Trying to come up with a great and successful business and or product name?
You know the situation I am about to relate as I am sure you have all been there, whether you are an entrepreneur or marketing guru. Reams of paper with name variations, thesaurus thumbed through that many times the ink is fading off the page. When you think you have hit on the most original name you look it up on the net to see if it has been taken and you find that someone else has. It can be so disheartening.
Let’s say you get past all that and you manage to find half a dozen names that have not been taken and could work. A question now arises:
Which name do I choose?
If you have a team around you, you find yourself pitching the names and see which ones people like. This can cause many issues and normally since this is all subjective, politics, ego or even just guess work comes into play.
As the title of this post suggests I propose a test that is focused on actions not opinions:
Multivariate Testing: Choosing a Domain or Product Name.
So how do you go about the testing?
Typically you could spend around £25,000 for a professional name test and even then the results that come back may not have been determined correctly.
I propose that you use search engines as the testing ground. Not only will they give you immediate results but will save you a fortune. And if you are really pushing it you could have results on your desk with an hour.
Most notably I would use Google Adwords.
So let’s say you have gone through your list of domain name ideas and found 5 possible potentials.
By rotating a number of ad variations, you take each Google Adword and make it identical other than the domain name. Same copy, same text, same 15 keywords. Same maximum per click bid.
By having all the other elements remain the same the ad with the best click-through rate (CTR) would indicate the best domain name. The higher the click through rate the better the name.
Fictional test results
Domain Name Test | ||||
| Domain Name | Max. CPC | Avg. CPC | Avg. Position | CTR |
| InvestorNetwork.co.uk | $0.50 | 0.33 | 2.7 | 0.60% |
| InvestmentTech.co.uk | $0.50 | 0.27 | 2.7 | 0.50% |
| DirectStockMarket.co.uk | $0.50 | 0.26 | 3.3 | 0.30% |
| InvestorSavings.co.uk | $0.50 | 0.35 | 2.7 | 0.30% |
| StockMarketPavilion.co.uk | $0.50 | 0.35 | 2.8 | 0.20% |
| TOTAL | $0.50 | 0.312 | 2.8 | 0.40% |
An increase in overall CTR or conversion rate can have a tremendous impact on your business, especially at high volumes.
To receive more accurate results do not use strong brands in the URL title or copy.
Also to make sure Google serves all the ads more evenly you will need to login in to your account and disable the optimise, check out the information at https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6128&ctx=tltp
Now that you have chosen the domain that has the best CTR you can work on the product or the landing to get your best ROI.
I wish you all the best with your new business and product names, make sure you drop me an email if you have found this to be useful to you.
