If A/B Testing Can Help Win Elections, What Can It Do for Your Business?
By Dan Siroker , marketingprofs.com, 28-04-2014
Online
retailers are always looking to differentiate themselves in more meaningful
ways. Compelling shopping experiences, product recommendations, and overall
superior customer service are key ways retailers set themselves apart. Today's
data-driven marketing tools can help them unlock those experiences by using the
data they have about their customers.
Prior to
founding my own company, I served as the director of analytics on the 2008
Obama campaign. By experimenting with changes to elements of the campaign
splash page, we were able to help raise an additional $57 million in campaign donations.
The guiding
principles that made the campaign successful are no different from approaches
online retailers and other marketers can adopt to make a real business impact.
First, you
need to know your constituent. The behavior of visitors who come to your website is
very much indicative of the kind of messaging that would work on them. What you
show a returning visitor is different from what you'd show to a new visitor, or
a mobile visitor vs. a desktop visitor.
The urgency
for businesses to use data to show the right thing, to the right person, at the
right time is stronger than ever. Targeted messaging is the most to effective
way to get consumers to convert.
Second, you must know the facts. One of the greatest challenges (and
areas for error) for businesses is getting the data right. Online retailers
should take prudent effort to make sure the infrastructure and process they've
implemented is sound. For example, the "novelty effect" suggests that
just because a change has an impact initially doesn't mean it can be sustained
over time. Will your customers grow tired of cyber deals every 10 minutes for a
week?
Finally,
it's imperative to ask the right questions. The challenge for online retailers is not about
prescribing the right answers but about asking the right questions. For
instance, are you trying to see whether a visitor will respond better to more
product selections on a page, or fewer? Consider first what you want the
answers to be, and those hypotheses will then help you decide what to measure.
Common
examples of A/B
testing for online retail include homepage bounce rates, category-page
views, product-page views, shopping cart ads, and all stages in a checkout flow
all the way to the Thank You page.
In general,
to get more effective and relevant results, rather than asking "What are
the variations we are testing?" consider asking "What question are we
trying to answer?" To ensure the best return on your effort, first look at
your Web analytics to see which pages have the most room for improvement.
You'll want to attack those areas first.
The
following are some actionable insights to help retailers optimize their sales
by running website experiments that help them deliver a better experience to
their visitors.
Homepage. The homepage is notoriously the
most over-scrutinized page, yet it is also likely to be the most under
optimized. For instance, imagine you're a consumer shopping on a retailer's
website for a new coat. You arrive on the homepage and see a banner for a sale.
Just as you're about to click it, the experience changes to pants. The rotating
carousel of images means you have to continually reorient yourself, and it
diffuses the focus of your original purpose. And when consumers are distracted,
they're probably not purchasing.
Category
pages.
Unfortunately, most retailers tend to overlook their category pages; luckily,
there are some easy and effective tests to evaluate them. One simple experiment
centers on the performance of tiled vs. list views. For example, in our
experience, the list views perform better and lift sales for scenarios in which
consumers are making a complex purchase decision. The list format enables
consumers to scan information easily and compare between categories; it also
gives the retailer space to display the best sellers above the fold.
Product
detail pages. Where does
the consumer ultimately decide whether to buy or bounce? The product detail
page is where the final persuasion happens. Therefore, it is one of the most
important areas of your website.
Often,
retailers are looking for a solution to a distinct challenge: solid brand
awareness, but poor conversion. In that scenario, it's difficult for the
retailer to determine what to improve. To increase conversion, I recommend
carefully examining the following key conversion factors in the product detail
pages:
- Value proposition: Is it strong or weak?
- Relevance: Is the content pertinent to the target audience and their needs?
- Clarity: How clear is the imagery, eye flow, copywriting, and call to action?
- Distraction: Are you redirecting attention from the primary message with too many product options? Are upsell and cross-sell options provided prematurely? Are design elements overwhelming the message?
- Urgency: Are you giving the consumer a reason to act now?
Primary
calls to action. At the
sitewide checkout entry point, make your calls to action loud and clear. Test
phrases like "add to cart" or "sign up for emails" to
clarify what specifically you want your website to achieve and whether you are
effectively directing shoppers to accomplish those goals.
For example,
knowing that users become more invested as they click through the signup
funnel, the 1-800-DENTIST team hypothesized that making the first step as
simple as possible would decrease drop off rate and lead to more successful
signups further down the funnel. To test the hypothesis, the team considered
how to best simplify the first step without losing valuable data collection.
Since all dentist matches depend on location, ZIP code was the most logical
input to lead off with. Then, the team moved the two other fields—insurance and
dental need—to pages later in the funnel, ensuring they would still be able to
collect each piece of information. In less than a week, the team found that
shortening the first step of the checkout funnel increased conversions 23.3%.
* * *
The greatest
opportunity for online retailers today lies in facilitating the process of
experimentation to help their teams move from the era of Mad Men into the era
of Math Men. The role of creativity is still as important as it's always been,
but now it's not centered on the most intuitively creative person but, rather,
the most data-driven creative person.
We live in a
time where you can let the data help you get to the right answers. You'll
quickly find that the tests take the guesswork out of website optimization and
enable data-backed decisions that shift business conversations from "we
think" to "we know."
And knowing
your website's weaknesses means that you can turn them into strengths and
sales.
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