Courtney Eckerle says, “When you’re embarking on a new campaign, or a launching a new CMS, there are a million things that can go wrong. To which I say: GOOD. Bring it on. That’s what testing is all about, right? Letting the things that will go wrong, go wrong – but tracking it every step of the way. That, my friends, is the difference between a mistake and a “learning.” See that positive spin? As the Managing Editor of MarketingSherpa (MarketingExperiment’s sister site) I have covered hundreds of marketing campaigns by companies, and generally they are focused more on high-level... [...]

Aja Frost says, “Imagine if a salesperson could combine the most successful elements of every email they’ve sent to create a super-email. With A/B testing, that’s actually possible. An A/B email test compares two versions of the same message to see which performs better. Senders can test anything from subject line to email signature to their call-to-action. Once the results are in, reps can continue using the more successful version and scrap the old one. Continual A/B testing essentially allows salespeople to get closer and closer to the “perfect” sales email. Let’s dive into... [...]

Barry Levine says, “Adobe is today evolving its Target solution — part of its Marketing Cloud — away from the testing of discrete A/B variables and toward automated optimization of entire user experiences. A new Auto-Target capability extends machine learning-powered, automated optimization across the entire tool, beyond its previous role as a separately available function for specific locations in sites and apps. In a blog post announcing the enhancement, Senior Product Marketing Manager Jason Hickey wrote that Target users can now set up automated personalization “in the same simple... [...]

Ben Davis says, “We all know the importance of testing. Everything else is mere conjecture. One of the big ecommerce brands that continues to test and learn is RS Components, a huge distributor of electronic components. The brand was winner of a Masters of Marketing Award in 2015 for user experience. We’ve previously detailed some of this award-winning UX work on the blog. Improvements included: – Image-supported predictive search. – Surfacing popular categories in search, above returned products. This has increased clickthrough. – Increasing the speed of faceted search... [...]

Zubin Mowlavi says, “The tool? A/B testing, also known as split testing, compares the data from two versions of your webpage or app or — the focus here — your call to action (CTA) to learn which one performs better. Yet, while it’s possible to A/B test everything (and, for the best possible statistical and optimizational significance, you should), the reality is that most businesses don’t have that kind of work/time investment available. Add to that the proposition that you need to be able to test one changed element at a time — or else you won’t know what’s making... [...]

Samuel Edwards says, “Whether you’re a marketer who helps clients with their ad campaigns, or a business owner who handles your own paid advertising efforts, you understand just how fine the line is between a successful ad variation and an ad variation that flushes money down the drain. And while you can spend your time guessing and making assumptions based on emotions and past experiences, the reality is that you will never maximize ad spend without mastering A/B testing. Understanding A/B Testing Optimizely defines A/B testing as a, “A method of comparing two versions of a webpage... [...]

Kayla Wainwright says, “Marketers often struggle to know what metrics to use when trying to decide on the positioning of their marketing collateral. This can lead to many problems. At MECLABS Institute, the parent company of MarketingExperiments, we have run experiments and tests for over 20 years to help answer this question. Customers take many actions when moving through the funnel, but what is the ultimate goal the company is trying to achieve with their marketing collateral? By answering this question, companies can best determine what the most important KPI is to measure. To best illustrate... [...]

Paul Cheney says, “I did a training on selling training for the sales team today. It was what Millennials call “meta.” I was talking about how our training uses scientifically valid experiments to back everything we say in our training rather than best practices, anecdotal case studies or just “expert advice.” The question naturally arose: “What do we mean when we say ‘scientifically valid experiments’?” When I answered the question in the meeting, I immediately thought it would be a good idea for a blog post. So, with that said, here’s the answer: In short, it means that... [...]

Aleh Barysevich says, “If you were going to send the first OkCupid message to a potential date, how many versions would you come up with? And how would you test to see which one was the best one? Fortunately, there is no market for online dating message testing (not yet, anyway). But split-testing, also known as A/B-testing, has been big business for marketers since the middle of the 20th century. Ogilvy & Mather used A/B-testing to famously rise to the top of the marketing world, and today Neil Patel continues to preach the good news. Multivariate testing, on the other hand, is a more... [...]

Jack Simpson says, “How do you know your website pages are performing as well as they could be if you’re not testing them to make sure? You don’t, is the honest answer.  You could be missing out on a lot of potential sales, shares, clicks, or whatever it is you’re trying to get out of your visitors. But don’t despair, because it really isn’t a very complicated process to test and tweak your pages to get the most out of them. The simplest way to achieve this is through A/B testing, otherwise known as split testing, and that’s what I’ll be covering in this post. What is... [...]