An A/B Testing Mad Lib

One of the great pleasures of working at Optimizely is getting to see so many people having so much fun in their work (not just on our team, but with our customers too).

Work and fun are not often caught hanging out together, so to speak.  But the world of A/B testing on Optimizely lends itself well to moments of great joy and celebration in the workplace.

Each day, I am delighted to hear from colleagues, customers, testers, and the online marketing world at large how excited they are to discover a better way to connect with their site visitors through testing (or re-appreciate an old one that has yet to be bested).

Mad Lib

By far though, one of the most awesome results I see day in and day out is the knowledge sharing and learning that comes with testing. There are many ways to share the insights you glean from any particular test with the people around you – whether testers are celebrating their learnings with a strategically placed foghorn and siren in the office, a wall of fame for anyone who proposes a winning test idea, an internal social network, or any other variety of ways our customers share with their teams – the power of sharing the stories of meaningful experiments should never be underestimated.

After all, the more fun your team has making your workplace succeed, the better it is all the way around.

There are plentiful ways to make your knowledge sharing happen.

In the spirit of sharing with you, I have fused a great activity from my past – the Mad Lib – with the notion of sharing your testing learnings, and crafted below a sample Mad Lib email as one way to have some fun while you share some learning.

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Segment.io Customers, Now You Can Send Analytics Data to Optimizely!

Thanks to a handy new integration, Segment.io customers can send custom event and revenue data to Optimizely. Segment.io allows it’s customers to set up tracking for events once and then use that data across multiple analytics platforms. Additionally, Segment.io customers can send data from Optimizely to other integration partners, such as email platforms Customer.io and Vero.

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Brilliant Testing Ideas in 6 Simple Steps

The great thing about website optimization is that it’s easy. Insanely easy. It always goes exactly like this:

A/B Testing Workflow

  1. You have a brilliant idea. (Even your boss loves it.)
  2. You set up the test. (In seconds.)

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  3. You run it. (In a day.)
  4. You get statistically relevant results. (From your massive volume of site traffic.)
  5. You share the results with your team. (And get a raise.)rain
  6. You implement the winner. (And eat some cake.) 
  7. You win the nobel prize for web genius. (And eat some more cake.)dog1

Not quite, you say? I’ve seen tons of companies have fantastic success with A/B testing but even I’ll admit it doesn’t always go like the process outlined above.

Today, I’d like to share a few strategies to help you with one of the hardest parts about A/B testing: getting that brilliant idea.  Continue reading

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Lessons in Marketing from Daft Punk
(Hint: It’s Not Just About Getting Lucky)

It’s Friday. Hopefully your week has been full of accomplishment and learning – right now you (or someone you know) probably have a couple of great A/B tests running (if you don’t, get one of these 71 easy ones going for the weekend), and are poised to walk in Monday to Liftopia-like results At the very least, you’re at the end of the week – and for that, you deserve to relax.

Yes, it’s time to vibe with me on some good old-fashioned-new-fashioned marketing success and review. Today I’m pondering a recent music marketing campaign that has dominated an everyday phrase on search, garnered millions Youtube video views with a video that contains one (virtually) still image, captivated a live music festival audience without ever stepping on stage, and ultimately broken streaming audio records. Let’s get to it.

Over the last couple weeks, I have enjoyed witnessing an immensely intriguing marketing campaign unfold on behalf of the innovative French dance music duo, Daft Punk.  Not a Daft Punk fan?  Don’t know who Daft Punk is? Don’t worry, neither are necessary to appreciate what’s going on here.

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Will Personalization Save the Publishing Industry?

It’s Wednesday at 7PM. I’m on the J-train on the way home from work checking Facebook on my phone. That conspicuous red dot pops up, notifying me that I’ve got a new message. It’s my friend Lisa. She wants to tell me that this Buzzfeed article reminded her of me. Within seconds, I’m laughing uncontrollably to myself as I scroll through the images. I’m flattered, because it’s hilarious. 

Why, Yogurt? Why?

From Buzzfeed’s “20 Things Ain’t Nobody Got Time For”

During the Wired Business Conference in New York City this week, BuzzFeed CEO and Founder Jonah Peretti talked about how all media is – or should be – going social. Sharing provides publishers with valuable insights about their readers, which companies can then use to target them with relevant content or ads, perhaps compelling them to share even more.

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