How do I use ClickMagick for A/B Split Testing?

Split testing couldn’t be easier with ClickMagick! You can read through our complete discussion of the ClickMagick split test system below, but for a quick introduction, watch our video tutorial:
 
How to Set Up a Split Test with ClickMagick


How to Set Up a Split Test

The idea behind split testing is pretty simple: Rather than show a single page, which may or may not do well, you show different visitors different pages and watch the results of each page, looking for the page that produces the best results.

The page that performs the best is called the “winner” and you would then use it to compare future pages against. In scientific terms, this page is the “ control” page.

Once you have a control page, you would typically make a single adjustment to that page and send a small portion of your traffic to this new test page, while sending most of your traffic to your proven control page. This method prevents you from sending a lot of potentially expensive traffic to a page with unknown results.

ClickMagick makes it easy to set up split tests, and ClickMagick will even alert you when a statistically valid winner is found. Just follow these simple steps:
 
1.    Create a tracking link for your “control” page and set the Primary URL of the tracking link to the URL of your control page.
 
2.    Click on the Settings menu to the far right and select the “Split Testing” option.

 
3.    Next, enter one or more URLs to the pages you want to test against your control page, and enter the percentage of traffic that each page should receive. You can add as many split test URLs as you want, and you can easily add, edit or delete them at any time.
 
4.    If you want ClickMagick to automatically determine the split test winner for you, add tracking pixels to your “thank you” pages. These tracking pixels will record conversions so you’ll know how well each split test page is performing.
 
Note: Whenever you add, delete, or change a split test URL, the current split test starting date and time will be reset so that a new, statistically-valid winner can be determined using the new set of URLs. You can read more about this here:
 
   Why does my split test start over when I change a URL?


For more information on conversion tracking, see this FAQ:
 
  How do I track conversions with ClickMagick?


Testing Your Split Test Link

During a split test, returning users will see the same page they saw the first time they visited your link. This is to ensure the most accurate split test results possible.

Other less sophisticated systems just show the user a random page each time, but introducing this type of randomness makes your results less accurate. Allowing the same visitor to see multiple pages when they return is rather like allowing somebody to vote multiple times in an election. All it does is taint the results ...

Keep in mind that this applies to you as well when you’re testing your split tests—you’ll look like a return visitor and always see the same page unless you take certain steps. For tips on how to effectly test your links and split tests, read this FAQ:
 
  How can I easily test my links and tracking pixels?


Analyzing Your Results

Once you’ve set up a split test, the traffic to your tracking link will be randomly split between all the pages.

Some online trainers teach that split testing uses “rotation” and that view works well for simple split test cases where every page is getting the same percentage of clicks.

That view breaks down quickly when you have something like a 90% split to one page and 10% to another page. Clearly, the page receiving 90% of the clicks is going to receive multiple consecutive clicks. That’s not rotation.

Clicks are delivered to each page on a completely random basis depending upon their percentages.

Please note that over a small number of clicks it might look like a particular URL is getting more or less traffic than you’d expect, but that is the nature of randomness. Over time, with a meaningful number of clicks, you’ll find that the traffic is split very close to the percentages you entered when setting up the test.

You can read a full explanation here:
 
  Why Split Testing does not use Rotation or Rotators


To view the results of your split test, just click on the number in the TC column:



This will show you the stats for your control page and all of your split test variations, including the number of clicks, conversions and the conversion rates for each.

In addition to these basic stats for each page, ClickMagick will also show you how the conversions for each variation compare to your control page—represented by a percentage difference.

For example, if a variation has a Difference value of +78% highlighted in green, this means that particular variation is doing 78% better than your control page. On the other hand, a Difference of -42% highlighted in red means that your variation is doing 42% worse than your control page.

Even better, ClickMagick will also do all the complicated math to determine when you have a statistically valid winner, and even alert you via email if you want.



And just so you know, ClickMagick considers a result to be statistically valid when the “confidence interval” is 95% or higher, which is the generally accepted value to use for this purpose.
 
Note: If you want to end a split test before a winner is chosen, simply delete all the split test URLs by clicking on the Delete icon next to each link.



Additional Split Testing Notes & Tips
 
Tip #1: If you want to split up your traffic equally, just enter all your URLs and then click the “Equalize Your Weights” link and the system will automatically set the same ratio for each URL. No calculator required!
 
Tip #2: If you have multiple tracking links that are split testing the same pages—which you might do if you’re tracking multiple traffic sources—you can compare the aggregate split test results of all of the tracking links provided that you give each of the split test pages identical names in all of the tracking links. This allows you to split test as fast as possible.


The easiest way to create a set of tracking links with identical split test pages is to create the first tracking link and its split test pages, then clone that link multiple times using the “Clone Link” option in the Edit menu to the right of any tracking link.

Then, when you view detailed stats for a link (by clicking on the number in the TC column), just look for a “link” icon next to any of your split test URLs:



This indicates that particular Split Test URL name is being used across multiple tracking links. If you click on the link icon you can view both the individual and combined stats for all split test URLs with that name.

 
Note: If you’re using the advanced “Entry Link” setting, you can’t set up split tests in any cloned entry links you’ve created inside of a sub-group of Entry Link group. This is because all entry links in a sub-group must point to the primary Entry Link in the parent group.


Generally speaking, you should do all of your split testing using the Entry Link in the parent group…

Now, if you REALLY need to split testing for different entry links you set up, one thing you can always do is to clone the entire funnel group using the “Clone Group” tool in the lower-right corner of any link group: