If Only Every Test Had a Cheat Sheet

In a post at the Email Wars blog, Dylan Boyd points to a website called Anne Holland's Which Test Won? where visitors are invited to vote on which version of an A/B test likely achieved better results.

One past test is titled "SAP BusinessObjects Tests a Big, Orange Button vs. an Elegant, Blue Text Hotlink," and shows the two Web pages next to each other. Like 88 percent of the other voters, we chose the big, orange button and were … correct! In a quick backgrounder on the test, Holland explains that the elegant, blue hotlink was the control, and that the experimental, orange button boosted conversions 32.5 percent. Not too shabby.

"I took a few tests on this site and I can tell you I was not 100% in my gut answers," says Boyd. "I missed some based on what I thought would have been the best test. That was refreshing not only to know that my gut is not always right, but that I was educated after my guess as to why one test out performed another."

The Po!nt: According to Boyd, only tests can reveal whether what we "know" will actually achieve the best outcomes. "Sure we might have good results with our campaigns," he says, "but if we are not challenging our own concepts of perfect execution than we might be missing out on a significant lift or impact to our campaigns."

Source: Email Wars. Click here for the full post.

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