The insidious facet of internet marketing is wondering about results. "What will happen if I do this?" is seldom asked. Most of us just do something with hopes for the best.

Testing seems tedious, yet necessary. Learning how to test, testing, and adjusting is necessary. There’s nothing static about serving customers or interested readers.

"Test. Then, test some more."

If social proof is so great then why doesn’t Aweber use it in the sign up form above?

So what is this widget that people are putting on their website that is getting people to opt-in at higher rates?

I have to agree with Gobala. With a brand new site and no list, hence no clicks on the chicklet, it might prevent people from wanting to sign up.

What is your overall marketing method
to drive traffic to your site, when using
this method?

I think any subscriber method that requires the website owner/promoter to be able to prove that they have something that other people find of interest, will see a benefit.

I think there is a danger in over analysing the psychology here . . .It’s kind of…’Why would I want in, if nobody else does’ (or the reverse of that)

Hi guys,

Traffic is 80% from PCC. Mostly Google, a little Yahoo.

I agree with Gobala - advertising how many subscribers you have it fine if it’s a decent number, but if there’s not very many surely it will just put people off. Who wants to subscribe to a newsletter that’s only read by the author and his mum?

I was split testing with a pop-in box. In this case, it was the same content but different times periods in which it popped up. I did NOT have the chicklet at first. My results were about the same for all time periods…and none were acceptable rates of conversion.

I added both the chicklet and a link to a past newsletter so the visitor would see how many others subscribe and the type of content to expect. My subscription rate sky-rocketed!

I just checked to see how many people viewed the sample newsletter (pdf format) and it was a surprisingly low number. It looks like that chicklet did the trick. And my existing subscription count at the time was below 40 so even that low of a number was still high enough in the eyes of the visitor!

Thanks, Aweber!

I’ve been running a chiclet test for a few days, so far tracking at a statistically significant 45% increase in optins. I’m going to run it for 7 full days to eliminate day of week effects.

I’m not sure that it’s "social proof" causing the increase, though - it could just be having a blue thingy next to the opt-in submit button. The default opt-in form is pretty boring after all.

My next test will use a # of DONUTS graphic vs. # of READERS. Will report back on that.

Kudos to AWeber for offering this, btw.

Please at least answer me.

Will you be able to offer different messages like
Number of ’subscribers’ ‘viewers’ ‘members’

I can’t use the chicklet as my subscribers are not ‘readers’ and would just be confused by the mssage.

They are subscribing to get free videos not newsletters. Please Please Please just let me know. If it’s NO then that’s fine and I’ll live without using it.

OK, further testing on my site: Chiclet is boosting conversion on my opt-in landing page, but "no chiclet" is performing better in the blog sidebar.

I am still trying to set up split testing. the question, if I am an affiliate with a company, do I set up all the affiliate marketing within the section of split testing or just on one site.