
Testing and Tracking : Keeping a Pulse On Your Business
06-Dec-2011
Wayne Sharer
Keeping a Pulse on Your Business
Another crucial reason to track your website statistics is so that you can keep a pulse on your business.
Often things will go wrong in an internet business. For example, a script will go down that prevents people from buying your products.
If you’re not watching your stats on a regular basis, you won’t know something’s wrong until days later. This could result in thousands of dollars in losses that could have been prevented.
Good business owners keep a set of analytics close at hand at all times. Their entire business can be broken down into numbers.
What’s the conversion rate? What’s the ROI on advertising? How many visitors are we getting? What’s the open rate on our emails?
A skilled business owner always has a finger on the pulse of his/her business. On the internet, that means keeping very careful track of your statistics
What Is Split Testing?
Split testing is the process of testing different options in your business to see which brings in more profit.
Take price, for example.
Most business owners will just arbitrarily pick a price that they “think will sell.” Unfortunately, this highly unscientific method often costs business owners thousands of dollars every month.
Take for example, a business owner who sells 100 products per day at $40 each. He figured that’s what his product is approximately worth, which is why he’s charging $40. He’s making $4,000 a day.
Without realizing it, he’s leaving thousands of dollars on the table.
A savvy marketer would use the $40 mark simply as a starting point. They’ll try selling their product for $20, $30, $40, $50, $60, or even $100.
These are some possible results that may arise:
- Instead of 100 sales at $40, at $80 sales go down to just 65 sales. However, now instead of making $4,000 a day, he’s making $5,200.
- By selling his product at $15 instead of $40, he found that he’s offering such an incredible value that he gets a dramatic increase in sales. He now makes 400 sales a day instead of 100 and makes $6,000 a day.
The possibilities are endless. As you can see, sales can go up or down depending on the price, but the most important factor is how much money you’re making at the end of the day.
If you don’t test the different prices possible, you’ll never know which price really works best for your product.
International speaker, author, and entrepreneur. Retired navy officer, former commanding officer. Over 35 years of leading, coaching, mentoring, and speaking.
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