Dear Friend,
I’m going to tell you how to install an upgradable version of STA for free. It’s a limited version, but still powerful. So read this post carefully if you’re interested.
It’s the first month of my new sales system, and I’m getting a lot done.
(Just to remind you, I decided to sell STA only two days a month — the first Monday and Tuesday of each month. The next opportunity will be May 5th and 6th.)
At the time I write this, there were 22 replies to the post I made explaining my reasons for the new schedule.
Some people liked the new system. Others were a little more doubtfult about it working in the long run. Pretty much everyone had something helpful to say. Many gave good advice about outsourcing. Thanks again to everyone who commented.
There was one concern raised that I want to address . . .
What about someone who wants to
get started with STA mid-month?
Well, I think I have a solution that will be a win-win.
I’m going to give people a chance to install a version of STA any time they like. It will have all the features of STA, except it will only be a single-variable version, and it will lack the conversion summary and interaction reports. Other than that, it still has all the other features:
- The same battle-tested STA tracking engine
- Multiple outcomes per test
- Drill down to the visitor level
- Visitor path tracking
- Exclude bad traffic by ip, agent, or referring domain
- Filter results by ad codes, keyword, domain, date.
- Integrate with Clickbank, CJ, and other affiliate networks that allow tracking IDs.
- Upgrades seamlessly to STA — your projects will be imported, and you won’t have to install STA once the free version is installed.
- Etc, . . .
Here’s How this benefits you . . .
If you think you might want to use STA, you can install it any time you want.
If you’re wondering if STA will work with your current setup, you can just try it. Install it, and see if you can integrate it. I don’t always know if STA will work in a set of special circumstances. This way, you can just see for yourself without paying anything up front.
When you purhcase STA, you won’t have to do another installation. It will already be installed. You’ll just load a single page into your browser, and you’ll be upgraded — with all your old projects imported automatically.
If you just want to try STA out before buying it, you can run an unlimited number of simple (single variable) split tests, and get a feel for most of what STA does before you upgrade to the ACCELERATED version.
I’m not asking for any payment information. All I ask is that you read the download page carefully, download the software, and use it.
This will benefit you,
but it will also benefit me.
It will cut down on many of the kinds of support requests I get. Many people want to know ahead of time whether STA will work on some server configuration that I’m unfamiliar with. Or they’ll want to know if they can integrate it with XYZ 3rd party software. This way, I can just say, “I’m not sure . . . but you can feel free to install STA at no charge and see if it works.”
Also, sometimes a customer will get hung up on a step during installation. STA is pretty easy to install, and it usually goes smoothly, but sometimes a host will mess things up by requiring a strange host name for database access or something. When money is involved, the stress levels go up. This way a user can take her or his time installing, and not feel the same anxiety. And I will have more customers who already have STA installed at time of purchase.
Anyway, I am giving the download link to everyone in my “free course” autoresponder series. If you’re already subscribed, you’ll get a broadcast message (that’s probably how you got here today). And new subscribers will get a message about this in the follow up sequence.
If you stumbled across this message in some other way, you can get my free course here:
http://www.splittestaccelerator.com/free_mvt_course.php
Please, if you’re thinking about purchasing STA — either this month (May 5th or 6th, 2008), or sometime in the future — take advantage of this.
And if you hear anyone asking about good free split testing software, let them know that there’s a premium simple split tester available for free — almost certainly better than any other free split testing software, and probably better than the paid versions as well. Just give out the link I mentioned a couple lines up.
Thanks. And feel free to leave comments below.
Jim
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:14 am
Hi Jim;
An elegant solution. While I do not yet have a site set up I expect to do so this summer, and intend to start “testing & tracking” right out of the gate.
I’ve read everything you have written, and feel your software is a tremendous offering.
Best Regards,
Rick Louis
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:45 am
It’s always a good sign when a software developer makes a trial version available. So many people selling software to marketers make customers rely on sales letters, and when there’s no demo or trial version, it makes me wonder.
April 22nd, 2008 at 6:54 pm
I think this is a brilliant idea. well done jim! I hadn’t heard of multivariate testing until I stumbled across some of your work a year ago. i’ve just spent the last week getting my head around it all again. I blogged the other day about how I was frustrated that it was very difficult to find free info on the fundaentals of multivariate. now i’m going to have to update that to take this great offer into account. thanks heaps.
April 22nd, 2008 at 7:29 pm
A good news
April 25th, 2008 at 8:01 am
Mike,
I have admired your correspondence and your 10 step course (I only got the first 8). I applaud your honesty and forthright manner, and would like to support you by buying your product. However, money IS tight, and I cannot justify the expenditure yet, especially since I believe that Google employs some of the best mathematicians on the planet.
Good luck and please keep the emails coming.
April 25th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Hey Dave.
Thanks for the comments. I really appreciate it.
As for the course, . . . there are 8 lessons with 10 steps (hope that clears things up).
And there’s no doubt Google has some of the best mathematicians and programmers on the planet. But they don’t offer a fractional factorial tool (though you can use GWO for small fractional factorial tests, if you know how).
If they did, it would definitely be mathematically sound (as is STA), but they don’t at this point.
If money’s tight, STA isn’t your highest priority. And that goes for anyone else reading this. I usually suggest that someone have a landing page or pages with at least $2,000/month ($3,000 is even better) in revenue — and with a profit. That way you can make back the cost of STA within a couple months of testing.
That way you know you have something that is worth improving, and STA won’t seem such a monumental investment.
Feel free to use the free version, or use Google’s Website Optimizer for smaller tests.
And best wishes for you and your business.
Jim