Our friend , Ian Lurie was published in dmnews; check out his article on Multivariate Testing and bring your questions to next week's webcast  of Cool Talk.

Multivariate testing has made it into the mainstream: tools like Google Website Optimizer and Widemile's Page Opti­mizer make sophisticated tests relatively simple.

But it causes many search marketers to focus on landing pages and to mistakenly ignore their ads. Many other search marketers treat the ads as a separate test. That's a mistake, too.

For the best results, include the ads and the landing pages in the same multivariate test (MVT, for short) matrix. Why bother? Creating an MVT matrix is already a pain in the rear. After their first month or so working with me, most clients flinch when I mention one. So why add yet another variable? .....continued.