# Two-column radical offer page redesign: -53.28% new sales

- Outcome: Lost
- Page type: Landing page (Ecommerce)
- Elements: Layout, Above the fold
- Date shared: 2006-01
- Test run by: [MarketingExperiments](https://liftarchive.com/practitioners/marketingexperiments/)
- Commentary by: LiftArchive (our analysis, not theirs)
- Original source: https://marketingexperiments.com/value-proposition/marketers-intuition-tested
- Page: https://liftarchive.com/test/me-test-site-two-column-radical-redesign/

A radical two-column redesign meant to put more of the offer and order process above the fold cut new sales from 244 to 114, a 53.28% drop. MarketingExperiments (MECLABS) ran this A/B/C test on one of its own test sites. A lighter version, with slightly shorter copy and a jump link, won by 15.57%.

## Result

**-53.28% new sales**

- New sales: 244 (control) vs 114 (two-column), a 53.28% drop. A large loss.
- Traffic was split about evenly: 34%, 33% and 33% across the three pages.
- The third page, with slightly shorter copy and a 'click here' jump link, got 282 sales, up 15.57% on the original.
- 58.52% of a live web clinic audience predicted the two-column page would win.

## Control

The original offer page, where many visitors on smaller screens had to scroll to reach the main sales copy.

## Variant

A radical two-column redesign that showed part of the order process above the fold and packed more information into the first screen.

## Why it likely lost (our reading)

- The team was right that key sales copy should appear earlier. The lighter page proved that and won.
- The two-column layout seems to have made the page harder to read, which cancelled the benefit of moving content up.
- Squeezing the order process into the first screen may have asked for the sale before visitors understood the offer.

## Caveats

This is a 2006 test on a MarketingExperiments test site, and the product type was not stated. No confidence level was shared, though the gap in sales is large.

## How to run this test

- Hypothesis: If we move key sales copy higher on the page, then sales will rise because more visitors see it, provided we do it without making the layout harder to read.
- Primary metric: Sales per visitor
- Guardrail: Scroll depth
- Guardrail: Add-to-cart or order start rate
- Guardrail: Bounce rate
- Who should test it: Stores and offer pages where analytics show many visitors never scroll to the main pitch. Try a light fix like a jump link or shorter copy first; a radical redesign is a bigger risk.

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Credit: MarketingExperiments ran this test and owns the result. Summary and commentary by LiftArchive (https://liftarchive.com/test/me-test-site-two-column-radical-redesign/).
Usage: Free to use, quote and build on, with credit and a link: name the practitioner or organization that ran the test and link to its LiftArchive page. The results belong to the practitioners who ran and shared them; the summaries and commentary are LiftArchive's.