However, when I saw the incredible difference a headline made, I became a testing convert.

The reason?

If I hadn't been testing and tracking the results of my classified ads, I would never have known why I suddenly received a flood of orders. I probably would have attributed all of my new customers to advertising in a new publication. I would have had no idea that my sudden success was the result of a simple change I’d made to the headline.

The headlines I tested were for my book, “Car Secrets Revealed”. When we first launched the product, we made the mistake of assuming that people would purchase the book to save money on their overall car expenses. Our classified ads and banners reflected this assumption and read:

“Money Saving Tips on Car Buying, Leasing, Repairs and Insurance Reduction Tips”

This was a big mistake. Never make assumptions – always test!

Not long after the initial launch of Car Secrets, I surveyed my clientele (easily done by e-mail)… and was completely surprised by the results! I discovered that 73% of the Car Secrets customers had bought the book because they wanted to learn how to buy a new car at $50 over dealer cost.

Only 40 of the 211 pages in the book were devoted to buying a new car, but after learning this I changed our headlines and banner advertisements to read:

“How To Buy A Car At $50 Over Dealer Cost”

Once I did this, the sales increased by over 300% in 48 hours!

The crazy thing is, had we not been testing, I never really would have understood why our sales jumped so drastically. It was because of that one, simple headline!

The fastest way to skyrocket your sales is by testing! Try something different ... experiment ... and track your results!

But what should I test?

Well, it depends on what you are doing. Let's go through a couple of examples.

If you are running a classified ad, you should test:

- The different places you are running your ad
- Your headline
- Your offer
- If applicable, your price

If you are selling a product with a sales letter, you should test:

- Your headline
- Your offer
- Your price
- Your layout (i.e. How you lead your prospect through your sales material.)
- Your ordering process

You can also test things like:

- The use of color
- Typestyle
- Your copy

Usually changes to things like color and typestyle only make small differences in the response you receive… unless your choices are very unusual. But keep in mind that even these small differences can add up!

If you are running banner ads, you should test:

- Where you purchase ad space from
- Your headline
- Your offer
- Your design
- Animated vs. static

At this point, many of you may be thinking to yourselves, “But that means I have to test EVERYTHING!”

You’re right! Glad you noticed! You're on the right track!

Now I’m about to list things that you should be testing in the order of their importance. Please remember, however, that any change can potentially make a big difference in the response you receive!

I’d also like to point out that you should try 3 or 4 (even more) versions of your ads and sales letters. Then, choose the one that produces the best overall results to use as your "control ad". From then on, only test one thing at a time. That way, you’ll know exactly how each little change affects your overall sales.

1. Test your headline.

This is your title or your opening sentence. This one thing alone can make a huge difference in the response you receive. Spend a lot of time working on it. Your title or headline will be the first impression that your reader or visitor has of you, so it is very important. If you don't get their attention with your headline, the game is over.

2. Test your offer.

Your offer is different than your price. It is the total package that you are selling. It includes your main item plus any incentive items (i.e. Bonuses) you have included. Try changing your offer. Try emphasizing different benefits. Try using different motivating words and phrases.

3. Test your price.

A price that is too high is just as bad as a price that is too low! You might wonder how any price could be too low. Well, a low price could devalue your product or service. Potential customers might think, "If it'sTHAT cheap, there must be something wrong with it!"

Test your prices, starting at what you would consider too high and slowly go down. It goes without saying that you have already figured out your cost per sale and know your breakeven prices by heart!

4. Test the body copy

Try adding some testimonials or experiment with a photo or two. Try redoing your opening page ... and your closing page. Are you using a P.S.? You should. Are you really stressing benefits and features? Use bullets! Test long versus short paragraphs. Try running one long sales letter ... and try breaking the copy up into several pages.

5. Test where your banner is being run

Back when I was doing direct mail selling, I could test the various mail lists that were for sale as well as the response from my classifieds in newspapers and magazines. On the Internet, it gets a little trickier, but it still can be done. It is easy to test a classified you place in a newsletter or e-zine... it is a little harder to get consistent test results from banner ads that are displayed on a variety of sites, especially if you cannot choose the sites. (Keep reading and I’ll give you some good tricks for accurately tracking your test results…)

6. Test your site layout

A good site statistics program will tell you where people are entering your site and where they are exiting it. If they are consistently exiting on a certain page (before ordering), then changes need to be made.

7. Test your order process

Again, a good site statistics program will tell you if there are potential problems with your ordering process. If people enter the order section (already knowing the offer and the price) and then exit it without ordering, this may indicate that there is a problem with your order form or process. Ask a few people to run through your ordering process… and tell them that you want their honest opinions.

So what should I do next?

After you have tested all of these things, you should also test the colors you use, the text typeface, and design elements. Your site must be fast loading and easy to navigate! Your site must be visually attractive (this does NOT mean complicated or busy, with flashing lights and spinning graphics). You need to test and tweak every aspect of your web site!

Okay - now here is some news I know you really wanted to hear! Ready?

Your job of testing never ends!

Yup - you read it right! Your job of testing never ends! There is almost always something you can improve on. You could have a winning ad for years ... and then one day a new generation of buyers could appear and change everything. That winning ad no longer pulls like it used to. So test again! Test and learn what appeals to your new audience.

The good news is, as long as you are testing and experimenting with different marketing techniques and strategies, your sales will increase! Remind yourself of this important point if you ever start to feel that testing is too much work!

Tracking your ad campaigns to maximize profits!

Okay! Now that you know WHAT to test, HOW do you keep track of which classified ads, banner ads, links, search engines, etc… are pulling the sales?

It’s not as hard as you might think. In fact, there is a very simple way that you can track most everything!

If you have a web site, a good site statistics program is a must. It will allow you to track:

- Where your traffic is coming from
- What pages visitors are looking at
- What page the majority of your traffic is entering on
- What page the majority of your traffic is leaving on
- How long they are staying

… and much more!

If you are running classified ads, banner ads, or a serious linking campaign, you will want to track these kinds of statistics. But how? How will you know how many people visited your site as a result of a classified ad in the Pet Owners Journal?

I'll explain....

Let's pretend that you own dogsite.com and are promoting your newsletter "Fabulous Canine Feats ... Stories of Heroic Dogs Throughout the Centuries", through classified ads (bought and traded) and in pet focused e-zines.

Can you track the number of visitors that are generated by each individual ad? You bet!

You would…

1) Use a different URL in each ad. These “mirror entry” pages would bring visitors to the same page. For example, if you were running a classified ad campaign and wanted to track the amount of traffic each individual ad pulled, you could assign each ad an URL like this…

dogsite.com/dogs01
dogsite.com/dogs02
dogsite.com/dogs03
dogsite.com/dogs04

2) Then you would use a web site statistics program to track the amount of traffic and sales each ad pulled.

You could easily use this strategy to track the results of the same ad placed in a variety of e-zines to see which e-zine generated the most sales… Or you could run four different ads in the same e-zine to determine which copy pulls better.

You could also code the URL for use in e-mail promotions in your own newsletter. This way, you could track any sign-ups that come in, knowing which ad they came from.

Here’s an example of what your ad might look like:

Free biweekly newsletter "Fabulous Canine Feats" features stories of heroic dogs throughout the centuries. Our "Ask the Vet" column answers questions about your pet’s health, while our feature articles will keep you informed about the latest gizmos, gadgets, and tidbits for your precious pal. Subscribe now by clicking here: mailto:subscribe01@dogsite.com?subject=subscribe01 or by visiting our site at http://www.dogsite.com/subscribe01

The first bit of coding is:

mailto:subscribe01@dogsite.com?subject=subscribe0

This will automatically launch an e-mail with the subject heading filled in. When you receive these e-mails, you can simply filter them into separate mailboxes, allowing you to easily track the results.

The second bit of coding is http://www.dogsite.com/subscribe0

This link would take visitors to an entry page that could be a replica of your main site entry page... or could be a page just about the newsletter. You would, of course, want to know which page brought a better subscription response! This is where the site statistics software comes in…

Your site statistics can tell you:

1) Exactly how many people arrived at any given page.

2) How many of those people signed up for your newsletter… bought your product… requested more information… etc…

This means that you can keep track of exactly where your customers and subscribers are coming from… and which ads produce the best results!

If you are using our AssocTRAC software (http://www.assoctrac.com) to run your Affiliate program, then you may already be aware that it is the ultimate ad-tracking software. You can track banner ads, text links, buttons, or any type of advertising you pay for.

By assigning an associate number to an ad, you can track exactly where your visitors are coming from and how many sales are generated by individual ads. This is really important because you’ll want to know which ads are earning big profits… and which are wasting your money.

If you advertise through classified ads, banner ads, buttons, links, etc… then this software may be worth the price just for its tracking capabilities!

Once you know the number of buyers and subscribers each ad produces, you will be able to make better decisions about where you are spending your advertising dollars.

For example, if you placed a classified ad in 5 different e-zines and received a .005 (1/2 percent) response from one ... and a whopping 4% response from another, there would be no question as to where you would continue advertising!

There is no way of knowing this without tracking and testing every single ad!

Some people argue that advertising is an art ... while others insist that it’s a science. I personally believe that it’s both.

You need to do the math - check the numbers - to figure out what works… but you also need to be creative in order to come up with the great headlines and killer copy!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Corey Rudl is the owner of four highly successful online businesses that attract more than 1.8 million visitors per month and generate over $6.6 million each year. He is also the author of the #1 best-selling Internet Marketing course online. To check out his site that's JAM-PACKED WITH THE EXACT INFORMATION YOU NEED to start, build, and grow your very own profitable Internet business, I highly recommend visiting http://www.marketingtips.com/tipsltr.html This guy really knows what he's talking about!