MadLibs Original Version

We all remember those rainy, boring days as kids, when finding something to do was impossible. Parents around the world cheered as they were thrown a life raft when the Mad Libs books came along. You remember, “The worlds best word game”. Fill in the blanks with words that made the most sense. It was just a mad ‘ol time.

Back in February 2010, those warm, fuzzy feelings we had as a kid all came back when Luke Wroblewski introduced the world to Mad Libs style landing pages. His post about his Mad Libs test generated quite a bit of buzz. By changing the style of the form on the landing page to a Mad Libs narrative type, it lifted conversions by 25%-40% across the board. Pretty impressive results right?

We thought so too.

One of our specialties is Targeted Lead Generation and we pride ourselves in the quality leads we generate for our clients. We’re constantly looking for ways to  improve conversion rates and keep our strategies on the cutting edge. When I came across this Mad Libs idea, I was dying for a chance to test this out on one of our landing pages. Today I’m going to show you what we did to implement this type of form test and share with you our results.

The Mad Lib Form Setup Process

When setting up the test, there are two areas that need to be focused on:

The Design & The Copy.

The whole point of the Mad Libs style form is to bring out the narrative element it offers. With the right copy and layout you can captivate your users. It gives the landing page a much more personal feeling and you can put more emphasis on your offer.

From a design standpoint, be sure to provide a good flow of the form layout and also enough padding so it doesn’t look like complete mess. The first field labled “TO:”, can add a nice touch if you add the logo of the company the user is sending the lead too. Also, in our case we could utilize and re-emphasize the phone number. This not only brings a more qualified/warm lead, it also gives the user trust in the business they’re giving their info to.

Take a look at the example we used below:

PLEASE NOTE: I’ve edited a few elements to the form for privacy reasons.

Landing Page Control Version

Mad Libs Form Style

The Results.

This is what everyone really cares about right? After a few weeks of testing our first landing page, we saw an overall conversion lift of 25%. Amazing.

Mad Libs Form Test Results

For every 100 leads, we are now generating an additional 15 leads above the control.

When you sit back and really look at what this kind of lift does to your bottom line, these are pretty exciting results.

To learn more about Net Media Group’s proven conversion testing services, give us a call at (801) 365-0057 today!

If you’re considering starting an affiliate program, you need to understand that there are two primary kinds of affiliate networks out there and each offer two very different approaches.

Let’s take a look at each type of affiliate network and see how they measure up.

1. Affiliate Networks

An affiliate network primarily focuses on product based companies and provides the marketplace and technology to recruit affiliates, load banners and text links, provide tracking, pay affiliates, and more. While some affiliate netoworks offer some lead based programs, it is a very small percentage of their business.

In an affiliate network, companies are referred to as merchants and their sales force is referred to as “affiliates.”

Traditional affiliate networks include Commission Junction, Share A Sale, LinkShare, AvantLink, and more.

How an Affiliate Network Works:

• Every time a sale occurs a commission is paid to the affiliate who generated the sale.
• Commissions are usually a percentage of sale (rev share model).
• Commissions are paid once a month.
• Does not allow all kinds of affiliates (I.E. Email, co-registration and other incentivized traffic).
• More brand and trademark sensitive.
• In-house affiliate managers or outsourced program managers  manage the affiliate program.
• Affiliates are screened and approved into each program individually.
• The merchant has access to their affiliates.

Now, let’s look at a lead based affiliate network; which is referred to as a CPA Network.

2. CPA Networks

CPA Networks focus their efforts on lead generation for companies.  In CPA networks, companies are called “advertisers” and their lead partners are called “publishers.” They run a clients “offer” in their network (like a free trial) to either generate a lead of traffic or both from their base of publishers. Some CPA networks

Examples of CPA Networks include Hyrda Network, ROI Rocket, and Click Booth. Please note that I am in no way endorsing or recommending them, just giving examples.

How a CPA Network Works:

• Every time a lead is generated, a publisher receives a payout.
• Payouts on offers are usually a fixed dollar amount.
• Generates high volume of leads and traffic.
• Publishers have their choice of generating traffic (PPC, SEO, Email, Co-Reg and other incentivized traffic).
• Payouts to publishers are usually weekly or bi-weekly.
• Less brand and trademark sensitive.
• An advertiser runs their offer in the CPA Network without an affiliate manager.
• Publishers are approved in the network and can run any offer for any company.
• Advertisers do not typically have direct access to their publishers.

If you are a product based company you should consider investigating an affiliate network. If however, you are looking to get leads you might want to consider a CPA Network.

That said, if brand and trademark are an issue and you need high quality leads that convert, you might want to consider partnering with a lead generation company rather than a CPA Network.

To learn more about Net Media Group’s proven high quality lead generation campaigns give us a call at (801) 365-0057 today!