I’ve been struggling with this question a lot lately as I talk to companies trying to figure out how to organize internally for testing. Some companies want to own testing and start running from day one, while others want to ramp up slowly with a few resources working part-time on it. Some are … Read more »

• Lily Chiu
• 0 responses
•  Testing and Targeting

Testing is inherently collaborative. It feeds off the behaviors of your visitors, but it also requires coordination among multiple groups for successful execution, including marketing, creative, and development. Those who begin testing for the first time can truly benefit from the experiences of those who went before them. So it begs the … Read more »

• Lily Chiu
• 5 responses
•  Testing and Targeting, Web 2.0

I spoke on a Landing Page Optimization panel at PubCon in Las Vegas last week, and the big learning I came away with is that more people are testing! It was pretty exciting to poll the audience on who’s currently testing and see well over 50% of the room raise their hands. Of … Read more »

• Lily Chiu
• 1 response
•  Testing and Targeting

There’s been a lot of talk about what the Obama and McCain campaigns are doing in both paid and organic search optimization, but not as much on what they do with that traffic once visitors land on the site. Campaign sites pose a unique challenge because they have multiple goals for visitors who land … Read more »

• Lily Chiu
• 4 responses
•  Testing and Targeting

We have to go back to the basics. I gave a seminar on Tuesday about optimization to a group of marketers in Los Angeles, and it really opened my eyes to the current state of online site marketing today. While it was a great, interactive session, the slide that got the most nodding … Read more »

• Lily Chiu
• 1 response
•  Testing and Targeting

Optimization is a fuzzy word. It’s been used to describe everything from decreasing page load time to improving user experience. I’m guilty of using it as a catch-all as well, but today I want to focus on two key components when it comes to optimizing your site for conversion:
1) Testing - the process … Read more »

• Lily Chiu
• 0 responses
•  Testing and Targeting

There’s been quite a storm brewing around the best methodology to use for multivariate testing: fractional-factorial vs. full-factorial. (For a quick primer, definitions of both are included at the bottom of this post.) I have to say that some of the arguments I’ve heard border on ideological in both their passion and rigor. … Read more »

• Lily Chiu
• 7 responses
•  Testing and Targeting

For even those companies who are most advanced in online testing & optimization, one large part of their sites usually remains relatively untouched: customer support.  I’ve been trying to figure out why the response is usually lackluster at best when I suggest running tests on customer care and knowledgebase pages.  One reason seems to be … Read more »

• Lily Chiu
• 0 responses
•  Testing and Targeting

It’s Not Just About Lift
I often see the definition of success in a test get whittled down to a single goal: lift. Whether it’s lift in conversion rate, revenue per visitor, time spent on site, or some other KPI, I get the sense that many companies think testing is lift or die. … Read more »

• Lily Chiu
• 0 responses
•  Testing and Targeting, Web analytics

I was recently feeding my Lost addiction on Abc.com.  I ran into some technical difficulties while trying to watch it in HD so I went through the process of opening the player several times.  Each time I opened the player there was a different advertiser sponsoring the show.  The difference in advertising approaches was remarkable.  … Read more »

• Lily Chiu
• 0 responses
•  Testing and Targeting, Web analytics