Last updated on August 25th, 2025 at 03:29 am
In a world where we’re told to “always be testing,” finding the ideal starting point to experiment on your funnel can be a bit of a headache.
Thankfully, we’ve uncovered five funnel elements for unconventional funnel-hackers to test.
Test, test and test some more.
Testing has been the name of the game since the dawn of modern marketing: from copy to deals and beyond, you can’t afford to be split testing.
Likewise, failure to test could mean that you’re needlessly throwing money away.
The numbers don’t lie regarding the importance of which elements to test, either.
For Example:
- 75% of marketers A/B test offers on a regular basis: you better hope that you’re part of that number, right?
- Most optimization and abandonment issues happen at the shopping cart: do you know whether or not your users are bouncing instead of dying to buy?
- Video and email marketing are perhaps the secret weapons of optimizing and converting traffic: have you implemented them on your funnel yet? Since they integrate so easily with ClickFunnels, why not?
The point is this: if you’re not testing, you’re essentially guessing.
You can’t build a business on a guess, can you?
Now, here’s the problem that often arises when it comes time to run a test: with so many moving pieces of any given sales funnel, what can we test?
How can we effectively test without interrupting our current traffic?
Fear not.
We’ve uncovered some rather unconventional means of testing that won’t break the flow of your funnel.
In fact, our five mad scientist tests will more than likely ramp up your traffic and result in more conversions with some patience.
Whether you’re tired of the “same old” tests or simply want to make sure there’s nothing you’re missing regarding optimizing your sales funnel, consider the following five testing points for your future funnel-hacking efforts.
Exit Pops
Simply put, you need to do absolutely everything in your power to keep users glued to your shopping cart when it comes time to buy.
The reasons why most users bounce during a purchase are subtle yet clear, including:
- Unexpected shipping costs.
- The need to create an additional account to complete a purchase.
- A lack of testimonials or authenticity during the checkout process (which again stresses the need for funnels to leverage social proof).
The question remains: how can you win those visitors back or simply keep them from abandoning in the first place?
Accordingly to the study above, 54% of shoppers are willing to purchase the items abandoned in their shopping carts if they were offered the same items at a lower price.
That’s a big if that impacts your bottom line; likewise, over half of your buying base is nothing to scoff at.
So, how do you engage your customers to keep them from abandoning while also keeping yourself in the black?
In short, exit pops work to keep users on the page and further incentivize them to buy by either offering a down sell or a better deal.
For example, you could implement an exit pop-up to drive a 20% discount or an additional offer to help sweeten the deal.
Keep in mind that you shouldn’t go needlessly throwing exit pops around, considering that it could effectively drive down your bottom line if overused.
Instead, implement them as a way of foolproofing your shopping cart by targeting users who are spending a lot of time on your page without taking action or those who try to click away from the funnel.
There’s little risk involved in exit pops, which ultimately serve as a win-win for both you and your customers.
Play around with different offers to see what helps keep visitors sticking around: just be sure not to make your deals or discounts too steep.
If you find this task daunting, you wouldn’t think so if you’re using ClickFunnels. Set-up is a breeze!
Step 1: Log in to your ClickFunnels account
Step 2: Head on over to your funnel > sales page
Step 3: Click Edit Page
Step 4: In the bottom left corner of the editor, click Show Pop Up
Step 5: A pop-up will show prompting you to Add New Row. Select the number of blocks.
Step 6: You can choose whether your pop up is a headline, a text block or an image. Afterwards, click Edit Popup Settings.
Here’s an example using the Headline/Text element.
Step 7: Set Animation Settings
Optimizing Your Order Confirmation Page
Think that your sales funnel has done its job by the time your customers have clicked “purchase?”
Not by a long shot.
Keep in mind that your order confirmation page allows you to do a combination of the following with a bit of creativity:
- Encourage users to opt-in to your email list or newsletter (if they haven’t already).
- Incentivize them to boost their offer or deal to their friends and colleagues.
- Push worthwhile deals and content to create even more positive interactions with your base.
There’s plenty you can do as means of optimizing your order confirmation to drive users to take further action without interrupting them.
For Example:
- Offer an additional product from your own business or a promotion from an affiliate at the end of an order (granted it’s relevant).
- Give incentive for users to tweet or post on Facebook about their purchase: perhaps offer a 10% discount on future transactions, or a “refer a friend” deal.
- Share a video or case study that will keep users on your page or the pages of your affiliates: the more interactions you have, the more likely they are to evangelize your business for the long-term.
Small tweaks can result in huge returns. In short, your order confirmation page allows you to increase engagement across multiple marketing platforms of your funnel and see what best appeals to your base.
Add a progress bar to your sales funnel page in Clickfunnels using the Progress Bar element.
A Phone Call Follow-Up
Email marketing is a fantastic way to grow your business, market your funnel and effectively create a list of hungry customers.
However, some of our customers may find the era of email to be somewhat impersonal.
If you really want to think outside the box, consider a follow-up phone call to make sure that your customers are truly satisfied.
Why bother?
For starters, your users won’t be expecting it. Sure, we’ve become accustomed to autoresponders that say “Thanks!”
But hearing a legitimate, heartfelt “thank you” from an actual person is relatively rare in the digital world, isn’t it?
Besides, the benefits of effectively following up with customers are difficult to ignore:
- For starters, following up, sets you apart from the competition and perhaps presents your business as being more empathetic than its neighbors
- It shows that you care and emphasizes your company’s confidence: taking the time to actually personalize a call speaks volumes in today’s hustle-and-bustle marketing sphere
- You create yet another opportunity to leave a positive impression on your customers: the more positive interactions you have with customers, you more you’ll convert and keep them around
Granted you collect your customers’ phone numbers upon checkout, the ability to ring them up is at your fingertips.
If you don’t have the bandwidth to perform the calls yourself, you could have a virtual assistant take on the task via VOIP; however, make sure you can trust whoever’s calling your customers.
After all, a lack of authenticity may backfire on you.
Friendly Competition
A bit of competition never hurt anybody, right?
Likewise, implementing a competition amongst your customers to “refer a friend” for a free product or prize can pay off brilliantly with the proper incentive in place.
After all, people will go to great lengths to get something for free.
Refer a friend promotions can come in many shapes and sizes, although they’re perhaps most prime platform for such a content comes via social media, primarily Facebook.
Referral contests are a great way to get satisfied customers talking about your company and product.
Likewise, you can use the results of your contest as a form of social proof, showcasing how many satisfied customers you have that are hungry to spread the word about what you have to offer.
Use Actionetics to send out email updates and notifications to participants. Set-up is easy and you can segment email lists to promote your contest!
Affiliate Incentives
Just as contests and prizes offer incentives to your customers, the same rules apply when it comes to encouraging your affiliates to drive sales.
Think about it: many affiliates have their hands in a lot of simultaneous projects and funnels.
By offering a prize, either monetary or otherwise, you can give them the extra “push” they need to focus on your product first and foremost.
You can see above how Fat Diminisher mentions their contest in their headline for affiliates to promote.
You can even set your prizes up as a sort of rewards program: the more milestones your affiliates reach, the more extravagant your prizes yet.
Much like the strategy above of getting customers on the phone, sending affiliates prizes in the mail is rather unexpected and will definitely grab your affiliates’ attention.
Your promotions may include rewards for reaching a sales target, being the first to ship a product or a “most improved” prize for affiliates who’ve recently stepped up their game.
Your rewards can range from anything to concert tickets to gift cards; however, if you can afford it, don’t be afraid to handsomely reward your affiliates to keep them around for the long haul.
Also, keep in mind the word-of-mouth benefits: the more affiliates that hear about your sweet rewards, the more they’ll want to sell your products.
Managing your affiliate program and nurturing it is no walk in the park, but you can streamline your process with ClickFunnels affiliate management system, Backpack. Easily integrate your affiliate programs into your sales funnels!
What Other Mad Scientist Tests Should You Try?
Picking aspects of your funnel to test doesn’t have to be a headache, but rather a distinct opportunity to ensure that you’re creating the best customer experience possible.
At the end of the day, that’s exactly what any test should represent at its core.
What other outside-the-box tests do you feel are worth running?
ClickFunnels Action Steps
Creating variables and Split Testing any page in your funnel is easy with ClickFunnels!
Step 1: Log in to your ClickFunnels account
Step 2: Head over to your funnel
Step 3: Click the page you wish to split test
Step 4: Click Create Variation
Step 5: You can choose to create a variation based on the control page or create from a template
Step 6: Add elements and content to your variation and edit accordingly