Watching stats for viral campaign - case study

[Rob Toth]

One of the primary motivators for launching my current www.DearEmployeeBirthdaySale.com (if you read this down the road, the site might be a redirect as it's a temp sale) is to test a viral script.

I already identified a few ways to greatly improve the useability for it (ie: education, and screenshot walkthrough) and promotions are hardly even under way ... but it's interesting watching the stats of :

unique visitors vs. invitations mailed by visitors vs. new visitors from invitations

right now it's approx:

170 : 11 : 1

Again, there are A LOT of factors at work here so do not take those as any sort of useful data just yet. For example, the bulk of the invitations that were mailed only recently hit their recepients' inboxes ... hence the final variable (and therefore the ratio) will greatly increase.

And... that, in itself, spawns more invitations being sent etc etc.

Additionally, the education/clarificaiton steps that I'm putting in play for our big promo (launching Nov 18th) will ensure that more visitors actually make use of this TAF viral script.

But I'll try to update this thread for everyone's benefit with the new ratios. RIGHT NOW though it's sitting at roughly every 170 visitors, turns into 11 new invitations sent for which (so far!) 1 actually visit the page. Translation= 170 visitors = 1 freebie. THAT is the number I"m aiming to get closer to 20 visitors = 1 freebie which I'm confident is attainable.

[Rob Toth]

UPDATE:

I think we're 48 hours into this (??) ... but the figures are already looking a lot better.

Visitor : Invitations Sent : New Traffic

100 : 17 : 1

But... there are a lot of new invitations that went out... so the 17 : 1 part of the ratio will definitely decrease.

The main point though is, and always has been, the Raw Visitor : New Traffic ratio...

We went from 170 : 1 to now 100 : 1

I found one setup error that definitely cost some visits... when the script couldn't find a name, it was inserting the user's email address so the invitations were going out with hey youremail@address.com, type formatting. Also I set to include the "unsubscribe" option for these (which does cost me some visitors but helps to make sure that anyone who doesn't want to be hit with a promo 20 times can just unsubscribe). But I moved that down a little further to still leave them an option, but to avoid making the email look too much like a commercial mailing.

The actual invitation pages could use the screenshots or other mini tutorials that I mentioned which would certainly increase the # of raw visitors who use the form in the first place.

Overall, my hypothesis is that with proper setup, I could reach a 10 : 1 ratio of raw visitors to new (free!) visitors. And that's huge in itself.

Assuming just a 2% conversion on a $97 product... if your page got 10,000 raw visitors... that's 1000 new visitors which (based on this hypothetical conversion) would be 20 new sales at $97 each = $1940 just for having a viral invitation in place.

Sure those numbers are made up, but with a proper buzz campaign 10,000 visitors AND 2% conversion are both modest figures. Point is, the tool seems to be delivering value right now.

[Rob Toth]

New ratios..

111 : 24 : 1

Every 111 unique visitors = 24 invitations sent which = 1 free visitor

The ratio of users who actually send invites using the TAF works out to 44.7 invitations sent per user. So for everyone who DOES use the TAF form, the average of invitations sent is a pretty good little number.

The promo/sale will be closed soon, so we'll see what the final tallies are.

[imported_Kim Roach]

Hey Rob,

Thanks for this excellent case study!

By the way, which Tell-A-Friend script are you using?

- Kim

[Rob Toth]

Kim, this one's Viral Inviter.

[Rob Toth]

I'm just about to mail the "closing soon" notice for my $8 "28th Birthday Firesale". I'll likely raise the $8 package to a more fair $28, leave it there for a week or two and then close this permanently. Which means a couple of more weeks of stats for the viral script, but it's not looking good at all.

Raw Visitors : Invitations Sent : New Traffic

159 : 34 : 1

Every 159 raw visitors gives me one free visitor.

Though it would be unfair to base my conclusions on just this one campaign... I've used standard TAFs before and the ratios weren't any better.

And while the examples can be drawn that social networks use this to explode virally... that's a far cry from having someone refer friends to an ebook or other similar offer.

If your offer lends itself nicely to mass consumer markets (ie: free movies passes, $100 worth of free gas, etc) ... then I'd assume your ratios would be A LOT better.

If your site is indeed a social network where new users WANT their friends/family to also join, then of course, your ratios will be even that much better.

But at 159 : 1, risking being blacklisted (let's face it, hundreds of emails going out with your domain in it and the unwelcomed email gets clicked as Spam means that domain of yours could be blacklisted fast), risking server bandwidth (add too many rewards computations and tie all this into a launch with massive traffic and you have a new level of bandwidth concerns), etc , etc... I'm just not seeing the point.

Anyways, current ratios sit at:

159 : 34 : 1

Check out the form on the page for yourself to see how the TAF is setup.
http://www.dearemployeebirthdaysale.com ... while you're there, I certainly invite you to click the "Affiliates MAKE MONEY" link at the bottom (hint, hint, nudge, nudge).

Okay... I'll be back with another update and then likely just the final totals.

(If you have viral TAF stats, feel free to chime in).

[Todd Lamb]

Hey Rob,

An interesting case study for sure. We will be tracking some similar stats when we release our Facebook application. Nice work on reflecting on the stats though.

Todd

[vyking]

I Agree

This is interesting. I also have the Viral Inviter script, but haven't installed it yet. I was planning on installing it on client sites as a favor and to pave the way for more of my services.

I think you are right about the type of site the script is running on Rob. My speculation on that subject was thinking the script would get more mileage if the offer was more of a social thing.

I'm going to try it on a site where they sell a niche health device.

Dwain

[Rob Toth]

FINAL STATS:

The difference between "wouldn't it be nice" theory, sales pitches and reality.

An important (though somewhat common sense) lesson was learned.

With so many people importing friends and having emails go out cold, a LOT of those receivers will click "spam". Since that email had your domain in it, your domain gets blacklisted at rocket pace which not only entirely kills the TAF system (as all future invites are blocked or sent directly to the Spam box), but it also hurts any affiliates who still promote links directly instead of cloaking them (like they should).

In fact, your communciations to your own leads using that domain are also shot.

Case in point... take a look at the final stats.

Visitors : invitations sent : new traffic
249 : 51 : 1

Those are just ratios...

But for every 249 raw visitors, 51 invitations were mailed (not bad) but only 1 new free visitor resulted. So for every 249 visitors, we got 1 free visitor ...

Weigh that against how many potential sales were lost seeing as this Viral script resulted in the domain being blacklisted.

So why the comparison to "Gmail, Facebook, MySpace" etc using this? Those are social networks. It's an entirely different psychology vs. promoting a free report or a sale or anything of the sort. Additionally, each of those companies has a department that specifically makes sure they stay whitelisted (is that something you want to deal with?).

My experience with this and past TAF has been less than favourable. See, if it REALLY works (and a lot of TAF invites are being sent out), then you get blacklisted. ANd if it doesn't really work, it's hardly worth the extra time to set up... and, more importantly, hardly worth using up valueable real estate for a TAF form and instructions and bonuses.

Anyways... at the end of this particular campaign the stats show that it took 249 visitors to create 1 new free visitor and the main reason for this is because that domain (for the temporary sale) is now heavily black-listed because thousands (literally) received random invitations as their names were imported into the TAF.

I won't be running a 3rd test. Draw your own conclusions.

[ccmusicman]

This was a very interesting case study.

But I'm not surprised at the results. I've found that people who tend to fill this stuff out and send it to their friends do this just to get the freebies. They may put fake email address's, they may just target people on their email accounts they don't email often, even if they do email their friends, most of the time those people that they email aren't even interested in what you have to say.

It comes down to the ol' niche marketing standard, you MUST target interested traffic.

Good case study though, I think it proves that this is "easier said than done."

I'm sure there are ways to make it work and people that have success, but who knows.

Rob