VIA Interaction

Thursday, January 15, 2009

A/B Testing

Selling people on paying close attention to the way they design their Web sites is harder than you would think. If the early myth of the Web was "if you build it, they will come," the last ten years have been stuck in "if you put it on the page, that's all that matters."

Truth be told, we often have a hard time convincing people to even put it on the page.

However, just like hardware and software costs have plummeted, a variety of lower-cost tools are being developed that enable you to evaluate your Web site. Google writes about its Web Site Optimizer in Make over your site using the wisdom of the crowd:

Website Optimizer allows you to create multiple versions of your webpage (maybe one version with a red button and one with a blue) and evaluate which variation best meets your goals (whether that is sign-ups, purchases, or simply having visitors click to another page). The tool uses traffic data and advanced statistical formulas to figure out, according to your visitors, what makes your website the most useful....

For example, by changing the layout of their product page, Colonial Candle was able to increase the number of candles they sold by 20% and improve sales by $20,000 in one month.

Take a look at the before and after pages at Colonial Candle. Then watch Google's promotional video -- particularly the comments from Colonial marketing people about their expectations being unfounded. (Hint: People scroll.)

Everything advertising agencies like ours are seeing in this economy points toward better blocking and tackling in marketing: Make the sale now. There will be new opportunity to optimize interaction.

posted by Tim Beidel at 1/15/2009 08:01:00 AM

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