A / B Testing

How Your Business Can Use the Science That Helped Win the White House The average conversion rate the rate at which visitors convert into customers across the web is only 2%. That means it's likely that 98% of visitors to your website won't end up converting into customers. What's the solution? A/B testing. A/B testing is the simple idea of showing several different versions of a web page to live traffic, and then measuring the effect each version has on visitors. Using A/B testing, companies can improve the effectiveness of their marketing and user experience and, in doing so, can sometimes double or triple their conversion rates. Testing has been fundamental in driving the success of Google, Amazon, Netflix, and other top tech companies. Even Barack Obama and Mitt Romney had dedicated teams A/B testing their campaign websites during the 2012 Presidential race. In the past, marketing teams were unable to unleash the power of A/B testing because it required costly engineering and IT resources. Today, a new generation of technology that enables marketers to run A/B tests without depending on engineers is emerging and quickly becoming one of the most powerful tools for making data-driven decisions. Authors Dan Siroker and Pete Koomen are cofounders of Optimizely, the leading A/B testing platform used by more than 5,000 organizations across the world. A/B Testing: The Most Powerful Way to Turn Clicks Into Customers offers best practices and lessons learned from more than 300,000 experiments run by Optimizely customers. You'll learn: What to test How to choose the testing solution that's right for your organization How to assemble an A/B testing dream team How to create personalized experiences for every visitor And much more Marketers and web professionals will become obsolete if they don't embrace a data-driven approach to decision making. This book shows you how, no matter your technical expertise.

How Your Business Can Use the Science That Helped Win the White HouseThe average conversion rate--the rate at which visitors convert into customers--across the web is only 2%. That means it's likely that 98% of visitors to your website won't end up converting into customers.What's the solution? A/B testing.A/B testing is the simple idea of showing several different versions of a web page to live traffic, and then measuring the effect each version has on visitors. Using A/B testing, companies can improve the effectiveness of their marketing and user experience and, in doing so, can sometimes double or triple their conversion rates. Testing has been fundamental in driving the success of Google, Amazon, Netflix, and other top tech companies. Even Barack Obama and Mitt Romney had dedicated teams A/B testing their campaign websites during the 2012 Presidential race.In the past, marketing teams were unable to unleash the power of A/B testing because it required costly engineering and IT resources. Today, a new generation of technology that enables marketers to run A/B tests without depending on engineers is emerging and quickly becoming one of the most powerful tools for making data-driven decisions.Authors Dan Siroker and Pete Koomen are cofounders of Optimizely, the leading A/B testing platform used by more than 5,000 organizations across the world. A/B Testing: The Most Powerful Way to Turn Clicks Into Customers offers best practices and lessons learned from more than 300,000 experiments run by Optimizely customers. You'll learn:* What to test* How to choose the testing solution that's right for your organization* How to assemble an A/B testing dream team* How to create personalized experiences for every visitor* And much moreMarketers and web professionals will become obsolete if they don't embrace a data-driven approach to decision making. This book shows you how, no matter your technical expertise.

Chapter 1 How A/B Testing Helped Win the White House--Twice 1PART I LESSONS LEARNED FROM 200,000 A/B TESTS (AND COUNTING) 13Chapter 2 What to Test 17Chapter 3 Seek the Global Maximum 33Chapter 4 Less Is More: Reduce Choices 47Chapter 5 Words Matter: Focus on Your Call to Action 59Chapter 6 Fail Fast and Learn 71PART II IMPLEMENTING A/B TESTING: PLAY-BY-PLAY GUIDE 83Chapter 7 Choose the Solution That's Right for Your Organization 87Chapter 8 The Cure for the HiPPO Syndrome 99Chapter 9 The A/B Testing Dream Team 109Chapter 10 Iterate, Iterate, Iterate 119PART III ADVANCED TOPICS IN A/B TESTING 131Chapter 11 How A/B Tests Can Go Awry 135Chapter 12 Beyond the Page: Non-Website A/B Testing 143Chapter 13 Personalize, Personalize, Personalize 155Conclusion 165Appendix 1: 60 Things to A/B Test 167Appendix 2: Metrics and the Statistics behind A/B Testing 179Acknowledgments 195Index 197