In reply to a post by bpullen:

........ by entering the order journey.....

That sounds very offputting.

In reply to a post by bpullen:

In reply to a post by johnjburness:

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

what are PN actually doing wrong?

Plusnet place an Advert promoting 1/2 Price Broadband (WITHOUT any reference to the need to sign up for Phone Service as well), which then links to an offer that combines the 2 Services.

Is this similar to what you saw? If so, I've referred it to our marketing/legal folk as promised earlier.

I notice there is some subscript that says 'Line Rental £14.50' but I've no idea if that's deemed sufficient in the context it's placed in.

You need to take phone to benefit from the half price offer.

Rgds,

NO! It is not similar because that one refers to the Line Rental!

I've just double-checked by typing "Plusnet" into Google, both using IE & Firefox & both return the original where the Line Rental is NOT mentioned!

However, even the one that you've linked to, does NOT make it clear (IMHO)that the "Line Rental" bit is a condition of "1/2 Price Broadband".

NB:- I regard it as "clear" that a Telephone Line (including the requisite rental) is a "technical" requirement of having Broadband but that doesn't necessarily mean that it HAS to be a combined provision! Having had Broadband for many, many years (the majority of time with PN) where the Land-Line has been a separate provision, it is not an intuitive thing to "assume" that it can now only be a "combined" offering!

Again, IMHO, the ASA findings were because ISPs (including PN) where NOT making it clear that a paid-for Line was req'd!

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

If the advert had correctly stated a dependence on the phone line, then all of the alternative website variants discussed in this thread would have showed those products available, easily, without needing to hunt. The hard-to-find products would have been the unadvertised ones.

Then I wouldn't have wasted time looking for what would appear to be non-available products!

Don't get me wrong, if PN have decided that they ONLY want to supply combined products, that is their entitled decision!

By the same token, I don't have to trade with PN!

None of that has anything to do with Split-Testing (as both you & Mr Saffy have defined it), where it is trying to establish the best way of selling a specifically defined Product (as in your example, by choice of token things such as colours)!

In reply to a post by bpullen:

In reply to a post by 4M2:

In reply to a post by bpullen:

Has been since the back-end of last year. Monthly contracts typically cost an extra £2.50pcm.

Would it be possible to include that in the "legal bit"? I had to find that out from here http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/products/low_c... !!!

I'll ask about and see if we can get it added.

Please do because the "from £9.99" headline figure suggests a higher price for Market1 exchanges only without any mention of the intermediate price for monthly contracts in the "legal bit".

Cheers

In reply to a post by johnjburness:

In reply to a post by bpullen:

In reply to a post by johnjburness:

... nested quotes trimmed ...

Plusnet place an Advert promoting 1/2 Price Broadband (WITHOUT any reference to the need to sign up for Phone Service as well), which then links to an offer that combines the 2 Services.

Is this similar to what you saw? If so, I've referred it to our marketing/legal folk as promised earlier.

I notice there is some subscript that says 'Line Rental £14.50' but I've no idea if that's deemed sufficient in the context it's placed in.

You need to take phone to benefit from the half price offer.

Rgds,

NO! It is not similar because that one refers to the Line Rental!

I used the link you provided in this post (and then disabled my ad blocker).

In reply to a post by johnjburness:

I've just double-checked by typing "Plusnet" into Google, both using IE & Firefox & both return the original where the Line Rental is NOT mentioned!

Tried again from my box at home and got this.

I've made sure the marketing/legal folk are aware of that one too (although I'm sure they'll look at all variants anyway).

Rgds,

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

You ignore several facts WWWombat .

I don't really, I'm just trying to point out how extreme split-testing could be - and that it is going on all around, all the time.

Remember all those adverts in newspaper that you had to respond to by post. They'd include a "Dept TV27" line in the address, or somesuch. That's split-testing, and would affect which papers and magazines the next month's budget would be spent on, and what the advert content would be. But it would take weeks or months to go from devising the test to having results to analyse.

The only difference nowadays, with online adverts and websites, is that a split-test can be devised, run and analysed in 30 minutes. Adverts can be fine-tuned, website content can be adjusted, prices changed, the sign-up process can be altered.

My logical engineer side hates the inconsistencies that can happen. My mathematician side finds it a fascinating statistical exercise. There's a whole psychological side that I'm not qualified to delve into but find fascinating anyway.

You seem to be discussing a theoretical marketing strategy, and everything you say on that topic is valid.

Ah, that might be true. I do tend to do that.

We are discussing a particular case of split-testing and its effects.

So I'll point out that in this particular case I too find it a little strange that the BB-only product could become invisible to some variants.

At the same time, I can understand why it would be a valid case to test - even if I don't think it would ever be the winner.

I should also say that I'm not convinced that "BB-only" was actually invisible in each of the cases we saw at the start of the thread. For a start, we saw a few different ways to find the product. However, the focus of the thread was on what different people saw with different browsers - so everyone kept posting what they saw, but no-one really concentrated on what the "discovery steps" were for each variant. We don't even know how many variants there were.

I've more to say in a new thread, to post once I've been to pick up mt wife from the hairdresser's .

Oh no. There goes the decorating this evening...

In reply to a post by bpullen:

I've made sure the marketing/legal folk are aware of that one too (although I'm sure they'll look at all variants anyway).

Rgds,

Thanks for that!

Do you mind if I refer to a hypothetical Supermarket situation?

At Christmas I will go along to my local Supermarket where they are offering cut-price Turkeys!!

As we all know, you can't really roast a Turkey without a Roasting Tray.

Often the Supermarket, on the same Poster, will advertise Roasting Trays.

QUESTION:-
Under that scenario, would I expect (or appreciate) if the Supermarket, when I had been attracted by their Turkey Advert, stated that I couldn't buy the Turkey unless I also purchased a Tray?

In reply to a post by johnjburness:

NO! It is not similar because that one refers to the Line Rental!

I've just double-checked by typing "Plusnet" into Google, both using IE & Firefox & both return the original where the Line Rental is NOT mentioned!

That's the problem with Google's Ads - they choose what you see on a very individual basis from what they know about you and your search habits, as well as the actual search phrase.

Bob will see different ads. I, for example, see no ads whatsoever when I type "Plusnet" into Google (which wasn't the result I expected when I tried it).

That's why Bob wants a screenshot of what you're actually seeing.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

In reply to a post by johnjburness:

NO! It is not similar because that one refers to the Line Rental!

I've just double-checked by typing "Plusnet" into Google, both using IE & Firefox & both return the original where the Line Rental is NOT mentioned!

That's the problem with Google's Ads - they choose what you see on a very individual basis from what they know about you and your search habits, as well as the actual search phrase.

Bob will see different ads. I, for example, see no ads whatsoever when I type "Plusnet" into Google (which wasn't the result I expected when I tried it).

That's why Bob wants a screenshot of what you're actually seeing.

Which is why I supplied Bob with the full URL, since that would appear to be based on my reading of the situation!!

Incidentally, regardless how Google chooses to select the personalised Advert, it would still be based on an Advert supplied by PN.

Additionally, since I haven't got a clue how to insert screen-shots into TBB-Forums (you will note that Bob had to link to a PN hosting) there wasn't much I could do about providing the screen-shot.

FWIW, I think the link in the footer is present on all variants of the site (happy to be proved wrong if that's not the case).

Rgds,