June 1st, 2007: Fascinating Real Time Split Test Results And Important New Conversion Statistics

Dear friend and affiliate:

NEWS FLASH! On this web page (below), we've just posted some fascinating (and exciting) up to date split test and conversion statistics. Naturally, I'm thrilled to show you the proof that our conversion rate has hit an all-time high for regular daily traffic (and by "regular daily traffic" I mean that this is NOT counting unusually high conversions that occur during special time-sensitive promotions or which come from "super affiliates" who are good at preselling - we're talking regular day to day conversion rates).

However, the significance of our recent split tests and conversion results goes beyond the fact that our sales page is converting more sales from the same amount of traffic you're already sending. These new results also allay some concerns that some of our affiliates have had. Here's the scoop:

We have spent literally months optimizing our entire site and follow up process to improve conversions. As a new product when we first launched, we had steady conversions as high as 7%. That of course, is typical of this kind of superb copy when a product is first released to the marketplace and especially when it is introduced to the author's own "house list" for the first time.

During special limited time promotions, we also see higher conversions. For example, last year's "Mission Abdominals" promotion was also converting at 7% due to the nature of the limited time offer. We also had one joint venture partner who converted 15% of his click throughs to sales on an email solo, but keep in mind, that this was not typical, because this was a well known industry expert with a large following... a loyal "herd" as Dan Kennedy likes to say.

With regular traffic and regular business however, BurnTheFat.com WAS converting at about 1.1% - 1.3% over the last 2 years. Thats about 1 sale in 82 visitors.

Now that our first round of optimization is complete, after months of painstaking work, we are converting at 1.7% - 1.9%, after running our tests through 21,641 visitors. That's about 1 sale in every 53 visitors!

We also just completed a very interesting split test which we designed as much to reassure our affiliates as we did it for ourselves. Let me explain:

We have received numerous emails from affiliates who had concerns and reservations about our pop over, which we use to collect email addresses from our visitors. As you know, even if nearly 2% of our visitors purchase on the first visit - an excellent conversion for daily business when you consider this is without scarcity, time sensitive deadlines or special offers - that means 98% of the visitors do not buy on that first visit.

This is why we collect emails - to follow up, build a relationship, build trust, get them back on the site, and convert them into customers. Any savvy direct marketer knows that most people do not buy on the first visit, and it often takes 5, 6, 7 or more contacts to win someone over. Therefore, the follow up process works totally in YOUR favor.

However, I've received mails from affiliates who did not like our pop up. They were concerned that it would either (a) reduce conversions because visitors would leave the sales page to go check their email for their first newsletter, or (b) that we, as the product vendor would somehow "steal" their commission by way of our follow up mails.

I can understand both concerns, but they are both unfounded and here is why:

Regarding point B, "losing commissions," that will not happen because clickbank has 60 day cookies. This means that if someone does not buy on the first visit, but they return within that 60 day period and purchase later, you will still get credit for that sale if they came through your affiliate link. If you've been paying attention to clickbank news, you may also already know that in the first week of May, clickbank implemented a proprietary new technology to insure that affiliate traffic is properly cookied, which blocks popular spyware from (innocently) removing the cookie or (malevolently) stealing the cookie and the commission.

The only way you could lose a commission from a vendor's follow up emails is if the vendor used his own clickbank links to overwrite your cookies. Some vendors have been caught red-handed doing just that. However, it makes no sense because it will ultimately be the demise of any product owner to do so, once word gets out on the street. If you look at any of our email newsletters, you will see that we never use a clickbank link - we use the direct URL link - www.BurnTheFat.com. It's possible a prospect may have cookies turned off, but you will NOT lose commission as a result of our follow up emails. To the contrary, our follow up emails are designed to increase sales for you.

Regarding point A on "decreased conversions with a pop up": At first, I had this same concern. We use the pop over because we capture 300-400% more subscribers that way. We knew that being able to follow up on those prospects would increase conversion over time, but we too wondered if our first visit conversion rate would drop as a result of that pop over, and if so, whether the follow up would make up for it.

Well, we recently tested it for you and the results were surprising! Below you can see the screenshot, and read my explanation of these numbers:

Let me explain this test because the numbers you see on this screen shot are NOT the total conversion, they are clickbank traffic conversions. I specifically asked my programmer to separate clickbank traffic from organic search and direct link traffic (by looking for the clickbank cookies). The numbers you see displayed are traffic coming in from clickbank hoplinks, so organic and direct link conversions were actually a bit higher. Here's the breakdown:

Our control (page 1) letter includes the pop over. our test (page 2) did not include the pop over. If you would have asked me to wager on which would win, I honestly would have said the no pop over would convert more, because you'd think that people WOULD in fact, be distracted from the sales letter to go check their email.

surprise, surprise! that's NOT what happened!

CONTROL (WITH POP OVER) =
1.7% conversion on clickbank traffic

TEST (NO POP OVER) =
1.54% conversion on clickbank traffic

THE POP OVER PAGE WON THE TEST! Who'd have thunk???? So not only do we get better conversions by leaving our pop over right where it is, we capture more email addresses that way so we can convert even more prospects for you during the 60 day cookie life if they don't purchase the first time! Fascinating results arent they? (and re-assuring to you, I hope)

Now, about TOTAL conversions. You may notice that the math does not add up because non clickbank sales are not included in the conversions displayed on this screenshot. In this test, 42 sales were direct (non-clickbank) sales, and 217 were clickbank affiliate sales (114 on page 1/control, 103 on page 2/test). That's about 80% of our sales from affiliates according to this test, although clickbank marketplace stats say it's closer to 75%

Since our programmer set up this script to display only clickbank sales on the web page results, lets see total conversions when you include the non clickbank sales:

OVERALL PAGE CONVERSION RATE
259 Total sales divided by 13,332 unique visitors =
1.94% conversion.

According to Perry Marshall, you have statistically significant and 95% accurate split test results after 30 sales per page. After 50 sales per page you have 99% accurate results. We let this test run out to over 200 sales and more than 13,000 visitors so there was no doubt.

It's important to realize that this is not the conversion rate of a single affiliate who is particularly good at qualifying and targeting their traffic. This is also not the conversion rate from some type of special promotion. This is our REGULAR conversion rate for the entire site for ALL TRAFFIC!

Affiliates who know how to target, qualify and pre-sell are typically getting conversion rates of 3% to 4%. For example, Mohammed Ali (the affiliate marketer, NOT the boxer, lol) who published the ebook, Affiliate Secret Formula was so impressed with the conversions he was getting on Burn The Fat, he wrote us up as one of his recommended products for affiliates to promote. Here are his comments and conversion stats:

So how does this guy get a 3.8% conversion on our sales letter when our page average is 1.9%? Simple. Mohammed sends better "quality" traffic. He is a pro affiliate marketer. He knows how to presell, how to write reviews, how to write google ad words, how to send qualified prospects and how NOT to send unqualified prospects.

The better you get at prequalifying and preselling your traffic, the higher you will convert. If you are an affiliate working on tight profit margins, it's imperative to learn what it means to pre sell and pre qualify. Our new, higher conversions will help, but nothing can help if you send cold and untargeted visitors to the sales page. A skinny kid in need of a "Charles Atlas" course is NOT going to buy a weight loss product!

Anyway, to say that we are pleased with our latest test results is an understatement, not just because conversions have increased by 32% over last year's average, but because we have a whole "grocery list" of additional split tests we are going to run for further optimization, not to mention the upcoming promotions. I have learned much from experts like John Carlton, John Resse and Michael Fortin; most of all, I've learned to test, test, test (and the results are often suprising).

Well, I have a lot more exciting news to share with you, including information about the upcoming limited time promotions, the upcoming affiliate contest and new content and tools that are on the way, (in time for the contest and promotion). But since I've rambled on so long in todays newsletter, I will simply email you next week with the rest of the news. Watch for my emails next week because they will be the most important affiliate news I've sent this year.

If you have any questions about any of this or about how you can earn more money with the Burn The Fat affiliate program, please contact me ANY time. I'm a little behind on email at the moment, but I will usually get back to you within 24 hours.

Sincerely,

Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
Author & Affiliate manager, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle

PS. Are you curious about what were the optimizations we did that lifted our response so much? Well... I'm not telling! :-) They were subtle but obviously significant. Some of them will take a real astute marketing eye to even notice.... But as the greats in the business always tell us - "small changes... Big returns!" If you want to guess at what they were (there were at least 4 things we changed so far), I'll let you know if your guesses are correct. Happy guessing... and enjoy the higher returns!

PPS. By the way, based on our recent tests, you can see that the rumors about The Death Of The Long Copy Sales Letter On The Web have been greatly exagerrated. Our sales letter is more than 7,000 words long!!! Certainly, interactivity, video and multimedia are already here and coming in an even bigger way, there is no doubt about that, but a good sales letter will always be a good sales letter. Coincidentally, Michael Fortin HIMSELF, in reference to Burn The Fat said, "I absolutely love this website. I would guess that its written by somebody who is PRETTY darn good at writing copy. This is just phenomenal copy."

DISCLAIMER: Fitness Renaissance, LLC, Tom Venuto and/or Burn the fat.com makes no claims or guarantees about earnings or income potential. Please read our affiliate agreement and earnings disclaimer

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