site and launch the page using the OptimizePress PageBuilder.
With the PageBuilder launched, click on Settings on the top left of the builder menu, followed by the Page Scripts tab.
Paste in the script inside the Header Script Section.
Click the blue Save button on the top right of the PageBuilder window to save the changes.
Then do exactly the same by adding the code to your “Page B”.
Now go back to your Google analytics Experiment and click Next Step
Google now runs a quick check on the pages to validate the experiment code.
If you followed all the steps above you will see a tick next to Original (Page A) and Variation (Page B)
Lastly click Start Experiment and you are all set.
If you know your split test experiment will receive a lot of traffic you might want to check back daily or even hourly and see if one of the pages is performing better than the other.
Clearly it depends on the traffic volume but you might see an obvious winner in short period and decide to make some immediate changes to the failing page.
Next you can fine tune your landing pages. After your experiment is complete you could run another split test on the winning page. Only make very subtle changes this time like CTA button text or action words in your bullet point and start a new experiment.
Now it's time to go and run your own split test experiments and report back here with your results. If you are looking for some fresh design ideas see if any of the landing pages in our marketplace would work for your experiment.
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44 replies to "Increase Conversions by Running A/B Split Tests using Google"
WOW!!! Best tutorial ever!!! Detailed, well explained and works very, very well!!
Thanks a lot!!
I think this is the best manual way of doing it.
Big Thanks from EasyTips4You team.
Hello, how does this compare or differ from running the Optimize Press Experiments plugin?
This is a really a manual way of doing it. Probably easier to use the plugin if you are not technical.
Hi Gabe, thanks for the feedback. We appreciate this is quite complex and we know that some people like to use Google. We have been on working on some new features along the lines of split test since we posted this tutorial.
WOW!!! Best tutorial ever!!! Detailed, well explained and works very, very well!!
Thanks a lot!!
Rogerio (from Brazil)
Glad to hear Rogerio!!
Hello, is there a tutorial for just tracking conversion for different pages with google analytics?
Hi Ramiro, you need to use Goal conversions for that kind of tracking.
Now, I know what those Goals and Experiments are for. Thank you so much!
Thank you!!
Hi, Thank you so much for the detailed instruction. It was easy to follow. I am having a little problem however. It seems when the link is clicked it is always going to the variation 1 page and never to the original… What could be causing this?
So great! I used it two times now. It works so well. Very detailed tutorial. Thank you so much!
Awesome content fellas!! Looking forward to giving it a shot!
No problem Jonathan!
Hey David, this landed in my inbox at the perfect time! I’m just putting together a FB ad and lead pages and so this will the perfect split test solution for me. I was wondering how I was going to do this and there you were in my inbox this morning! Thanks for such a clear set of instructions.
Hey Clare, that’s great to hear! Good luck with split testing and converting more leads 😉 Keep us posted on your results.
Thanks for this great tutorial. Extremely detailed. I have been wondering how to do this for a long time but never knew how to. With this tutorial I am so eager to finally have the step by step information at hand to get it done. This will make my business page analysis extremely effective. Thank you so much for this tutorial. This is freaking awesome! I can’t wait to dive into it and apply it to my business.
Thanks Cassandra!! Freaking love your comments 🙂 Good luck with split testing, we’ll have to get your blog moved over to OP next 😉
Thanks for the suggestion David. That is definitely something to look into and I know you guys are always super helpful with those types of transitions! Great idea 🙂 Thanks!
great content and training guys, thank you
Thank you for your feedback David!
Great job. I’ve now set my lead magnet campaign up with this tutorial. Many thanks!
That’s great to hear Martin!! Makes my day when people are already putting our training to use 🙂
You should be able to fine tune any lead magnet offer with split testing and increase your list. Good luck!
Great Job. Seems too technical for someone who’s wants things to be simple.
Hi Mike, thanks for stopping by! It’s not really that technical if you break it down into small pieces. First get the Google Analytics installed, next create the Goal then the split test part. The video will be easier to follow if you pause and rewind at points.
I love to personally help you get it running on your OP site, just shout if you want some help.
OptimizePress University??? I kind of like that idea. hope to see more great tutorials like this in the coming day!
We knew you would spot OP University 🙂 Shhhhh…
This is probably one of the most detailed tutorials I have seen in a while, now I know I must up my blog posts to fit the content like this. Valuable tutorial.
Thanks OP
– Isaiah Jackson.
Thanks Isaiah! Much appreciated! Lots more coming 🙂
Fantastic tutorial! I was wondering how this could be done with an Optimize Press Landing Page (I run a different theme on my blog), and this makes all sense now. Thank you!
Thanks Antonio! It can be done with any OP page (Plugin or Theme). You must have the GA code already installed on your blog then you simple add the conversion code into each page as shown above. Love your site & design!
Great tutorial, thanks! I was just wondering though, which page do we link our leads to? Do we just send leads to the Original Page (A), and the script from Google splits them between the two pages?
Hi Rob, thanks for the feedback. Yes send all your leads to the Original page (or Control page as some call it) Google will then do the splitting part.
Make sure your Goal page is the “thank you” or “download” or end page in the funnel (or whatever you are running).
Hi David, thanks for the clarification. That’s a great feature! Keep up the great work! 😀
Thanks Rob! Looking forward to seeing your site launch 🙂
GREAT article and timely!!!! I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time but never have the time to research it. I followed this step-by-step and had it finised for one of our landing pages in 20 minutes. Thank you!
Hey Mitch, thanks for stopping by! That’s great to hear you got this running already. As you know, it will open your eyes to another level of marketing.
Good luck and keep us posted with your results.
This is awesome!
Thanks Christiano! More coming soon!
Cool!
Major hi-five on this awesome post guys. Keep up the valuable insights!
Cheers Ryan! Nice site BTW – Lovely colours!
Good value! Keep it up please! Thanks a lot for this
Thanks Sergio!