ppcing to a comparison site

how good is the conversion rate?

[tsinoy]

Hi, it's now a common knowledge that a lot of affiliates build comparison sites, now I'm wondering how well does it convert if you have a site like this?

for example, you are promoting payday loans, and you compare 5 different merchants on your site, how well does it convert as compared to just promoting 1 payday loan merchant specifically using ppc? any evidence out there that a comparison site converts better than just a plain sales letter to 1 merchant? of course this concept can apply to other industries just like what cnet does for electronics or bookfinder for books.

[growingdigital]

The fewer options you give consumers the more likely they are to purchase one of them.

If you give someone a hundred different options, in most cases it just confuses them, and they take no action.

However, if you can narrow it down to 3 options, the information will be more digestable and the consumer will be more likely to purchase 1 of the 3 options.

There have been numerous offline studies that have proven this theory. I have used this strategy on some of my comparison sites and it seems to work well.

Finding the optimal number of choices to give someone may take some time for you to figure out. It depends on a lot of variables. Run some A/B split tests to see what works best for your site.

[badone]

Run some A/B split tests

Of course, just one question.... what the hell is an A/B split test?

Cheers,
BAD

[growingdigital]

Sorry for the jargon in the previous post.

An A/B split test is where you take "Page A" and compare it to "Page B" to see which one performs better.

In the aformentioned example, you could test 5 product reviews on "Page A" and see how that converts compared to 3 product reviews on "Page B".

[badone]

Thanks growingd, that is now "crystal"

Cheers,
Brad