Build a Strong Plan for Testing

Build a Strong Plan for Testing

Learn how to take the right steps to prioritize the journey.

Would you buy an expensive automobile without taking a test drive or considering other models? What happens if you purchase the car, and then find out that the handling is too loose, or the interior is too small? You may be able to return the car, but not without realizing a loss. Believe it or not, launching a marketing campaign, website, special offer or program without considering testing and optimization from the beginning can warrant a similar scenario.

Testing enables marketers to validate ideas on a smaller scale — and then optimize them before they are live at full scale.

Testing enables marketers to validate ideas on a smaller scale or sample audience — and then optimize those efforts before they are live at full scale. With today’s technology, brands can test just about any variable — from a whole landing page to a specific offer, and even messaging and imagery. Testing provides marketers with a wealth of data. Once that data is aggregated and analyzed, a detailed picture of customer preferences and behaviors emerges. Armed with this information, marketing can be optimized to boost both relevance and impact. Testing and optimization work synergistically like a continuous feedback loop, exacting a critical influence on a brand’s success.

There’s an important distinction between testing and optimization. Testing validates an idea; optimization evolves and fine-tunes the result. Optimizing is considering every step and every touch point in each customer journey, and then working to make the channel — and the content — perform at its best.

Leveraging the best technology and automation, Ansira provides clients with an abundance of testing and optimization services, from identifying what elements to test to how to utilize the best methodologies. With these services, Ansira helps clients drive strategies that advance customer engagement — and optimize results to realize the greatest business growth possible.

Defining Terms and Establishing a Strategy

Some of the questions that testing might answer include: • Channel: Do my customers prefer to receive communications via email or SMS messages? • Media: Do my customers respond to video? • Display ads: Which display ad drives more traffic? And which display ad drives conversions? • Website: Do my customers spend more time on the home page or the product page? • Print: Do customers prefer to read a brochure or a trifold printed piece? • Copy: Do my customers respond better to humor or serious copy?

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Build a Strong Plan for Testing

• Call to action: Do customers like to download materials, or would they prefer a salesperson contact them? Some of the more common elements that our clients engage us to test include: • Content: Copy, imagery, categorical content testing, headlines, subject lines, fonts • Offers and rewards: Dollar amounts, types of offer, percentages off, 2-for-1 deals • Calls to action: Downloads, phone calls, form fields • Products: Putting the right items in front of the right consumers • Channels: Email, website, SMS, print, digital media, social media • Media: Display ads, video With so many options, where does a brand begin? It’s important to craft a strategic plan that assesses which elements have (or can have) the greatest impact based on business goals and resources. Getting the most out of testing and optimization means working with a partner who helps draw parallels between the business goals and the marketing goals. Ansira’s team works to provide a holistic view of the brand in order to set objectives, establish a road map, define critical execution points, analyze the data and report the results. Once Ansira launches the testing phase, the team works to fine-tune the results in order to optimize the client’s marketing strategy.

Case Study: The Marathon Runner’s Shoe To illustrate how the testing process unfolds, let’s imagine that an e-commerce footwear company has engaged Ansira to assist with boosting online sales of its running shoes to marathon runners. To begin, Ansira tests new landing page content with the headline, “The Marathoner’s Shoe,” alongside a hero image of the product. The company also opts to market this message with display ads on prominent running association websites, including the one that hosts the Boston Marathon. To test the validity of the idea that the shoes will appeal to marathon runners, Ansira runs a test to see how many people who participated in the Boston event actually purchased the shoes. When the results revealed

that the offer was successful and many marathon runners wore the product, the footwear company optimized its marketing spend with additional display ads and campaigns geared toward long-distance runners.

Four Testing Steps When Ansira begins testing and optimization with a client, the team works with the mindset that every idea is a theory that must be proven true. Or said another way: Every idea is a hypothesis that must be challenged. For testing and optimization to provide the maximum benefit to a brand, this mindset must be a part of the marketing strategy that is embraced by everyone, from the executive team to the creative team. If the executive and management teams don’t believe in the importance of testing, it will be difficult to get the budget or stakeholder buy-in. No matter who generated the idea — a new campaign, new offer, different website design — until it’s proven to be valuable through testing, it remains a possibility for driving business results. This means: •

If the president of an e-commerce footwear company thinks its new shoes are the superior choice over another model for marathon runners and should be prominently displayed on the home page, then the team will test the theory to see if it is valid.

• If the chief marketing officer for a fitness club thinks a 2-for-1 offer is more enticing than saving 25 percent, the team will test the idea. • If the creative director for a restaurant brand thinks one hero image is more compelling than another, the images can be tested against each other. At Ansira, an idea moves from theory to truth through a four-step, data-driven process.

1. Diagnosis and Discovery: The Data Talks The first step is understanding what data is available, the relationships among the data, and how they relate to the marketing objectives of the client. This can be inclusive of transactional data, campaign data, site analytics data, etc. Once the data foundation is understood, diagnosing opportunity areas can take many forms, including stakeholder interviews, gap analyses and a review of existing intelligence.

© 2016 Ansira. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change.

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Build a Strong Plan for Testing

Using the e-commerce footwear company as an example, let’s imagine that the chief marketing officer is charged with optimizing the shopping experience on the website. Ansira begins by reviewing the analytics — from the shopping cart to actual purchases — to ensure that the sales funnel is set up properly. If people are adding items to their cart but not following through to actually purchase the item, Ansira wants to discover why. To achieve this goal, the team can set up tracking to identify which form fields are causing friction and help diagnose the problem. Ansira has several tools that can assist in this mission, including: • Scroll maps, which track how far down a website a person will scroll • Heat maps, which record clicks to show the brand where the most activity is taking place • Site surveys, which ask customers for information on what is inhibiting purchases • Custom event tracking, which can pinpoint at which point in the process the customer stops These tools allow the team to quantifiably assess an issue that is inhibiting the customer experience.

For illustration purposes, here are a click heat map and scroll map from Ansira’s careers webpage.

To illustrate how this discovery phase works, let’s imagine that the e-commerce footwear company found that customers were dropping off at the product page. To find out why, Ansira installed custom tagging on each stage of the process and also conducted a survey. The tagging results revealed that consumers were abandoning the site at the “choose size” step, and the survey results revealed it was because they weren’t sure how shoe sizing was measured. As such, consumers weren’t confident that the order would fit. Based on this knowledge, Ansira adds custom tagging as a potential test to conduct within the optimization road map.

2. Prioritizing the Road Map A company may have 100 ideas to test, from channels, website navigation and calls to action, to hero image, font and products. The job of a true optimization partner is to help the brand prioritize. Ansira works with the client to assess which variables have the higher impact score so that it can use its resources for the greatest change. Ansira uses three criteria as a starting point when prioritizing ideas. 3

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Build a Strong Plan for Testing

• Impact: How many visitors or users will be impacted by this optimization/test? • Confidence: How much data do we have behind this idea to suggest this optimization would have a positive impact? • Effort: How many hours and resources will it take to put this optimization or test together? At the top of the shoe company’s list of objectives is driving product sales, so Ansira focuses its testing efforts on the shopping purchase funnel to ensure conversion, rather than focusing on the “About Us” page.

3. The Testing Phase The amount of traffic a website receives will help to determine which framework to use — either A/B testing or multivariate testing. For the majority of brands, the best choice is A/B testing, which refers to testing different versions to determine which performs best, from media channels, offers and programs, to landing pages, images and headlines. Multivariate testing looks at a combination of variables — colors, fonts, content, channels, images, etc. — to learn what generates the highest impact. The footwear company’s top goal is to convert buyers, and it opts to utilize A/B testing to analyze different placements of the sizing chart, as well as different display ads that promote its long-distance running shoes. In the case of the hypothesis formed from phase 1, Ansira recommends a layout change for the product page so the pricing chart is more prominent for all visitors. The team may even go as far as to create a “sizing wizard” that asks what size the shopper wears in a popular brand. With this information, the widget would recommend a size to the shopper for the comparable brand.

4. Analyze Results and Retest Once the testing period is finished and enough data has been gathered, the analysis phase begins. Analysis could include a variety of options including test vs. control, pre/ post analysis, etc. The analysis should answer specific business questions and also provide ideas for further optimization. In the sizing chart example, moving the information

higher on the page improved conversion rates for the shoe company, but the surveys revealed that consumers were still unsure about the sizing of the different brands that the company offered.

Sales: Testing’s Ultimate Goal Ansira helps brands test and optimize with one goal in mind: sales. To achieve this mission, customers must be given a voice so the brand can understand their needs. From helping clients improve products to ensuring that the right customer experience unfolds, the team validates what the customer wants based on what the data reveals. At the heart of testing is brand advocacy, and Ansira helps companies build the best experience for the end user that results in greater revenue.

Ansira helps brands test and optimize with one goal in mind: sales In Demand: Website Optimization Ansira can test any channel, offer or program to determine the best marketing path for the client. A common need for clients is website optimization, also called site-side optimization, which can make a large impact on a marketing campaign for the majority of our clients. This makes sense, because most customers today search for information, conduct research and make their purchases online. As such, understanding the brand’s website and its customers is key to unlocking sales. One of Ansira’s success stories in site-side optimization occurred when a restaurant client wanted to boost sales by generating more online reservations. Ansira ran a heat map test to see where customers were spending the most time online. The results revealed that customers were spending more time looking at the menu than on the reservations page. With this information, Ansira suggested the client test a landing page that had multiple important elements on one page versus across the whole website — menu, directions and a reservations button were all combined into a landing page. Within weeks of the landing page launch, the number of reservations skyrocketed by a dramatic 178 percent compared to sending traffic to the main website. 4

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Build a Strong Plan for Testing

Understanding the brand’s website and its customers is key to unlocking sales Innovation in Automation As the testing and optimization landscape evolves, impressive innovation is taking place in automation. A few years ago, the majority of marketers relied on email to connect with customers. They’d utilize A/B testing for components such as subject lines, headlines, content and the call to action, and then see what resonated the most with customers.

highly customized to business goals and the point of diminishing returns. Smart companies realize the value of testing and optimization, and take advantage of these capabilities to achieve an incremental lift in sales. By not testing and evolving marketing strategies, companies may leave behind great opportunities for business performance and revenue. Visit Ansira.com for more on customer engagement services and thought leadership. Follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Today, with omni-channel orchestration, any channel can be tested in real time, improving the speed and accuracy for clients to collect data and respond. These advancements in technology — coupled with competitive business shifts — have enabled brands to test much more rapidly and in an automated fashion, and sophisticated marketers are leveraging these capabilities to realize impressive returns.

With omni-channel marketing, any channel can be tested in real time Testing Boosts Business If a brand doesn’t employ testing and optimization, continuous learning is left out of the business equation. Without a feedback loop in place, there’s a strong chance the company is losing sales with a large portion of the unproven blind optimizations it makes. For the customer, a lack of optimization is an opportunity cost — and not giving them the best experience possible can lead to less than stellar results. As brand marketing evolves from a one-size-fits-all approach (commercial broadcast, e-newsletter) to a segmented approach (email blasts, SMS or the preferred channel) to the laser-focused omni-channel approach that communicates to individual customers in the moment (1:moment), testing and optimization have become even more critical to business relevance and differentiation. How far a company takes its testing is 5 © 2016 Ansira. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change.

Build a Strong Plan for Testing

Ansira: The Data-Driven Results Marketing Agency Ansira continually engages customers along the entire consumer life cycle and purchase funnel, using conversion optimization to drive higher sales at a lower cost. Our customer-centric approach applies data and analytics to every interaction, helping clients maximize customer profitability and optimize customer experiences. Designed to adapt with our clients’ ever-changing consumer base, we take the guesswork out of marketing. Our repeatable programs integrate all channels and media to steer consumers along the path to purchase (pre- and post-), leading to predictive ROI modeling. While traditional conversion optimization measures only one phase of the conversion process, we measure each and every consumer touch point to determine the best way to maximize marketing spend. Every single program is viewed as an opportunity to test, learn and optimize. Using multivariate and A/B testing, Ansira continually scrutinizes a variety of factors, including landing page effectiveness, messaging and targeting methodologies. We take full advantage of the latest in technology, message delivery and measurement.

Terms to Know Testing: Using a control variable and a challenger variable to gauge customer preference. Optimization: Fine-tuning the testing results to get the maximum benefit.

A/B Testing: Testing two components — two display ads, two images, two landing pages, etc. — to see which one achieves the better result.

Multivariate Testing: Testing four to five components to see which achieves the best results. Usability Testing: A moderated survey conducted either in a lab or remotely online in which users answer a series of questions to provide real-time feedback.

Experimental Design: Testing thousands of different combinations of variables through back-end analysis to see what works best.



Machine Learning: Computers that develop algorithms that learn from data in order to make predictions or prescribe actions without explicitly being programmed.

Contact Ansira at www.ansira.com

6 © 2016 Ansira. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change.