Landing page testing can result in dramatic and lasting improvements to your online marketing program profits. However, setting up a testing program involves many moving parts.  Your testing program can look like it’s moving forward but still fail. If it does, it will likely happen as a result of a “death by a thousand cuts.” Your original test ideas will be reviewed, tweaked, overruled, and co-opted by many others along the way. It is like the children’s game of “telephone” in which all of the participants’ line up and an original message is repeated and whispered to the next person in line. By the time it reaches the other end, you end up with something completely unrecognizable. But you have no choice because you need the cooperation of many people. You have to bear the ultimate responsibility for wrangling and herding them roughly in the desired direction. So your skills as a diplomat and persuader will be very important.

To help guide you through this process, I have put together a list of the “usual suspects.” These are roles that are commonly needed for a successful landing page optimization program. Depending on the scope of your program, not all of them may be applicable to you or your organization. If your company or department is small, several of these roles may be assigned to a single person. In fact, many of them may currently be assigned to you. If that is the case, use extra caution to take yourself and your predispositions into account as much as possible.

Each role in this section has an associated scope of responsibilities or expertise. I have included a section on typical skills and training required. Each role also has a specific overlap with your landing page optimization program. I will also bring up common issues that repeatedly come up in our tests involving each role (with suggestions about how to address them whenever possible).

Remember to pay particular attention when you get to the sections describing your own role or roles. Read them with the additional perspective of understanding how others may view your responsibilities, biases, and working style. Don’t become a stumbling block to your own program by ignoring your role in it. Read Complete Visibility Article >