This headline got me thinking…

“CAN A COMPUTER BEAT A COPYWRITER? “Impossible!” Said One of the World’s Top Copywriters Until He Got His Butt Whipped By An Uncanny New Software Program Called “Glyphius!”

That was the headline for a new piece of software that came highly recommended to me from Michel Fortin (arguably the world’s best online copywriter).

So I decided to give it a try with a real world experiment.

Split testing your headlines, sub headlines, guarantees, bullets and a variety of other elements are crucial if you are looking to get the maximum performance from your marketing materials.The problem is, most of us don’t have the patience for it.

That’s why I was intrigued by this piece of software because it proclaimed it could predict the winning outcome BEFORE you even send any traffic to your site!

You can see the entire salesletter for this software at www.TestYourAds.com

Initially I would have been very skeptical but like I said, it came highly recommended from Michel and he shared with me that he has run a bunch of tests to see if the software was correct and apparently it came very close if not exactly right on.

So the question popped in my head - you mean instead of having to go through the painful process of split testing I can just plug my different ads or headlines into this software and it will tell me which ones will do the best?

Yup, that’s exactly what it proclaims to do.

Here’s a screen shot:

However, through my own tests, I found something that doesn’t quite jive.

I’ve been running a naming contest for my upcoming membership site and we’ve had hundreds of people vote on the name they like the best.

But here’s the problem…

The names that are winning didn’t receive the highest score in the split testing software.

Here’s a look at the score that each name recieved from the software:

Leading Edge Web Tools - Score: 81
Best Web Tools Explained - Score: 56
Your Research Team - Score: 54
Web Tech Explained - Score: 44
Business Tools Revealed - Score: 23
Business Tool Trainer - Score: 21
Secret Business Tools - Score: 14
My Web Tool Guy - Score: 11
Monthly Business Tools - Score: -33
My Idea Tool Box - Score: -102

Therefore this split testing software projected that the top name would be “Leading Edge Web Tools” with a score of 81.

Here’s what’s ironic…

As I write this, “My Idea Tool Box” is the number one vote getter in the contest but it is scored the lowest according to the software with a score of -102!

So what does all this mean?

Well there could be a number of factors contributing to this and the major one is the fact that there is a contest for the name of my new membership site. This could obviously skew the results because the people involved in the finals could be getting everyone they know to vote for them regardless of whether they actually like the name or not (I’m not suggesting that is happening but it’s a definite possibility).

Another factor could easily be the fact that the results from the poll are shown on the blog and as Cheryl mentioned in the comments under the poll, this could skew the results as well because people are influenced by the current standings versus making a judgment based on their true opinion.

Lastly, I personally think that this split testing software works much better for longer headlines or ads and not neccessarily for product names.

Here’s how the software works (taken from the site at www.TestYourAds.com)

“…contains a built-in database of over a hundred thousand profitable and unprofitable ads. It allows you to score your own ad copy against this database for profitability.

It’s really simple. You just copy/paste a headline, sentence, order link, Adwords ad, resource box or any other copy that is meant to sell into the edit box in Glyphius. Once you do that, you click the “Score” button. In milliseconds, thousands of words and punctuation are compared to the internal database and scored. As far as you can tell… INSTANTLY, you see the score right under where you typed.”

So if you are testing product names I think TestYourAds is a start but there are probably some other factors you may want to include.

With that said, I did find the software extremely useful when I was generating headlines for another salesletter I was creating just to get a quick glance on the scores that each would receive.

It does an excellent job of pointing you in the right direction by helping you narrow down your top 3-5 that you want to put through a real world split test.

However, ultimately, you’ll never know the true result of a split test unless you actually conduct the split test

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

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About The Author
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Stu McLaren is a sought after marketing consultant for small business owners. He specializes in helping entrepreneurs leverage the internet in their marketing activities and is well known for his expertise in building and managing highly profitable affiliate programs.

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Other Websites of Interest:
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IdeaSeminar.com
MarketingWebGraphics.com
GetStartedWithInternetMarketing.com
GetStartedWithInfoMarketing.com
BasicListBuilding.com