How Online Optimization Has Become a Must Have for Online Retailers
- New feature releases: Soft launch new features on a subset of users and learn how they respond in real time.
- Feature segmentation: Present different features to different audiences based on customer value, device, geography, new vs. existing customers, etc., to optimize key performance indicators.
- Search algorithm optimization: Make head-to-head comparisons of the effectiveness of different versions of your search algorithms.
- Pricing experiments: Test your "free shipping" threshold or offer different price promotions to distinct sets of targeted users.
- Complete site redesigns: Enable the testing of radical changes to your site experience targeted to specific users.
- Checkout flow and functionality: Optimize your checkout flow through experimentation — e.g., if you want to test making your five-step checkout process only three steps for logged-in users.
Speed it Up
In addition, online retailers can use optimization to accelerate the delivery and rendering of both web and mobile content, translating into big improvements across a range of business metrics such as bounce rate, conversion rate and revenue.
Finding the Right Tool for the Job
This will save your organization time and money. Look for a tool that will allow you to create, deploy, manage and analyze tests without changing any HTML or programming code that drives your website. This approach eliminates the need for ongoing IT involvement before, during and after running tests, allowing you to focus on achieving website optimization and greater business goals as opposed to spending time overcoming technical hurdles.
Kim Ann King is the chief marketing officer of web and mobile optimization firm SiteSpect.
