AT ELITE SEM, 2018 was the Year of the Test. For 365 days, we put best practices and crazy theories through the wringer. Now, we’re sharing what we learned with you.
Our Account Managers are ready to dish on their favorite tests from 2018, including:
Did migrating an Ecommerce store off of a subdomain improve sales?
Did shortening the time between email touches improve conversion rates?
Did handbags sell better when the product image featured a model wearing the handbag?
Did including brand logos on landing pages assist with conversions?
View more resources, case studies, guides, and more at elitesem.com/resources/
3. Founded on search.
Focused on holistic performance-driven digital marketing.
The Drum
Search Awards
Chairman’s
Award
Glassdoor
2018
Best Places
to Work
Bing
Independent
Agency
of the Year
Ad Age
Top 25
US Search
Agencies
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Type of Test: Email Timing Test
Why test: Optimizing automation of cart
abandonment touchpoints. Working on design
updates but wanted to test timing separately.
Goal of Test: Show impact of updating timing of
send on conversion rate.
Email
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Execution
Original email touches were sent 2 hours post abandon, T2 was sent 2
days post abandon, and T3 was sent 4 days post abandon
Decreased amount of time between touches
Compared test period to previous period for results
Recorded number of orders, clicks, opens, unsubs, and revenue
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Timing Overview
TOUCH # T1 T2 T3
OLD TIMING 2 Hours after Cart Abandon 2 Days after Cart Abandon 4 Days after Cart Abandon
NEW TIMING 1 Hours after Cart Abandon 1 Day after Cart Abandon 2 Days after Cart Abandon
RESULTS ?????? ?????? ??????
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TOUCH # T1 T2 T3
OLD TIMING 2 Hours after Cart Abandon 2 Days after Cart Abandon 4 Days after Cart Abandon
NEW TIMING 1 Hours after Cart Abandon 1 Day after Cart Abandon 2 Days after Cart Abandon
RESULTS +20% Conversion Rate +3% Conversion Rate +3% Conversion Rate
Decreasing the amount of time between a cart abandon and email touchpoints increased conversion rate.
Results
13. An eCommerce and Local Department Store that sells home goods,
clothes, shoes, accessories, and more
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Type of Test: Front-loaded spend before Thanksgiving
and prioritized in-store visits instead of online sales.
Why test: Because of competitive pricing during sales
days, overall profit was lower compared to non-sale days.
Driving in-store traffic increased up-sell opportunities.
Goal of Test: Maximize budget more efficiently during
Holidays and drive in-store traffic.
Shopping
15. Expanded scope to push other products that were similar (based on
“product type”)
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Execution
Invested in ad groups and product categories that indexed high in-store
visits
Pushed spend to products that often led to in-store pickups to drive more
traffic and orders
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Used Shopping Ads to drive in-store visits instead of online sales
during the holidays
Did in-store visits & profits
increase, decrease, or not
change YoY?
17. Profitability increased
9% YoY for the weeks leading up
to Thanksgiving and
73% YoY for Black Friday
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Results
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Store visits up 254% WoW
and revenue increased 218%
from in-store visits during the week
before Thanksgiving
Results
20. A B2B SaaS Company that provides cloud communications and customer
engagement solutions for small, medium, and enterprise businesses.
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Type of Test: Adding different types of value-
add to landing page.
Why test: Landing page needed more brand
and product value.
Goal of Test: Increase lead conversion.
CRO
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System Info vs. Client Logos vs. Testimonials
Which performed best for
BRAND search terms?
Which performed best for
NON-BRAND search
terms?
24. Control V1: Service Info V2: Client Logos V3: Client Testimonial
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V1: Service Info V2: Client Logos V3: Client Testimonial
Brand + 31.73% + 23.64% + 34.34%
Non-brand ? ? ?
Results: V3: Client Testimonial saw the highest CVR lift of +34% for Brand traffic.
Results
25. Control V1: Service Info V2: Client Logos V3: Client Testimonial
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V1: Service Info V2: Client Logos V3: Client Testimonial
Brand + 31.73% + 23.64% + 34.34%
Non-brand + 23.14% + 12.45% + 4.76%
Results: Non-brand visitors saw an improvement of +23% with V1: Service Info.
Results
27. A B2C eCommerce company that sells signal boosters
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Type of Test: Migrating eCommerce store off of
a store. sub-domain.
Why test: Main domain had strong domain
authority and a large amount high quality
backlinks.
Goal of Test: Improve store keyword ranks and
increase sales.
SEO
29. Ensure that landing pages were 301 redirected properly, canonical tags
were migrated, URL structure was optimized, and meta data was present
on the new site
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Execution
Move the blog to a subdomain (blog.weboost.com)
The main domain (weBoost.com) would become their eCommerce store on
the Shopify platform
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One Month Post-
Migration
SESSIONS -31%
TRANSACTIONS -14%
REVENUE -6.86%
KEYWORDS 65 product keywords previously
ranking in the top 30 saw
improvement of at least 1
ranking compared to pre-
migration ranking
Results
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One Month Post-
Migration
One Quarter
Post-Migration
SESSIONS -31% +25%
TRANSACTIONS -14% +68%
REVENUE -6.86% +67%
KEYWORDS 65 product keywords previously
ranking in the top 30 saw
improvement of at least 1
ranking compared to pre-
migration ranking
71 product keywords previously
ranking in the top 30 saw
improvement of at least 1
ranking compared to pre-migration
ranking
Results
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One Month Post-
Migration
One Quarter
Post-Migration
One Year
Post-Migration
SESSIONS -31% +25% +52%
TRANSACTIONS -14% +68% +143%
REVENUE -6.86% +67% +128%
KEYWORDS 65 product keywords previously
ranking in the top 30 saw
improvement of at least 1
ranking compared to pre-
migration ranking
71 product keywords previously
ranking in the top 30 saw
improvement of at least 1
ranking compared to pre-migration
ranking
65 product keywords previously
ranking in the top 30 saw
improvement of at least 1
ranking compared to pre-migration
ranking
Results
35. A B2C eCommerce and retail company that sells women’s tote bags
and purses
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Type of Test: A/B Creative Split Test
Why test: The client was considering on-body
creative for DPA remarketing.
Goal of Test: Determine which performs best:
on-body creative or product shot creative.
Paid Social/Creative
43. A B2C Reseller representing more than 70 different brands that sells
an array of home furnishings and décor items
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44. Type of Test: DSP Retargeting
Why test: Optimize ad opportunity to drive sales and
increase brand engagement
Goal of Test: Establish profitable retargeting efforts,
specifically positive ROI & customer loyalty
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Amazon
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Amazon
Sponsored
Products
Awareness
Consideration
Purchase intent
Purchase
Experience
Purchase
DSP
Product
Display
DSP
Retargeting
Key:
Amazon DSP (formerly
Amazon Advertising
Platform, or AAP) is the
demand-side platform
Where does retargeting come into the Amazon Advertising ecosystem?
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Execution
Target shoppers who had previously visited one of their
brand detail pages but have not purchased
Example: If someone viewed a Designer Living
pillowcase, we targeted that same shopper with a
DSP ad featuring the same pillowcase to get them to
come back and complete the order
47. DSP Retargeting
Did we see an increase in
branded searches on
Amazon?
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What do these increases really mean?
● Increase in Clicks & Sales via Sponsored Products
● Increase in Overall Brand Awareness
Results
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View more resources
Case studies, guides, and more
elitesem.com/resources
Questions? Let’s discuss!
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