e-Tail Attendees See Advanced Testing, Greater Confidence in Their Sites for ’08

Boosting conversion rates and improving the user experience top the list of priorities in 2008 for online retailers, according to a survey of 70 marketers and other e-commerce attendees of the recent e-Tail conference in Washington, D.C. The survey, conducted by SiteSpect, was taken on Aug. 6-7. Among the findings ...

* 57 percent said that site testing will be an important focus in 2008, with 17 percent making it the top priority;

* 69 percent were “moderately confident” to “confident” about the effectiveness and performance of their current Web channel programs and strategies;

* 14 percent expressed significant to major concerns about Web performance;

* 54 percent of Web marketers are performing A/B and/or multivariate tests to gauge the effectiveness of their Web pages, with 75 percent of that group only running A/B tests; and

* 33 percent indicated they launch A/B and multivariate tests on a monthly basis; 31 percent are testing on a weekly basis and 17 percent test daily.

The most common optimization tests run by online retailers included

* headlines/copy and text;

* graphic placement; and

* page layout and formatting.

Leading the list of biggest challenges online retailers face in improving the effectiveness of their Web channel is a lack of resources, followed by budget and time constraints.

For more information, go to www.SiteSpect.com .