Homepage showing bestselling courses vs formats: +40.87% engagement
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsMedienreich Training replaced three broad training formats on its homepage with eight bestselling course topics, and engagement rose 40.87%.
The German software training provider ran this split URL test, and it was published as a VWO case study.
The goal measured was engagement, not enquiries or bookings.
- Engagement: +40.87%, reported at 99.9% significance over about 20 days.
- Medienreich estimated the yearly value of the homepage rose 106.42%, from $2,149.72 to $4,436.41. That figure is the company's own estimate.
- Enquiries and bookings were not reported, so the effect on leads is unknown.
The change
Three training formats replaced by eight bestselling course topics
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The homepage organised the offer by training format: open courses, in-house training and company-specific training.
Variant
The homepage showed eight bestselling course topics instead, such as Photoshop, InDesign, AutoCAD, Excel, PowerPoint and Project.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Visitors first want to know if a course on their topic exists. Showing topics answers that before anything else.
- The training format matters later, once a visitor knows the topic is covered.
- Named software topics are concrete and easy to scan, which cuts the effort of searching.
Caveats: The primary metric was engagement, not enquiries or bookings, and the revenue figure is the company's estimate. Sample size was not shared, and the result is vendor-published.
Who ran it
Medienreich Training ran this test for German software training provider and published the results (VWO case study). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Medienreich Training →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we show our most popular course topics on the homepage instead of our delivery formats, then more visitors will engage and move toward an enquiry because they can quickly confirm we teach what they need.
- Primary metric
- Course enquiries or bookings per homepage visitor
- Guardrails
- Click-through to course pages
- Bounce rate
- Enquiries for in-house training
- Who should test it
- Training providers, agencies and service firms whose homepage is organised around how they deliver rather than what people are searching for. It may not help if most traffic lands directly on topic pages from search.
Questions
Should a homepage show services by type or by topic?
Lead with what visitors are looking for. Medienreich found topics beat formats, because people first check that their subject is covered.
Is engagement a good primary metric?
It is a useful early signal but not a business outcome.
Track enquiries or bookings too, so you know whether more engagement turns into leads.
What is a split URL test?
It sends visitors to two different page URLs and compares them.
It suits larger layout changes that are hard to make with a simple on-page edit.
MarketingExperiments