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... [...]

Paul Cheney says, “We all have blind spots. Some of us more than others. But if we’ve learned anything from the last 100 years or so of marketing and advertising, it’s that marketers have some of the worst blind spots imaginable. So it’s no surprise that we need a little helpseeing our pages with new eyes: the eyes of the customer. For the past 20 years, MarketingExperiments has been researching why people say “yes” to a given offer. What we’ve found through this research is that it’s often not what we, as marketers, think it is. Our self-interest always gets in the way of... [...]

Paul Cheney says, “Most marketers understand that a slow page produces low conversion rates. But how significant is the correlation? How fast do customers expect sites to load? Are customer expectations for page load time changing? In a recent interview at Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition (IRCE), Daniel Burstein sat down with Tammy Everts, Senior Researcher, SOASTA to talk about her recent research on the correlation between page load times and conversion rates across multiple companies and billions of data points. Everts discusses her research in depth and covers almost everything... [...]

Paul Cheney says, “When your digital media business depends largely on page views, anything you can do to increase those views also increases the chance of long-term success. For Car & Driver, one set of pages in particular drives a significant amount of revenue – the vehicle research section. It was true in 2008, when they ran this A/B test, and it’s still true today. In fact, the discoveries from the A/B test here have been carried over through the years into today’s designs”. Make Your Content Useful: How a simple UI change created 74% more page views MarketingExperiments  [...]

Paul Cheney says, “Homepages are among the most difficult places for marketers to optimize for a few of reasons: Internal company politics can create a battle for real estate on the home page that may or may not be in the best interests of the customer or Digital’s P&L. Even if Digital has full control, it’s difficult to determine what to emphasize on the homepage to maximize ROI. It seems that one’s really clear on just what a homepage should be in the first place which makes it incredibly difficult to optimize for a KPI. In a test from the MECLABS Research Library, a large... [...]

Paul Cheney says, “Does UX really make that much of a difference? Besides being an important business question, there’s an entire industry of UX professionals who count on it making a difference. Sure, intuitively, we think it will. And there’s even survey data to support it. But what about at the company-level? Has anyone been able to measure the impact of UX on an actual company’s bottom line? Bryce Miller of MasterControl, an enterprise quality management software company, has measured it. It happened on a template for 45 of their product pages. The team at MasterControl working... [...]

Paul Cheney says, “Mike Loveridge is the Head of Digital Conversion Optimization at Humana. In his position, he has conducted more than 300 tests, and achieved a 70%+ win rate. No matter how you slice it, he is an expert in the field of conversion rate optimization. Back in February, Courtney Eckerle, Managing Editor, MarketingSherpa sat down with Loveridge at the MarketingSherpa Summit in Las Vegas to talk about Humana’s testing and optimization practices. In this short interview, Loveridge discusses the benefits of Voice of Customer data, and how Humana creates “Super Tests” by testing... [...]

Adam Lapp says, “If you’re entrenched in Conversion Rate Optimization, A/B testing, or have read articles before from MarketingExperiments or MECLABS, you’re probably been inundated with the concepts of friction, anxiety, and value proposition. But how do you take those concepts and build an effective test plan so you can start increasing your bottom line? To help you with that, our team of amazing designers (shout out to Lauren, Charlie, Leah, James, and Chelsea) designed this infographic for you. Hope you find it useful“. How to Create an Effective Testing and Optimization Plan MarketingExperiments  [...]

Daniel Burstein says, “We all have decisions we’re trying to drive. It may be getting budget approval from your manager. Or, selling a client on a campaign. It could be getting venture capital funding, or signing up the right business partner. Our effectiveness in securing these decisions can have a significant impact on our success. And one way to make the case is by using data. “Data adds credibility to the claims you’re making,” said Derrick Jackson, Director of Data Reporting and Analytics, MECLABS Institute (the parent research organization of MarketingExperiments). “It’s... [...]

Paul Cheney says, “Imagine for a moment that you need to write a PPC search ad for an event your company is running. It’s an event so you’re on a tight timeline. In fact, you have a week to run the ads. At the end of the week, your early discount of 5% ends. Long story, short, you need to build a text-based PPC campaign that gets a lot of people to buy tickets, and you don’t really have time to figure out what strategy works through a/b testing or historical data mining. What do you do? An organization that [full disclosure] partners with MECLABS (MarketingExperiments’ parent company)... [...]