Marketing Research Chart: Improve your optimization project completion rate

Chart: Testing project funnel from launch to pushing optimized pages live in 2010

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The lifecycle of a testing project is not particularly complex. We reduced it to just the four fundamental stages above to ask marketers to share how the number of projects tapers along the way. In addition, we calculated the number of projects per organization to provide a sense of the average annual test workload.

A multi-layer website optimization campaign can take months to produce a live site - from reviewing the analytics to identifying which page to optimize, to completing several rounds of testing and launching the final optimized page. Indeed, the best optimization programs are never finished; marketers are constantly testing and optimizing to maximize revenue.

A number of internal and external challenges can impact project completion, including driving sufficient traffic, competing with other online teams for budget and IT bandwidth, and failing to develop an internal culture of optimization to support your efforts.

On average, almost half of the reported testing projects did not produce a change on the live website. This outcome is not surprising, as testing as such is not a guarantee of a win. However, by using insights from tests that resulted in a conversion decrease, marketers can increase the ROI of their testing efforts.

For additional research data and insights about landing page optimization, download and read the free Executive Summary from the MarketingSherpa 2011 Landing Page Optimization Benchmark Report.

Useful links related to this research

Marketing Research Chart: Testing is vital to create an optimization culture

Landing Page Optimization: How to start optimization testing and get executive support

Landing Page Optimization: 5 questions every marketer should ask before choosing a testing tool

Optimization Summit 2012 in Denver, June 11-14, 2012