E-Book Versus Whitepaper - Which Term to Use?

[bigeyecreative]

So I have read several articles about the use of terms e-books versus whitepapers.  Both pros and cons to use for each.  Do you have any experience on which has worked better for you - converted more traffic, gotten more interest, etc?

Would love to hear your experience on these terms.

Thanks.

[irvingw]

The type of visitor attracted to your site would be different demographics than another site so just because one format works better for someone doesn't mean it would perform the same way on your site.

The main goal is probably to capture leads (emails) right? So site placement/location of serving up the offer, optimization of lead gen (ease of registration), and messaging are more important to the success in my opinion than the format which the information is available in. Both formats can be read by any device so if people want the info they're grab it regardless. You could offer both formats to cover both bases too.

[ThompsonPaul]

This is a perfect example where anecdotal evidence is going to be next to useless. As Irving mentions, so much is going to depend on your website, your target market, your content etc.

This is exactly what A/B split testing is for. Don't guess - let your actual potential clients tell you!

Set up a split-tested landing page with one variation for each of the two terms. Make sure you assess not just click-through rate, but also quality of generated leads.

You could also run a brief Adwords campaign, split-testing between the two terms, to get a very fast picture of which attracts more attention. Again, you'll also want to assess the quality of that attention, not just the quantity.

Paul