Corte Swearingen, Americaneagle.com’s Director of Digital Marketing & Conversion Science, recently spoke on the topic of A/B testing on Kentico’s Marketing Insights Webinar. During a portion of the webinar, Corte spoke about the benefits of using both quantitative and qualitative data to help with your A/B Testing efforts. Read on for a recap on the importance of data in A/B testing.
Understanding Analytics
Website optimization is no small task, but often reaps big rewards. Understanding analytics is essential when choosing which web pages to optimize.
Ideally, you will want to start by determining your website’s friction points and choosing a page that should be performing better--for example a page with a strong call to action button that isn’t getting enough clicks.
But how do you figure out which page this is?
Analytics is your answer
When it comes to which page or where on your page to start optimization, there are many different analytical tools that can be utilized. Some of the very best qualitative and quantitative analytics tools are outlined below.
Quantitative Analytics Tools
‘Quantitative’ refers to numerical and statistical data. The analytical tools that fit within the quantitative data category would be web analytics, click mapping, and scroll mapping.
Web Analytics
Web analytics can help you determine which pages to optimize. Use web analytics to find the pages with the highest page views as well as a higher than average bounce rate. A page on your site that fits this criteria is a prime candidate for optimization. Keep in mind even a small decrease in the bounce rate (as would hopefully happen with optimization) would increase incremental revenue by a huge margin.
Click Mapping
Click mapping can also help you determine whether optimization is necessary. A click map, also known as a heat map, is an analytical tool that shows exactly where users are clicking on your web pages. This can help you determine whether optimization is necessary. For example, if you have a page with a call to action button that’s receiving few clicks, it’s time to start A/B testing the button to improve the click through rate.
Scroll Mapping
A scroll map is a visual representation of how far the average visitor to your website scrolls down your site. Scroll maps can help you identify call to action buttons that are typically too far down on the site to receive many clicks. If the scroll rate is low and the call to action button is lower on the page, it would be a great idea to A/B test the positioning of the call to action button on the web page.
Qualitative Analytics Tools
Qualitative data doesn’t revolve around numbers, but instead provides the user with an opportunity to comment on how they see the user experience. Exit surveys, page surveys, and user recordings are commonly used means of acquiring qualitative data.
Exit Surveys
Exit surveys can determine when a user is about to leave the site and attempt to keep them on the page by asking a simple question, for example “did you find what you were looking for?” If users give a negative response on a particular page, this is an indicator that it’s time to consider optimization.
Page Surveys
Page surveys are very similar to exit surveys, but they appear when you go to a specific page on the website. Page surveys collect the same data as exit surveys, but keep the data specific to a certain page.
User Recordings
User recordings/user testing involves watching users perform 4-5 particular tasks. This method can show you where users are struggling to find information and help determine what needs to be optimized.
Take-Away
Data analysis will help you to determine when and where to use your time and resources to optimize your website. For more information on analytics or to start A/B testing on your site, contact us at Americaneagle.com!
