Author

Austin McCraw 35 posts 28 comments

Austin McCraw, Senior Director, Editorial Content, MECLABS Institute. From Web clinics to certification courses, Austin works behind the scenes to bring our research analysts’ discoveries to our audience in clear and creative ways. Before joining MarketingExperiments, Austin was the Promotions Director for a PBS affiliate in Gainesville where he was in charge of publicizing local and national programming. A graduate of the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications, Austin specializes in new media and video production by day and producing family memories with his wife and two children by night.

Value Proposition

The Honor of Marketing: Connecting real people to real value

Austin McCraw Oct 19, 2015 0

What comes to mind when you think about marketing? Or better yet, what comes to mind for others when they think about marketing? Read on to discover why marketing is so important to connecting real people to real value.

Value Proposition

Direct vs. Indirect Creative: Which ad is better?

Austin McCraw Apr 20, 2015 0

Which approach to design is better: direct or indirect? This post examines the pros and cons of each approach through two real-world examples and focuses on what ultimately matters when it comes to creating any ad: communicating your value…

Value Proposition

Marketing Classics: Four principles from the book that changed David Ogilvy’s life

Austin McCraw Jan 26, 2015 3

This MarketingExperiments Blog post features four principles put forth by one of the original 1920s greats – Claude Hopkins. Included are the selfishness of customers, the fact that advertising is salesmanship and the value of understanding…

Conversion Marketing

Hidden Friction: The 7 Silent Killers of Conversion

Austin McCraw Aug 15, 2011 25

Friction is one of the greatest obstacles to your conversion process, and though most marketers currently have some idea of what Friction is, many are only seeing half the picture. In this blog post, we reveal seven of the most common…

A/B Testing

Live Experiment (Part 2): Real testing is messy

Austin McCraw Jun 10, 2011 3

What happens when more than 200 marketers pull their heads together to optimize and test an online marketing campaign? Well, as imagined, the results are very interesting, and in this two-part blog series, Austin McCraw reveals some of the…

A/B Testing

Live Experiment (Part 1): How many marketers does it take to optimize a webpage?

Austin McCraw Jun 8, 2011 11

Digital Advertising

This Just Tested: Stock images or real people?

Austin McCraw Apr 8, 2011 32

Stock images are used all over the web without a second thought. But how effective are they really? Would it be better to use real images? Or do people respond more to a nameless model's smiling face? In this blog post, we review a recent…

Email Marketing

Marketing Intuition (Contest): Which email is more engaging?

Austin McCraw Feb 9, 2011 31

From time to time, we like to test our audiences' marketing intuition by asking them to predict the outcome of a recent experiment. In this post, we feature two radically different emails aimed at the aimed at the same goal - to get a…

Value Proposition

How to Test Your Value Proposition Using a PPC Ad

Austin McCraw Jan 19, 2011 5

Your Value Proposition is the cornerstone of all your marketing efforts. But how do you go about testing your Value Proposition? In this post, PPC is put forward as the optimal solution for those trying to identify their Value Proposition…

Digital Advertising

This Just Tested: PPC vs. banner ads?

Austin McCraw Dec 8, 2010 9

Most of us know that quality traffic is essential for any successful marketing campaign. But where can marketers find this quality traffic online? Should we work with PPC? Is it smart to invest in social media? Will external website banner…

Copywriting: 5 Proven Discoveries That Strengthen Copy

This Just Tested: Do images or copy generate more user response?

Austin McCraw Nov 10, 2010 17

We say in our online courses that every element of a Web page must state or support the value proposition. But, what communicates the value of an offer better – a beautiful image or well-crafted copy? In this blog post, a recent experiment…

E-commerce Marketing

This Just Tested: What is the optimal layout of a product page?

Austin McCraw Oct 20, 2010 20

MarketingExperiments reveals a recent experiment in which four different product page designs were tested against one another, and one of the layouts generated 24% more revenue per visitor that the control. Can you spot the best performing…

Conversion Marketing

Test Your Marketing Intuition: Do homepage pop-ups work?

Austin McCraw Sep 22, 2010 19

Second perhaps only to spam, pop-ups are among the most hated marketing tactics on the Web. But maybe…just maybe…there’s a right way to execute pop-ups? Maybe there’s a way to drive up conversion without alienating your audience with…

Conversion Marketing

This Just Tested: Could you spot the better homepage if a 59% conversion difference were at stake?

Austin McCraw Sep 1, 2010 3

Do you understand how the elements on your homepage contribute (or hinder) conversion? Take a look at this recent test and see if you can guess the winner…

Conversion Marketing

This Just Tested: An aesthetic design that produced 189% more leads

Austin McCraw Aug 11, 2010 22

How much does aesthetic design play in the effectiveness of landing page? In a recent test, we explore this question and others as we seek to improve the conversion rate of a B2B lead generation page.

Digital Advertising

This Just Tested: How PPC specificity drove 21% more clicks and cut costs 66%

Austin McCraw Jun 30, 2010 9

Learn a few simple principles to help you improve the ROI of your PPC ads…

Conversion Marketing

This Just Tested: How 1:1 marketing achieved 21% more clicks and 60% less unsubscribes

Austin McCraw Jun 9, 2010 3

A recent experiment illustrates the power of one-to-one conversation in marketing campaigns. This case study and more will be discussed in our free live web clinic today.

Conversion Marketing

Marketing Intuition (Contest): Can you spot the best landing page?

Austin McCraw May 19, 2010 28

Test your marketing intuition with a recent landing page experiment we ran here in our labs. One correct commenter will receive a free pass to an online certification course of his or her choosing. Let the games begin...

Digital Advertising