martinibuster - 10:48 pm on Mar 21, 2013 (gmt 0)

Latest post [adsense.blogspot.ie] at Official AdSense Blog announces newest case study, MakeUpAlley.com [makeupalley.com]Case Study PDF here. [services.google.com]

The results are pretty dramatic, although a before and after screenshot would be helpful to see the previous ad placements. Archive.org has a record but it's not apparent where the ads were placed from their snapshot. Archive.org snapshot here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20110426015647/http://makeupalley.com/ [web.archive.org]

A side by side review shows that the new MUA site only has two navigation choices in the nav bar, compared with eight choices last year. Site visitors are now funneled to the Product Reviews section (an obvious money page section) and the forums. Fonts and layout look identical.

Gone is the link to the Links section and the link to Favorites is also removed. Somewhat redundant so no surprise. Also gone are links to MY MUA, Swap, Mail, and Diary. What they did to the navbar was create a tighter focus on driving site visitors to the money pages and to their community (content creation & site stickiness).

Clicking through to the Product Reviews section and doing a side by side review reveals a web page layout that is essentially the same. The site is supposed to be highly successful.

What do you think? Big change? Meh? Any lessons here?

Goals • Improve user experience • Increase user engagement Approach • Revamped landing page with simplified design • Grouped, highlighted affiliate links,related content • Made product ratings, reviews stand out • Reorganized AdSense ad units • Used Google Analytics to conduct A/B test Results • 171% increase in on-site interactions • 21% more clicks on affiliate links • 50% lift in AdSense revenue