So I got a dozen or so emails from some gurus today asking me to buy Ryan Deiss’ Perpetual Traffic Formula.

More often than not, I’ll click on a link in an email even if I have absolutely no intention to buy, simply to look at the page on the other side. In fact, and don’t laugh at me, but I’ve actually watched entire sales videos lasting 50-60+ minutes even when I had no interest in purchasing the product.

IMO, Perpetual Traffic Formula is going to be really good. Of course, I have no solid foundation upon which to base my conclusion. Ok, now I’m rambling.

So I clicked through to get to the sales page and I was genuinely shocked, or at least surprised (pleasantly).

You know what I found? Two things:

1. A video player configuration that allowed you to see how long the video was and to skip back and forth to different parts within the video.
2. Two “add to cart” buttons, one of which was for the payment plan.

I’m sure you’ve seen them around, but I was expecting a video sales page that did not allow you to control the video, nor to purchase right away.

Typically, the buy now button either appears “magically” X minutes before the end of the video, or you have to type in a special URL to get to the order page.

Leave it up to one of the best split-testing guys on our industry to deviate from the norm, right?

Ryan’s actually done a sh**load of split-testing over the years. In case you’re interested in this kind of stuff, check out Ryan’s updated-for-2010 split-testing Bible (opens in new window).

It contains the results of dozens of studies that he has done into stuff, even the littlest of things, that have increased his conversions, from emails to sales letters.

The colour of a buy now button, the wording of an ad, the font of a headline…you’d be surprised what kind of things can improve your conversions, and by how much.

Chances are, you hate the type of video sales pages that I was expecting. You know – completely blank page, no control over video, no buy now button. At least it seems like everyone hated them.

One of my upcoming blog posts (look for it in the coming weeks) will be about why individuals don’t matter that much when it comes to marketing. As in, you shouldn’t let your individual desires or the desires of a single subscriber of yours determine how you do your marketing.

The lesson you should take away from this blog post is to go with what works, but also to meticulously test various aspects of your marketing.

I admit that I’m not good at it, but I try.

It’s simple – having a higher conversion rate means that you make more money (or get more subscribers, for example) with the same amount of traffic.

A single word or colour shade could be the difference between making what you’re making now, or 10% more.

That’s freaking scary!