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).

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.

Dear [Endearing name for your co-workers],

I wanted to send along a quick note to share a success story of [tall mountain of geographic relevance to you] proportions with all of you.

Recently, I overheard a conversation between [name of opinionated colleague] and [name of another opinionated colleague] discussing ways that we could increase our [business critical online conversion metric].

My ears perked up like [celebrity dog name] and I immediately realized this was an opportunity to resolve this debate with data.

Armed with a couple of ideas and my handy login to [A/B testing platform ending in ‘ly’], I set out to find a definitive resolution to this quandary.

I quickly crafted an A/B test as follows:

On the [web page(s) being tested], I set up two variations, described below:

Variation 1, which I dubbed [opinionated colleague] variation, had [brief description of the variation].

Variation 2, which I dubbed [opinionated colleague 2] variation, had [brief description of the variation].

I defined [business critical online conversion metric] as the goal to measure for this experiment and was ready for launch.

Within [short amount of time it took to get your A/B test up and running], I had set the wheels in motion to discover which idea would stand tall as the winner.

Admittedly, I felt a bit like [famous explorer], charting my own course towards Crushing-It-Ville.

[Amount of time the test ran until a winner was determined] later, I received an email notification to check in on my test results – I really appreciate these heads up notes that [A/B testing platform ending ‘ly’] sends me.

Channeling my inner [academy award caliber actor], I took a dramatic pause before clicking the link to take me to the results page.

After [total number of visitors in the A/B test] of our [endearing term used to describe your site visitors] came to the site to help us really get to bottom of this, I am proud to officially share with you the following:

[Opinionated colleague 1] variation: [Results]

[Opinionated colleague 2] variation: [Results]

What’s exceedingly cool about this, other than the fact that we have settled yet another debate with data, is that we can now deploy [winning variation] and reliably know that our [business critical online conversion metric] will get a [percentage increase from winning variation] lift.

I have given a bit of thought to why [winning variation] performed better. I’d love to hear yours – anyone who wants to contribute to the conversation is welcome, just click here [link to convenient place where you and your colleagues can share ideas and discuss tests with each other].

If you want to settle any scores, be sure to let me know. Testing is awesome. Even more awesome than [something that is really awesome].

And if you want to see if you can best the brilliant idea of [colleague who proposed winning variation], lets do that, too.  After all there’s more than one way to [activity that there is far more than one way to do].

[Endearing closing],

[Your name]

How do you share your testing wins at the office?  Let us know, in the comments below.

How It Works:

Sending data from Segment.io to Optimizely is easy. Just sign into your Segment.io account, toggle on the Optimizely integration, and they’ll start sending any data from other analytics partners or your own servers to Optimizely! (You will need to have the Optimizely snippet on your page to receive the data.)

In other words, there’s no additional tracking code needed to send custom event info to Optimizely if you’re already using Segment.io to send it to Google Analytics for example. Segment.io also standardizes revenue reporting across integration partners so it’s easy to analyze revenue across analytics platforms.

Read more about about the integration in Segment.io’s recent blog post. Segment.io already provides its customers with over 40 integration partners and they are adding more every week, so this integration will only get more exciting.

A/B Testing Workflow

1. You have a brilliant idea. (Even your boss loves it.)
2. You set up the test. (In seconds.)
   
   
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.)
6. You implement the winner. (And eat some cake.) 
   
7. You win the nobel prize for web genius. (And eat some more cake.)

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. 

Like so many things, the hardest part is getting started. And like so many things “Step 1” of the A/B testing workflow is actually multiple steps in and of itself. Since I like numbered lists, I’m going to provide you with a realistic, six-step process for getting that brilliant idea.

Step 1: Define The Metrics You Want To Impact

It sounds elementary but in the world of website optimization, it’s forgotten all too often. I’ve actually heard multiple companies say, “We don’t know what we want to improve but we definitely want to make the site better.” At this point, I usually ask why the company has a website (after all, they could probably save a lot of money by taking it down). And immediately the client answers their own question.

A lead gen site will say, “92% of our sales leads come through this form and 96% of our revenue comes from sales made through those leads so we absolutely have to improve the form completion rate.” Then I write down, “Improve Form Completion Rate.”

An e-commerce site will say, “We sell products. People have to see those products and have an easy way to purchase them.” I write, “Increase product page views and improve checkout flow conversion rates.”

(Are you starting to see why I have so many web genius Nobels and why I’m addicted to cake?)

Step Two: Know Your Users’ Pain Points

To understand the user, trying being the user. Block out 30 minutes on your calendar after lunch. Go outside get some fresh air. Eat a sandwich (or some cake…). Forget everything you ever knew about your website. Then…use it.

What are the pain points? Try searching for something – can you find it? What’s the point of creating a username and password? Can you checkout as a guest? Are you bored? Are you overwhelmed? Are you going to shop here again? How about that rotating banner on your homepage? Did you feel compelled to click on it? Or did the image disappear before you even had a chance to?

If something is affecting your own ability to “convert” (however defined), it’s definitely affecting your users as well. If you had a hard time walking in your users’ shoes, I suggest looking at the top user path flows in your analytics engine. See what a common visit to your site looks like and see where the biggest areas of relative drop-off occur.

Step Three: Get Talking

Believe it or not , you probably work with some really smart people. (Or some really opinionated people.) Talk to people from all departments (including from outside of the web division) and ask them what they like or don’t like about the site. Explicitly ask them what they would test too. A few (caked-related) ways you could do this include:

• Instant gratification cake: Attract interested colleagues by setting up shop in a conference room with a laptop and a spreadsheet. Offer co-workers who pass by a piece of cake for a few ideas.

• Delayed gratification cake: Set up a simple Google or SurveyMonkey survey asking co-workers to list their top ideas. Tell them that the following Friday everyone who completes it will get an email notifying them where they can attend the in-office cake party.

Not every idea will be a good one or fully thought out but you’ll still get a variety of perspectives and a solid sense of how co-workers view the site.

Oh and did I mention cake?

Step Four: Get Stalking

Check out what other companies in your industry are doing. How do your competitors tackle similar problems? A great way to do a fast comparison is taking screenshots of competitors’ websites and viewing those screenshots side-by-side. Force yourself to jot down four or five bulleted points about how each differs from each other. Even if your competitors’ sites are “worse” than yours, they’re still doing a few things right – otherwise they wouldn’t be in business.

Step Five: Get Thinking

Look at the pages you want to change and ask as many questions (even some “dumb” ones) as you can.

• What makes our site better than the competition? Do we make that clear?

• Is it obvious that’s a link?

• Does that look like an ad?

• What is our business model?

• How do I get back to the product category? Am I already in the product category or is that a sub-category?

• Does that button color stand out?

• Do I understand why I’m being asked to fill out a form? Am I motivated to fill out this form? What is compelling me to fill this form out in the first place?

• Does “Buy Now” work as well as “Complete Purchase”, “Place Your Order” or “Get Your Deal?

• Do I enjoy reading the content on this page?

Some questions will be geared toward usability while others will be geared toward improvement. However you frame it, if you can ask a good question you can probably get a good test idea.

Step Six: Focus On The Losers

It’s time to get analytical. If you’ve done past tests, review those results. Sure you got a winner (hence all that cake you’ve been eating) but what else did you learn? Sometimes, the tests that lose are actually the ones that provide you with the best learnings. Take a close look at those too.

Look for dips or spikes in conversion rate. Did it dip during certain times of the day, week or month? Did that coincide with any internal or external events (promotions, economic, news etc.). Did it spike or dip more for some variations than it did for others? Why? Did the user-base change? Did it go up for some segments but down for others?

Reviewing past results will give you more questions, and more intelligent questions which you may be able to answer with additional testing.

So, Now What?

These six steps will set you up for success at the beginning of the testing cycle. So, you got that goin’ for you, which is nice. Armed a few brilliant ideas, you’re ready to get started.

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.

The duo set out on a mission back in 2008 to create its first album since 2005. The album – “Random Access Memories” – is finally set to be released on May 21, 2013. Unintentional as the 5 year creation process may have been, it left Daft Punk with a couple of challenges surrounding the release of the new album. First, their last release was not exactly met with a particularly grand critical or fan acclaim. While the album saw a great amount of traction in select markets and ultimately won over fans, the anticipation and hype on the heels of their previous effort ‘Discovery’ was met with a consistent criticism of a repetitive and mechanical effort. Second, the extended hiatus (albeit with their work on the Tron Legacy soundtrack in between) made the pressure of any new release that much greater. 

Whether or not the new album will achieve the desired outcomes of its makers, its safe to say the release of Daft Punk’s “Random Access Memories” will go down in history for at least one thing – it’s a killer marketing campaign. Here are my top 3 takeaways from the marketing campaign that no one can stop talking about.

1)  New School + Old School = Newer School        

Old sounds, meet new sounds.

The album itself was forged without a clear plan. Inspiration was drawn from the music the 70s and 80s, and Daft Punk brought on a series of collaborators from all ends of the musical spectrum. The vision was to fuse the best of the past with the best of the present.

“After three records, there was a sense of searching for a record we hadn’t done,” Thomas says. The duo were dissatisfied with early demos that leaned heavily on electronic equipment, feeling like they were operating on “autopilot,” Thomas says. Eventually, a new approach emerged: “We wanted to do what we used to do with machines and samplers,” he explains, “but with people.”   - Rolling Stone

This mentality also spilled over into their marketing efforts: Offline, meet Online.

As a digital marketer, I’m very excited by all of the possibilities that exist today to strategically mix media and marketing tools to connect with audiences in a more human way. The options are plentiful: ads come in all shapes and sizes (both offline and online), video views can be purchased, marketing automation is becoming standard operating procedure, and website optimization is proving to be an invaluable way to make all of these investments exponentially more effective.

In the case of this campaign, Daft Punk’s use of media spanned several old and new school communication channels:

• Billboards – Daft Punk purchased several billboards to promote the release of the album itself.  Perhaps the most notable of these was one strategically placed on the side of I-10 meant for Coachella music festival-goers.
• Video – Daft punk made several videos – these videos were planned for placement on television, at the Coachella music festival, and online.
• Online – Daft Punk created a microsite for the album, which consists of only two pages.  One with purchasing and social sharing options, and one with video content.

Presumably interviews, press, and music-lovers’ reactions all constitute a fourth piece of the hype-puzzle here as well.

Point being, they did not overwhelm with too many different communication vehicles. Instead, they chose a calculated combination of three different media types and put them strategically to use.

2)  The Power of the Teaser

Its an all too rich tradition in marketing – go for the big reveal and tease your way into eliciting a desired response or action. Whether an online retailer chooses not to display their pricing until the checkout page (presumably because it’s sooooo low) or the “Next week on [insert dramatic tv show here]” commercial almost tells what’s to come next, just leave you hanging, the power of the teaser is somewhat of a magical thing.

To be certain, it may not always work. But in Daft Punk’s case, they utilized teaser tactics to a pretty impressive end.

The billboard ad that graced the I-10 roadside was the first piece. Understanding the audience of Coachella both in terms of size and demographics helped fuel a clever plan to start the teaser there.

Even from hundreds of miles away, here in San Francisco, I was catching buzz from concert-goers hoping that Daft Punk would show up.  Instagrammed posts of the billboard surfaced in anticipation of something – anything. 

Get the conversation and buzz started – nice move.

From there, on the evening of Friday, April 11, the festival’s main stage video screens were hijacked for a two minute teaser of the new song “Get Lucky” featuring two of the album collaborators along with Daft Punk decked out in sequined suits. 

Social media exploded.  Pictures, videos, and comments filled up the social web.

Good form. And evidently a calculated move. As noted in the interview with Rolling Stone, Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter said of the teaser, “The fun part will be seeing the footage people shot when it hits the Internet.”

3)  Harness the Power of Storytelling

At the core of some of the greatest marketing campaigns I have seen is a good story.  Whether you are enabling the customers that use your products to become better in their work, more fashionable, a stronger athlete, or whatever the case may be, the power of telling that story is an invaluable way to connect – just ask the most interesting man in the world.

Daft Punk’s album, as previously noted, brought in contributions from an array of musicians and producers. In addition to the offline content, they released a series of seven videos dubbed “The Collaborators,” each featuring a different collaborator talking about some component of the construction and production of the album.

These carefully crafted videos hammered home the message that this album is something more, something different, something new.

So what’s the measure of success here?

Its hard to know exactly what constitutes success for the Daft Punk team with this particular effort, but looking at it from any number of angles one can easily draw the conclusion that this campaign has worked pretty well.

In terms of search: I did a quick scour of Google Trends and found the following spikes to be pretty remarkable.

For the term “Daft Punk” 

For the term “Get Lucky” 

For the term “Random Access Memory” (which is not even the name of the album) 

In terms of social: “Daft Punk’s total Coachella-related tweet volume for weekend 1 was 9,719, according to MusicMetric data reported to Billboard. That would place the EDM duo just behind headliners Phoenix (11,775 Tweets or 8.34% of total volume of artists who performed) and well-ahead of Blur (6,527 Tweets or 4.7% of total volume), the Britpop legends who were the second-most Tweeted act who actually played in the Desert.” – Billboard

In terms of audio plays: “Get Lucky” captured the biggest streaming day for a single track in the U.S. and U.K. on Spotify, according to an article published by The Hollywood Reporter. The song hit the number three position on iTunes in the U.S. (number 1 in France). The official audio/video on Youtube has garnered over 18 million video plays of the song (which has no video and is only a still image with audio)

All undoubtedly impressive metrics.

Yet I wonder…

As a data-driven marketer at a data-driven company, I’m pining to understand just which metrics are being watched – which metrics matter? Whether or not the yield from this endeavor has eclipsed the goal is hard to know, but I hope there is measurement system in place. Either way, the tale will continue to unfold, as the album will be released on May 21. Just how much more mileage Daft Punk could get by adding another piece of marketing artillery to their repertoire?

At first glance, it doesn’t appear that they’re doing any testing on their microsite…

So here’s my call to action – Daft Punk, if you happen to be reading (if anyone has read this far, bless you), let’s get you set up on Optimizely and build a few strategic A/B tests before your album officially drops. Let’s optimize for the influx of traffic you’ll probably be seeing a week from Tuesday. (After all, you have your first 30 days of testing free with us!)

As a final note: if the goal was simply to create a song that people genuinely just love listening to, you can count me as one conversion (I’m sure of many). As for the rest of the album? We’ll find out on the 21st of May.

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.

Sharing might be the golden ticket for many publishers, more so than clicks or read-throughs. So how are YOU optimizing for increased social shares?

Read more at Wired Business: “The Publishing Industry’s Secret Sauce is You.”

Website optimization can make the dollars you spend on SEM campaigns  more effective by driving more clicks, purchases, and engagement from these visitors. It’s insanely simple and extremely powerful. Here’s how Liftopia did it.

The Challenge: Maximizing Revenue from SEM Campaigns

Liftopia uses SEM ads to drive potential customers to ski deals on its site. SEM drives highly-qualified traffic – in this case, searchers with a specific resort in mind – to a landing page midway through Liftopia’s purchase funnel. From there, Liftopia’s goal is to provide the best user experience possible in order to drive more purchases and revenue from its site.

“If you’re searching for a Squaw Valley deal, our goal is to bring you into our site, remove all distractions from other resorts’ deals and offers, and keep you moving down our funnel.” – Dave Nuffer, Product Manager, Liftopia

In the past, this presented a hurdle – pages in Liftopia’s purchase funnel offered numerous options for cross-sell via a sidebar column and a search widget. When visitors landed on a page from SEM, they had the option to either buy the results, search for new results, or click directly on deals to other resorts. Liftopia wanted to determine whether tailoring their funnel pages around the resort promoted in the SEM advertisement would drive more visitors down the funnel to purchase the package.

The Hypothesis: Tailored = Better?

Since they knew what SEM-traffic was searching for already, the team hypothesized that showing a tailored experience with exactly what visitors had searched for – instead of options they didn’t want in the first place – would increase purchase conversions and decrease bounce rates.

The Test: A Multi-Page Experiment

Liftopia tested different experiences within the SEM purchase funnel and measured which converted more visitors into customers. They set up a multi-page experiment to ensure a unified experience throughout the flow. To execute the test, they created two variations across their funnel pages.

The original flow (below) included the search widget and other cross-sell options throughout the funnel.

Liftopia’s original funnel pages had multiple options for cross-sell.

The variation flow removed the search widget and additional offer links altogether. 

The Liftopia team targeted the test to apply solely to SEM traffic — this gave them the  ability to provide a highly customized experience to visitors entering their site from search.

The Results: 24% More Revenue

After just seven days, a statistically significant result emerged: the variation flow increased conversions by 23.7%.

Dave and his team used Optimizely’s A/B testing tool to push 100% of SEM traffic to the winning variation while their engineers worked to implement the improved experience into their site code. Using Optimizely’s traffic allocation feature, the team could instantly realize the increase in revenue from their SEM ads.

The Moral of the Story: 

A/B testing makes money spent on other marketing initiatives — such as SEM campaigns — more effective. Testing different purchase funnel variations helped Liftopia better understand how SEM-driven traffic behaves and ultimately convert more visitors into customers. The Liftopia team quickly learned that the more qualified the traffic, the more targeted a page layout can be.

1. Looking for design resources for your new small business? DesignCrowd’s got you. They think we’re “absolute gold for unlocking tweaks that can make you millions.” We like to think that we only use our Midas touch for good.
2. Terry Whelan, an admitted Optimizely fanboy at CPC Search, thinks we’re a “secret weapon.” He’s saved time and resources for his clients with our testing platform and has included some great tips on how to get started.
3. Our customers over the pond at Distilled love our features because they require “absolutely zero coding or programming background!” It’s true. And for their new training platform, DistilledU, Optimizely helped yield a 68 percent higher conversion rate in February over January this year.
4. And then there are the folks at Qualaroo, who have integrated their tools with ours to further support marketers to run tests seamlessly within their organization. Their behavior insights, coupled with our testing capabilities help customers conceive the most appropriate tests for their sites.
5. Whether it’s a design community, marketing agency, or educational platform, Optimizely equips all types of organizations with website optimization that’s easy to use. We even got a shoutout in The New York Times’ “You’re the Boss” blog from a social entrepreneur building her budding startup, Fashioning Change.

Want to share your Optimizely story? We’d love to hear from you! Reach out to our team at content@optimizely.com. 

The Marketplace Fairness Act

If passed, the Marketplace Fairness Act (also referred to as the Internet sales tax bill) would allow states and local governments to require large Internet retailers and other “remote sellers” with sales over $1 million annually to collect sales taxes and send the revenue to the appropriate location. Under this plan, states will be required to provide free software to retailers to help them calculate and manage tax compliance.

Here’s how it would look in action: Let’s say I purchase a 3-person tent from Backcountry.com, an online retailer based in Utah, from the comfort of my San Francisco apartment. Under the Marketplace Fairness Act, Backcountry.com would be required to calculate and add sales tax to my final order. Since I’m based in San Francisco, Backcountry.com would charge California tax rates – that money would go directly to the state of California.

The Draw to Online Shopping

To quell any worries you have about how this bill would impact your e-commerce site, think about why people shop online in the first place. While the Marketplace Fairness Act might cause shoppers to see higher prices online than they’re used to, many of them will still opt for a browser window rather than a shopping aisle when they want to buy something. What makes the online experience different? People shop online for many reasons:

• Cost: With the ubiquitousness of “daily deal” sites and online price bidding, plus no sales tax on most e-commerce websites, consumer can buy cheaper goods online than in the store. With the Marketplace Fairness Act, let’s assume cost is less of a differentiating factor.

• Information: Reviews are a major benefit of online shopping. The ability to quickly read unbiased reviews from other people who have used the product is a great advantage compared to a brick and mortar store. 

• Convenience: People shop online because it’s faster, easier, cheaper, and less of a headache then making the trip to a physical store. I’d much rather buy a 3-person tent from the comfort of my home then trek to the store, hunt for the item in an infinite sea of aisles (filled with millions of important necessities I never realized I needed: miniature sno-cone maker…Barack Obama Chia Pet…Siamese Slanket…), and then wait in an endless checkout line.

• Boredom: The Internet is always open for business. People will continue to browse through their favorite online stores regardless of the added cost of sales tax. If the browsing experience is effortless and continually leads shoppers to discover more items, shoppers will continue to check out.

The key to a successful e-commerce website is convenience. All you need to do to combat any hit your e-commerce site may take with the Internet sales tax bill, is create the best shopping experience possible that keeps people engaged and always “adding to cart”.

How Website Optimization Can Help

Compared to brick and mortar stores, online stores have a great opportunity to respond in real-time to user feedback that will make the online experience more successful. (For example, changing the flow of a product page can be easier than rearranging the setup of a big store.) Website optimization is a method all e-commerce stores can employ to build a user experience that makes shopping faster, easier, and more personalized than going to a brick and mortar store. A/B and multivariate testing are two ways to gather insight into behaviors of your site visitors and build experiences specifically tailored to the way they operate.

Put simply, not all shoppers are the same. I may be most interested in purchasing a tent for my upcoming camping trip, while my friend Cara would rather buy a new pair of hiking socks. In a brick and mortar store, retailers have to provide a 1-to-all experience. They can put socks at the front of the store to get a sale from Cara, but might lose a sale from me, after I become too frustrated trying to find the item I’m after.

That’s not the case online. A/B testing can help you provide a customized, 1-to-1 experience for customers visiting your site. Features like targeting and segmentation allow you to break site visitors into specific groups – based on factors like location, browser, cookies, site of entry, and more.

Knowing more about each customer can help you provide a customized user experience that helps shoppers find what they’re looking for faster. When customers can find what they’re looking for quickly and easily, they’re more likely to make a final purchase on your site.

So while an online sales tax may be imminent, rest assured. This is not the end of online shopping. Internet retailers can (and will) continue to be successful by offering a faster, simpler way to purchase goods. A/B testing tools can help them do just that by showing the right thing to the right person at the right time.

Ready to optimize your e-commerce site? Here are some resources to get you started.

• 71* Things to (A/B) Test

• A/B Testing Ideas for E-Commerce Sites

• Optimize Your E-Commerce Site for the Holidays

• Ideas for Testing Your Mobile Site

• E-Commerce Case Study: Zagg Doubles Down on a Simple Image Test for 40% Revenue Increase

This is known as social proof.

Generally, we don’t like to stand out from the crowd. Our lizard brains tell us it’s dangerous to deviate from the norm. In prehistoric times, deviating from the group meant getting attacked by predators. Predators are not much of a concern anymore, but studies show that sticking with the norm still persists and affects us in other ways. For example, one study tested the effectiveness of wording in persuading people to use less electricity. Four different placards were placed on the doors of residents, which informed them:

• They could save $54 a month on their utility bill.

• They could prevent the release of 262 pounds of greenhouse gases per month.

• It’s the socially responsible thing to do.

• 77% of their neighbors already used fans instead of air conditioning, a decision described as “your community’s popular choice!”

The last group reduced energy consumption by 10% – the highest of any group. This means it was more effective than saving money, espousing benefits, or explaining it’s the “right” or “moral” thing to do.

You can use this same phenomenon to increase conversions on your site through A/B testing, whether that’s signing up for a service, donating money, or using a product feature.

Spillnow.com ran a test that demonstrates this phenomena well. The site is a place for people to spill their guts on anything bothering them, and other users can respond with advice and encouragement. However, they had an issue with too many people venting and not enough users responding. In order to increase responders, they added this text to the “spill” form: “50% of people go on to be responders.” This simple piece of text increased the number of users who respond to other people’s spills by 27% (from 48% to 61%).

Another great example is Basecamp’s homepage, which has multiple types of social proofs.

At the top of the page they say, “Last week 7,389 companies signed up for Basecamp to manage their projects. Today it’s your turn.” The main content features a woman saying she uses Basecamp (the picture also has the added benefits of making the statement more believable and trustworthy). And at the bottom, they say, “97% of customers recommend iBasecamp. Find out why →”. These are all great ways to demonstrate that lots of people use your service and increase clickthrough.

On the signup page, Basecamp uses different badges that convey reach, popularity, and trust. Just this message can go a long way in driving visitors to sign up for the service.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg – there are many ways social proof can be used across your site. These are all quick, simple changes that can be added to just about any page using our A/B testing tool, without requiring design or engineering resources. If you’re looking for a way to get users to click your call to action, use a product feature, or engage with your site, then social proof is a great way to boost conversions.

Further reading

“7 Things You MUST Understand When Leveraging Social Proof in Your Marketing Efforts” - The Kissmetrics Blog

“The Secret to Turning Consumers Green” - The Wall Street Journal

Conveniently, website testing inherently generates more questions than it answers. Your first test can lead to a whole litany of follow-up tests and iterations. For when you’ve exhausted all of those, or if you’re just getting started, here are 71 ideas (some more serious than others…) for testing your website.

(*Why 71, you ask? Optimizely just reached 71 employees! We’re serving up one idea for each member of our team.)

CALLS TO ACTION: Your website exists for visitors to take action: reading, purchasing, signing up, downloading, or sharing. Here are some ways to test calls to action that can yield quick, easy, and big wins.

1. Buy Now? Purchase? Checkout? Add to Cart? Change the call-to-action (CTA) text on your buttons to see which word or phrase converts more visitors.
2. Try varying the location of your CTA button, making some CTAs more prominent than others.
3. Test multiple CTAs per page against one CTA per page.
4. Change buttons to hyperlinks to find out which display your users prefer.
5. Find out if CTAs with text, icons, or text + icons convert more users on your site.
6. Try stripping the content off of your entire page. Replace it with a “Click Here for Free Beer!” button.
   

   Photo courtesy of The Optimizely Beer Club.

7. Test different CTA hover states to make it more obvious that buttons are clickable and create a feel of interactivity on the page.
8. Test different colors, shapes, and sizes for CTA buttons on your website.

CONTENT: Content fuels your online business, particularly if you’re a B2B company. Testing how you position and advertise content on your site can uncover big conversion and engagement lifts:

9. Test gated content against non-gated content. Find out if your users are willing to sign-up or provide more information to access materials on your site.
10. Do site visitors crave more information about your company before signing up or making a purchase? Test adding or removing “About” content on your homepage.
11. Content tone can make a big difference in keeping users on your site. See what your visitors prefer by testing various tones and styles.
12. Test how your content is displayed. Do users prefer to scroll down the page or click through to another page to learn more?

COPY:  Copy is your direct line of communication with website visitors – it sets the tone and helps users understand what you’re all about. Use these tests to make the copy on your site better resonate with your audience.

13. TL;DR. Find out if your site visitors prefer shorter versions of headlines, taglines, product descriptions, and other content on your site. 
14. Test different headline text. Try variations that are straightforward against ones that are abstract, goofy, or creative.
15. Test paragraphs
    • versus
    • bulleted
    • lists.
16. Test how you frame your copy. Users may have different reactions to positive versus negative messaging.
17. Try using haikus,
    For the product descriptions,
    Throughout your website.

VISUAL MEDIA: Digital media has the power to greatly influence conversions and engagement on a website, and using AB testing tools to test it is a great idea because the right media can subconsciously influence people to act in a way that’s aligned with your testing goals.

18. Test different types images on your landing page. People versus product is a good place to start.
    

    Source: 37signals

19. Iterate from there. If your users prefer an image of people, test gender, age, number of people in the image, etc.
    

    Source: 37signals

20. And iterate some more! How about trying a static image vs. a product video vs. a 360* product image.
21. See how a stock image stacks up up against an image of your employees or customers in action.
22. Test auto-play versus click-to-play videos.
23. See how your product videos perform against this video of a sloth hugging a cat.
24. Test a rotating carousel on your homepage versus a static image or video
25. Try making your site easier to read. For example, test larger type, higher contrast colors, and non-comic sans fonts.
26. Try putting a bird on it.
27. Test different voice overs for the videos on your site. Test whether a male or female voice leads to the most completed views.
28. Try different variations of your site’s product demo: animated versus screencast.
29. Test a live-stream puppy cam on your homepage. All puppies. All the time.

FUNNELS: If your goal is to get more people from one page to the next – like in a checkout funnel, signup flow, or lead nurture – then A/B testing is your best bet. Funnels are rife with low-hanging fruit to test:

30. Test removing extraneous distractions – like product offers, promotions, or shipping information – from each page in the purchase flow. Oftentimes a simplified experience can drive more conversions.
31. Test the number of pages in your funnel. How does packing more information on one page compare to spreading information across multiple pages?

Testing Tip: If you are testing multiple pages in your funnel, make sure the new experience on your pages are unified by using a multi-page test.

32. Test removing navigation to any pages outside the checkout funnel.

33. Or try replacing certain steps within your funnel with modal boxes. For example, try making shipping options a modal box instead of a page. 

SITE NAVIGATION: From the moment a visitor lands on your site, the navigation menu sets a foundation – it’s how people maneuver your site’s flow and prioritize what’s important. Here are some ideas for how to make it better:

34. Test the order of menu items in your site navigation.
35. Test the display of your navigation bar. Do site visitors prefer a horizontal or vertical orientation?
36. Or what about a fixed navigation bar that travels down the page as your site visitors scroll?

37. Test out the title of your navigation items. A simple change, like Why Use Us to How it Works may have a significant impact.

Testing Tip: If a test fails, try targeting the test to new versus returning visitors. Returning visitors are accustomed to seeing the site in a certain way—if a link or menu item is missing from the spot they normally go to find it, they’re not going to do the work to locate it.

FORMS: Any potential friction point on a website is prime for testing. Forms are frequently cumbersome areas of websites. Try these tests on the forms on your site:

38. Test the length of sign-up forms. Try removing non-essential sign-up boxes or relocating them to a page further down the funnel.
39. Everybody loves free stuff. Try a special offer, discount, or promotion to increase sign-ups. 
40. Nobody loves spam. Try adding text that assures users you won’t fill up their inboxes with unnecessary junk.
41. Try making individual form fields larger. Larger fields feel more friendly.
42. Try asking for different information in your form fields. For example, business email versus email, or work phone versus cellphone.

MOBILE SITE: The mobile web is pervasive. Improving your mobile website through testing will help create an optimized experience that generates more clickthroughs, revenue, and conversions.

43. Test the length of your mobile web pages. Are mobile users more willing to click to a new page or scroll down a page when browsing your site on their device?
44. Try different displays and navigations options. Blinds, buttons, and blocks are a good place to start. 

Testing Tip: When testing your mobile website, try targeting mobile users based on their operating system – Android or iOS, for example – to learn more about your mobile website visitors.

ADVERTISING: A/B testing increases the value of the money you’re already spending on marketing programs, such as search engine marketing. To ensure you’re getting the biggest bang for your buck out of each paid initiative, try these tests:

45. Test the headlines on your paid campaigns to see which ones get the most clicks.
46. Try changing up the display URL on your ads. This can impact how many visitors click the ad.
47. The landing page each ad directs to is an excellent place for testing. You paid for that visitor to land there, so why not do everything you can to convert them?

Still with us? Good. We’ll move along.

SOCIAL: The reasons someone would share your site are many – make it easy for them to do so. Here are a few tests you can perform on a split testing tool to increase likes, retweets, and +1s on your content:

48. Change the size and placement of social icons to see what compels users to share more often.
49. Test standard social media icons against ones you’ve designed to match the look and feel of your site. 
    
50. Try finding your optimal Twitter voice. Tweet the same link with different of text at the same time two days in a row and see which tone of voice gets more engagement.
51. Test different types of customer reviews on your site to see which are most compelling to your audience. Some examples include testimonials, Yelp reviews, and ResellerRatings.

EMAIL: How do you make sure your marketing emails get opened and dare we say, clicked? Here are some testable elements that can increase open rates and clickthroughs:

52. Test length and copy of your email subject lines.
53. “Hey so-and-so!” Test personalized versus un-personalized emails.
54. Find the optimal time to reach your audience by testing different days and times to send.
55. Worried about scaring customers away with a newsletter? Optimize it! See how a weekly send stacks up against a monthly send. 
56. Would readers prefer an email from your CEO, your marketing director, your broader team, or someone else? Test different “from” addresses to find out.
57. Try varying the design of your email blasts, optimized for different desktop and mobile browsers.

PERSONALIZE IT: Today, we’re more accustomed to web experiences that are custom-tailored to who we are and the URLs we’ve come from. Try testing these personalization techniques and see if visitors convert better.

58. Create seasonal or holiday-specific promotional offers and test them on visitors living in specific locations.
59. Test auto-filling form fields related to a site visitor’s location. Make things easier for your users.
60. Test matching language-specific content to users coming from a certain country or region.
61. Test different page designs and messaging for new versus returning visitors.
62. Test whether showing different landing pages for visitors coming from mobile devices versus desktop browsers performs better.

PRICING and SHIPPING: Finding the right pricing point can drive more visitors to make a purchase. Use these tests to maximize revenue from your site:

63. Test offering a free trial versus a money back guarantee to see which converts more users in the short and long-term.
64. Test having checkboxes auto-selected as default. For example, a customer’s billing address could be defaulted to the same as their shipping address.
65. On your pricing page, test whether annual billing or monthly billing generates more subscriptions.
66. Try anchoring customers high before showing them a lower price. For example, “Competitors charge $2.9 trillion, but you can use us for just $2.99!”

IN THE REAL WORLD: Optimize your life.

67. Fire up your Cuisinart and test your favorite toaster pastry: Pop-Tarts versus Toaster Strudel. It’s on. 
68. Host an old school Pepsi challenge. 
    
69. Test your might.
70. Determine whether you’re left-brained or right-brained.
71. Planning for a big office move like we are? Test new office chairs to optimize employee happiness.
    

    Greg and Julio enjoying a good, old-fashioned office chair A/B test.

71 ideas later… what are you waiting for??! It’s time to get started.

These recommendations are a great starting point but are by no means a comprehensive or conclusive guide to optimizing your website. Check back soon – we’re growing fast and this list is growing with us. Full Warp speed ahead.