If you are not already using this tool then I urge you to read my article, Affiliate Marketing For Beginners which is a detailed guide on the right way to do affiliate marketing.

If you are using a lead capture page then to be a successful marketer you should be split testing your pages to improve conversions.

If you are not, then you are leaving a lot of money on the table and this article will teach you how you can get better conversions and stop wasting money if you are using paid traffic.

Here’s What You Will Learn:

• What is split testing and why you should do it
• The anatomy of a lead capture page
• What can you split test on your lead capture page
• Lead capture page split test case study
• Lead capture page best practices

What Is Split Testing And Why You Should Do It

Split testing is testing two or more variables against each other to improve a certain metric. In marketing that metric might be a click through rate, an opt in, a purchase, etc.

The reason why this is important is because if you are running a paid affiliate marketing campaign, split testing allows you to improve your marketing so that you get more conversions for your money.

So for example if you are split testing a landing page or lead capture page and you have sent 100 visitors to landing page A and B, you can see which landing page performs better to give you higher conversions.

So landing page A might give you a 40% opt in rate, whereas landing page B would give you a 70% opt in rate.

What that means is that if you paid $50 for the traffic, 50 visitors go to landing page A and 50 goes to landing page B. With landing page A you were able to get 20 visitors to opt in to see your offer. That means that for landing page A it cost you $1.25 per lead ($25/20 leads).

With landing page B you were able to get 35 visitors to opt in and see your offer. That means that for landing page B it cost you $0.71 per lead ($25/35 leads).

You actually paid less for a lead with landing page B and without split testing you would never have known which variation was more appealing to your visitors thereby improving your conversions and lowering your cost.

Therefore whenever you run an affiliate marketing campaign and you are using lead capture pages, there are ways that you can split test features on the page to improve your chances of lowering your cost and getting more conversions for your money.

The biggest mistake that affiliate marketing beginners make is omitting this important step. You should never ever assume what your audience will like.

If you can, you should try to split test as many features as you can in your marketing and whilst there are many variables that you can test depending on the platform on which you are running traffic, today’s post will focus on lead capture pages.

The Anatomy Of A Lead Capture Page

Let’s dissect the lead capture page.

First of all I want you to understand the difference between a landing page and a lead capture page.

The landing page is the first page a visitor lands on when they click on your URL. So your landing page could be a page to your website or blog. It could be a page to your lead capture page, it can even be a page to a social media account.

A lead capture page, is the page that helps you collect email addresses or leads.

When doing affiliate marketing and if you are promoting a product, I would always recommend that your landing page is a lead capture page.

Never put your landing page as the affiliate sales page. Here’s a few reasons why:

• If a product has a lot of affiliates and they are promoting the same offer without using a lead capture page, it is more than likely that your traffic may have seen the sales page already which may lead to a high bounce rate.
  
• In most cases, 90% of the time, visitors to a website, who do not know you or the product, are unlikely to purchase the product the first time. When you send a visitor to a sales page but do not collect email addresses through a lead capture page, you are missing out on the opportunity to convert that visitor into a sale and so you can lose money.
• A sales page does not allow you to build your email list. As an affiliate marketer your biggest priority should be to build an email list. Your email list will eventually become your business asset. For my email list, I use the Aweber email autoresponder which stores and follows up with my leads automatically.
• Because you have no control over an affiliate sales page, you may not be able to track any visitors. Some product owners do not allow you to place tracking pixels on the sales page. Without tracking you are running your affiliate campaigns blindly and are more likely to lose money. By using a lead capture page before the sales page this gives you some control over your campaign and you will be able to track your traffic using tracking software like Clickmagick.

Here is what a lead capture page looks like:

Headline

The headline captures your audience’s attention. It tells them what they are about to learn or receive. Make sure that your headline arouses curiosity or creates a perception that what they are about to receive is of a high value.

Here are some examples of lead capture page headlines.

Backlinko

It’s page is simple. It’s straight to the point telling the viewer exactly what they will be getting.

There is a very strong headline here.

This lead capture page is suitable for people who want to learn how to get more traffic using SEO. If you are not getting results from your own tactics then I can see how this lead magnet can encourage people to sign up.

The only thing I would change is adding a bit more detail by telling the visitor where I will get traffic to. Is it to my blog? My website in general? My single page lead capture page? What exactly? Then I can decide if I need his information.

Marketing Sherpa

I think that lead capture page headlines should be bold and inviting. There is nothing on this opt in form that makes me want to hand over my email address because the headline seems mundane.

A headline like Free Case Study Shows You How To Increase Your Sales By 16% Just Like The Global Leadership Summit Did would be more appealing.      

With a headline like that I know exactly what I am getting. I am more inclined to provide my email address if the lead capture page speaks to me.

Digital Marketer

The Digital Marketer’s headline is inviting but could be bigger.

For someone who uses Facebook for advertising, getting insider knowledge on the Digital Marketer’s Facebook ads secret would compel me to give up my email address.

I think that a headline should take over 30-40% of a page so that it is eyecatching and immediately clear to the reader.

Sub Headline

The sub headline may break down even further what the lead will get when they opt in. As in Digital Marketer’s lead capture page, you can see that their sub headline is “Copy and paste these 7 proven Facebook ad campaigns to create low cost, high converting ads on demand”.

So not only do I know that I am getting a Facebook Ad Template library. I also know that I can copy and paste 7 proven ad campaigns. I also know that by doing that I can get lower cost ads.

Having a sub headline may or may not create more conversions. This is something that you will need to split test if you decide to use a sub headline along with your headline.

Opt in boxes

Your opt in boxes will include fields for the lead to enter their details such as a name, email address, phone number, etc.

If you are running an affiliate marketing campaign, some affiliates prefer to have a simple opt in page that only asks for an email address. Others prefer a name with an email address if they intend to personalise any emails being sent to the lead.

My preference is to ask for a name and email address but you will only know the effectiveness of what you ask for if you split test it.

You may find that the more information you ask for on your optin form, the lower conversions you get. So if you ask for a phone number, home address or date of birth it is more than likely that your conversions will not be impressive.

Call to action button

The call to action button is used to submit the information that the lead enters so that their email address can be registered in your autoresponder and the lead can receive your lead magnet in their inbox.

There is a psychology behind the use of call to action buttons.

For example, a red call to action button may instigate a different action from an audience than a green call to action button as generally speaking red to some means stop whilst green means go.

The same can be said of the words on a call to action button.

By saying “send me the book” as opposed to “download now”, you may get a different reaction from your audience as by saying “send me the book”, people infer that they are receiving an item by email. “Download now” one can infer that it is an item that is being downloaded onto the user’s computer which some people are not comfortable with.

Just like the other features of a lead capture page it is crucial that you split test this as well.

What Can You Split Test On Your Lead Capture Page 

You can split test anything on your lead capture page.

The main goal will be to increase conversions which in your case as an affiliate marketer will be to get more opt ins to your email list.

I would recommend that you split test one variable at a time. Here are the main things you should be split testing on your lead capture page:

• Headlines
• Sub headlines – different text or a lead capture page with or without sub headlines.
• Call to action button color
• Call to action button text
• Background color or image of the lead capture page
• Input fields like name and email address

It is interesting to see what results are like because whilst you may assume that a certain headline works, the results prove otherwise. Which is why you should never let your conscience decide anything in marketing.

Always let the data of split testing decide how you should run your campaign.

Landing Page Split Test Case Study

As a marketer I do many split tests on my lead capture pages to see which one gets a higher conversion.

When doing split testing I am looking for the way a visitor behaves and that behaviour is based on whether they take a desired action such as opting in to get my lead magnet.

My current split test is on my main affiliate offer which is found at the top bar of this website.

If you click on the top bar of this page you will come to a long form or short form landing page that looks like this.

Long form lead capture page

Short form lead capture page

The variable I am testing is between long copy and short copy.

I wanted to see whether people are more likely to provide their email address for further information if they were given some value upfront.

So far it is early stages as I have only gotten 86 unique visits to the pages. I use the Clickmagick tracking tool to help me with tracking visitor behaviour and here are my results so far.

Clickmagick is a really useful tool to help with your marketing so you can know how your pages are performing.

I would strongly recommend this or if you are using LeadPages or Clickfunnels for your lead capture pages, they also have split testing features that you can easily implement.

From my results you can see that the percentage difference between opt ins (ACR) is of little significance.

I will allow this test to run until I have approximately 500 visitors landing on each of the lead capture pages then analyse my results.

Want to see my final results? Subscribe to my newsletter here and I’ll deliver the results with more fantastic tips on how you can get the best out of split testing.

Landing Page Best Practices 

What is your reason?

When starting a split test, you should have a reason for conducting one. What do you want to test and why?

Do you want to increase opt ins to your landing page? Then you should be testing your headline, subheadlines, call to action and background of the lead capture page.

Create a sample size

Create a sample size to run your test with. Your sample size is the number of visitors that should visit your page before you can be confident that you have a clear winning lead capture page.

If you send too little visitors then there is a chance that the data will not produce accurate results to help you determine which landing page performed better.

In marketing there is also something called statistical significance. Your lead capture page should reach this level of significance before you can be comfortable with the results. The acceptable level of significance is usually 95% and there are tools that will calculate this for you. Clickmagick is actually one of those tools.

To help you determine your ideal sample size you can use the Optimizely Sample Size calculator.

Create your control and variation

If you are using Clickfunnels or Leadpages you can create two variations of a lead capture page and implement the variables on both to start testing.

So if you are split testing headlines the control lead capture page may say “Free webinar teaches you how to drive an insane amount of traffic to your website at no cost”.

The variable lead capture page may say “Learn the one secret to getting a huge amount of free traffic to your website”.

Most lead capture page software do also have a split testing feature so be sure to look out for them and use them.

Eliminate factors that can affect your test

When split testing be sure to do your test in a controlled environment. For example it is important that you use the same traffic source when running your test. Do not use different traffic sources directed at different lead capture pages as traffic sources are not made equal. So if you are using Facebook Ads for your traffic, use this traffic source for both lead capture pages.

The same goes for your software. Use the same lead capture page software for both lead pages when doing your test.

Make sure that everything works

Before running your traffic make sure that your lead capture page is working. So are the links functioning properly?

Do they load to the correct versions of the page? Are your call to action buttons working and do they generate a lead in your autoresponder?

Do you have proper tracking links and pixels inserted on your lead capture pages? The pixels are available from Clickmagick if you are using this tool to split test.

Clickfunnels and LeadPages also have their own test features that help you understand your results.

Send traffic

Now that everything is working it is time to send traffic to both pages. Ensure that both pages receive an equal amount of traffic so that your results can be accurate.

Wrapping Up

If you want to be a successful affiliate marketer it is so important that you take this additional step to split test your lead capture pages.

A fully optimised lead capture page helps to lower your conversion cost so you may end up spending less money for a conversion and your overall advertising campaign will be cheaper.

If you don’t know how to create a lead capture page most software have detailed on-boarding for their customers and have helpful videos showing them how to do this.

Would you like a detailed walk through of how to create a lead capture page with LeadPages? Leave a comment in the comments section and I just might be able to stir this one up for you.

Cheers,

The post The Ultimate Guide to Split Testing – Lead Capture Page Optimisation appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.

A lead capture page in my view is a paramount piece of equipment and if you are not building an email list yet, then you need to check out my article, Why List Building Is Important In Your Business .

Lead capture pages have other aliases such as squeeze page, capture page, lead page, lead magnet.

When I was introduced to this marketing tool, it completely changed the course of my business.

I got introduced to automation and that was when I started getting more prospects and sales into my business without putting a lot of effort into it.

I previously spoke about the uses of capture pages and have trialled a few builders in the past year which influenced me to create this post to help you decide which of these builders is best for you.

When considering lead capture page builders you should consider the ones that will create the best conversions for you.

Most of these builders are very popular across the internet so you may have had a run in or two with them already.

My list is based on my own personal use having tried ALL of these builders throughout my online journey.

If you are just getting started then perhaps my post can help you, so let us get right to it.

In No Particular Order, The Top 4 Best Lead Capture Page Builders With Free Trial Offers That You Can Start Using Today 

1. GetResponse

GetResponse was the first lead capture page builder that I used in my business.

I actually found GetResponse for email marketing, then realised that they also had lead capture page builders so I thought – “Great! Kill two birds with one stone.”

Design

What I liked about GetResponse was its drag and drop feature and how easy it was to create the lead capture pages in a matter of minutes.

For example, you could select any template and merely customise the text to your liking or you could create a capture page from scratch with the easy-to-use drag and drop elements.

This is the most important thing that I seek out when using any piece of equipment.

Anything that causes too much overwhelm, goes out the door, in my opinion.

GetResponse had many beautiful; and I mean MANY beautiful templates that I could choose from. In fact they have over 1000 iStock free images that you can use on your own pages.

Email Marketing

I also liked the fact that I did not have to use another email marketing software to begin my autoresponder sequence. So I was able to save a few bucks here.

Mobile Responsiveness

With so many people now using their phones to access the internet, GetResponse has mobile responsive landing pages. It also allowed me to go between the desktop and mobile previews to see how my capture pages looked in real time.

Split-testing

There is a split-testing feature for lead capture pages, but I hardly used it because I remember not being able to understand how to integrate it into my marketing campaigns.

But looking at it again, you can easily set the lead capture pages you would like to test and measure the results by using the split test tool that GetResponse provides.

Sales Funnel

GetResponse loses in that it is not a sales funnel builder but then again this post is not about that. But for those marketers who wanted something for sales funnel, GetResponse is not it.

Pricing

It is a reasonably priced option starting at $15/month for a list size of 1000 contacts. They do also have a generous 30 day free trial.

Now I must say that I gave up GetResponse in my second month because the downfall of this tool was its inability to deliver emails to my leads’ inbox.

I tested emails to different email providers (Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail) and all my emails went into the spam folder.

At the time I had a list size of over 300 and not one of my emails were opened.

GetResponse’s response to my complaint was that maybe the emails were being opened but the HTML was not being loaded properly.

According to GetResponse, their software only tracks opened emails where the HTML was loaded. I was not very confident with this because it hindered my ability to properly track how well my subject lines were and how engaged my list was.

2. Clickfunnels

Clickfunnels took a little bit of time for me to get used to.

The interface was almost like “building blocks”.

So if I decided to build a capture page from scratch, I first of all had to “lay down my foundation” so to speak.

I had to place my sections first, then add my rows or columns then my elements.

This is not a drag and drop software and to be honest, was the hardest part of figuring out how to use Clickfunnels.

Once I built my capture page, connecting it to my autoresponder (I switched to Aweber) was another battle.

I had to figure out whether I should be using a submit the form, URL action or go to next page as my settings for my call to action button so that my contact could be added to my autoresponder.

Why make it so difficult for the average user hey?!

I would say, I took use of Clickfunnels Help Guide most of the time to figure things out.

If you do not like overwhelm, then Clickfunnels may not be for you.

Design

As to the design of their capture page, they are very basic and not as beautiful, or should I say, sexy as GetResponse.

Whilst there are many templates that you can use, imagery was not one of their best points.

But at the end of the day, all that matters is the conversions (number of opt-ins) that you get into your business.

Email Marketing

At their basic package level you must use another email marketing software such as GetResponse, Aweber or MailChimp, etc but at their Etison Suite premium level there is an integrated autoresponder.

So I have not opened my review of Clickfunnels with the best comments.

So why do I mark them as an awesome capture page builder?

Mobile Responsiveness

Clickfunnels is mobile responsive which is always a plus.

Split-testing 

They also have a super great split testing feature that was very easy to use. What I loved about this was that they selected the best variable to test and made it easy for you to implement. Also it was very easy to determine my winning lead capture page.

Sales Funnel

I also loved the fact that I could build out a complete website page and sales funnel with it.

Sometimes you may want to create a longer lead capture page with a bit more info.

You may also want to sell your own product and capture payment details easily.

Clickfunnels does a pretty good job at creating smooth and professional funnels and sales pages.

For your capture pages they also have features that help to create better conversions such as timer countdowns, pop ups and video input.

Pricing

Clickfunnels is on the pricier side starting at $97/month for just the basic package. With this you get 20 landing pages and 20k visits to your website. After that you will need to upgrade to the Etison Suite premium level which is $297/month.  There is however a free 14 day trial.

3. Power Lead System

I realise that the Power Lead System is not as popular as the ones I mentioned before but I found this gem by accident.

I was actually looking for an affiliate program that I could invest in, to promote.

It was only until I started looking into its full capabilities that I understood the huge potential of this system.

There are a few things that I think could be improved but for what it does, it is a pretty neat tool.

Design

The Power Lead System is like GetResponse in that you can easily create capture pages from their many templates and simply change the text. However they do not have as many templates as GetResponse. I would say about 80+ templates which is a decent number to ensure that you have variety.

The downside is that there is no drag and drop feature. If you want to keep things simple then the best way to build your capture pages will be to copy them from the existing templates.

Any editing of the capture pages, for example the images, will require editing of the HTML code. For someone who is not familiar with HTML and is not willing to learn, then this may not be for you.

Editing of the text to different fonts can be a challenge with some capture page templates. Sometimes I have had to abandon editing the capture pages and use different templates.

Email Marketing

One of the best things about the Power Lead System is that it offers you 100k contacts with an inbuilt Gmail autoresponder so you do not have to use a private email address if you do not want to. I must admit that there are issues with deliverability especially since you will not be using a private email address.

If you do not want to use their Gmail autoresponder, you can integrate GetResponse and Aweber into its platform.

Mobile Responsiveness

The Power Lead System is a mobile responsive software. Sadly it does not give you the ability to preview the mobile option from within their system.

Split-testing

There is a tracking element and you are able to use this to split test different versions of capture pages. There is no true split testing feature that allows you to easily implement this strategy.

To actually split test you will have to create two lead capture pages and then use some type of link rotator to activate this feature.

This will be at an additional cost if you use Clickmagick’s link rotator or you may use a free link rotator.

Sales Funnel

The Power Lead System allows you to build unlimited sales funnels for a smooth sales process.

You can also promote any business that you want with the Power Lead System as the backbone.

Even though there are minor hiccups, it is still a simple to use machine that gets the job done with a lot of functionality.

Pricing

The Power Lead System has a 7 day trial. Very short in my opinion and has a price tag of $53.97/month.

For all the valuable features that you get I consider that $53.97 is a great price point.

4. Leadpages

When I started using Leadpages, I did not get very far with it because I was testing out different builders and Clickfunnels caught my eye.

Design

But for the time that I used Leadpages, I can say that it offers great capture page designs but truthfully not as good as GetResponse.

They do have drag and drop features so these capture pages are quite easy to build.

And anything with drag and drop is pretty much my best friend now.

I was able to build my lead capture pages in just five minutes once I got over the hurdle of understanding what each feature stood for.

If you do not want to build a lead capture page from scratch then there are tons of templates available that you can customise to your liking.

One of my favourite things about this awesome piece of software was the “lead box” feature.

This allowed me to place a lead capture form anywhere on my website as a pop open feature so I did not have to use the lead capture page builder.

The only thing about the lead capture box is that you cannot embed it onto your website! I do not know why they do not have this since it’s really beautiful and would work well for content upgrades.

I really like the design of the lead box though. It effortlessly fit into my blog posts and having the Leadpages plugin, made it super easier to install.

If you do not want to use the plugin then you can always insert the Javascript code onto any website but remember it does not embed but pops open (actually I am still trying to find a way to embed it so if anyone knows drop me a comment below).

Email Marketing

Leadpages is not an email marketing tool, so you must integrate additional software to have regular emails going out to your list. UPDATE: They just released their Drip email marketing software which integrates with LeadPages. 

The only thing that Leadpages does however is send one automatic email to your lead once they have subscribed through the lead capture page.

A bonus is that you get unlimited traffic to your page and leads contacts.

Mobile Responsiveness

Everything about Leadpages is mobile responsive which is great.

Split-testing

At the time that I used Leadpages, there was not a split test feature so I cannot comment on the effectiveness and usability of it.

But I can see now that they have implemented this so that makes Leadpages a winner.

Sales Funnel

You can create a sales funnel builder with LeadPages. You can also create some awesome sales pages with it.

Pricing

There is a 14 day free trial and your price to use Leadpages starts at $25/month when paid annually.

Final Thoughts On All Four Builders

So let us see how all four stack up against each other.

Had GetResponse been a sales funnel builder it would have been my number one choice only because of their sexy design.

Between Clickfunnels and LeadPages, I would choose Clickfunnels because of the ease of building your sales funnel once you get the hang of how to use it.

If your sole purpose is to create lead capture pages and have an email marketing software then GetResponse may be an option for you.

Remember the downside with deliverability of their emails. I am not the only one who has had this problem. Some of my marketing friends did complain that they had issues as well.

Are there any other builders that you are using which you think should be included in this post? Drop me a comment down below and let me know your thoughts. 

Cheers,

P.S Still stuck on internet marketing? Then check out my free ebook, Mastering Your Home Based Business, which condenses everything you need to know and join the THOUSANDS who are already talking about it.

P.P.S Wait a minute! Have you subscribed to my You Tube Channel, where I give more free internet marketing training? I am growing so be part of the community.

The post 4 Best Lead Capture Page Builders With Free Trial Offers appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.