Testing and Tracking Using OneShoppingCart – Part 1
By Matt Bacak

Never underestimate the power of testing and tracking your website. This is something that should never be overlooked. It is such an important part of your business because it allows you to see what’s working and what’s not. This will in fact allow you to better see if where you’ve invested your money is worth it. If your testing and tracking results show poor results in a certain area, you know that you need to make some changes. Those simple changes can return thousands more dollars. That is why testing and tracking is so important.

So, what software do I recommend you use to test your web pages?

Well, an inexpensive program that is very powerful is OneShoppingCart. You can purchase a monthly subscription at OneShoppingCart.com. It allows you to have autoresponders for your opt-in pages, as well as shopping cart capabilities. But it also provides you with testing software called “Ad Tracker” within their software. Ad Tracker is great for A/B split testing. If you’re not familiar with A/B split testing, let me explain exactly what it is…

A good explanation of A/B Split Testing on Wikipedia defines it as “A/B testing, split testing, or bucket testing is a method of marketing testing by which a baseline control sample is compared to a variety of single-variable test samples in order to improve response rates.”

A/B split testing can be used in email tests as well. You can test open rates as well as clickthrough rates since OneShoppingCart has this built-in feature. But although the software can test both, I’ll explain where you should focus your testing. Don’t focus on open rates as that means nothing. Your focus should be on your clicks. Use Ad Tracker within OneShoppingCart to access these results.

Of course, there’s going to be certain emails that get higher open rates. For those emails giving poorer results, you’ll then just have to work on those emails. You could look at that from that perspective. But from my personal experience, I really just care what the clicks are. Maybe I’m kind of off, but looking at what generated the most clicks seems to have the most importance in my opinion. Focusing on this has allowed me to make changes that produced very positive results in the end.

However, the best and only way to test your emails is to send an HTML version of your email in order to find out what’s working and what isn’t. The reason why I said you have to use an HTML email for testing is because you can’t use text email to test and gain the results. It won’t work. It has to be through an HTML email. If you’re using an ad tracker in your links when you’re sending out your emails, you are going to be able to find out the clickthrough rates, but you’re not going to know your open rates. So, HTML is the only way you’re going to be able to do access those results inside your shopping cart or inside your autoresponder program that you’re using.

But remember, your software must have this capability as it’s crucial to test and track to ensure you’re not throwing your dollars out the window.

In part 2 of this article series I’d like to address exactly how to do your testing if you’re testing multiple aspects of your website.

There are many strategies to making money on the internet, but nothing makes sense unless you have a big list. Email Marketing is the most profitable way to make money on the internet. When you build a list of hot and hungry prospects you control your future. Discover how to use the internet and turn your computer into a cash gushing machine. Sign-up right now for Matt Bacak’s FREE online newsletter to find out how to do exactly that – Go here: http://www.promotingtips.com

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