WAW London – A/B and multivariate testing

A/B and multivariate testing was this was the subject of the WAW (Web analytics Wednesday) meeting in London last Wednesday, 15^th October, and very well supported is was too with about 170 people. This was a particularly educational WAW with three excellent speakers.

First was Mark Simpson from Maxymiser. He was bombarded with questions showing the interest in the room for his overview of the subject.

Ewald Hoppen from Wehkamp in the Netherlands really sold the value of multivariate testing by giving real life examples of how they have tested changes both big and small and the sort of changes in conversion rates that resulted. For this large online retailer, even small percentage changes can make huge differences in term of euros. They also found that they get different results depending on the time of day and the day of the week, so it is not just a question of delivering the most effective pages but delivering the most effective pages for larks, owls and ordinary daytime visitors.

The final speaker was the one and only Eric Petersen, he presented his Top Tips for Testing Successfully. Although The Big Book of KPIs is always on my desk, this is the first time I had seen Eric speak. By 7pm in the evening and for a talk of web analytics, it takes some doing to really engage your audience but he certainly did that.

WAW have been running in London for several years now and the next on is January 21^st 2009, sponsored as always by SCL Analytics. Well worth attending.

See the Atracks article on using Google’s free A/B and multivariate testing tool, Website Optimizer for more information on how to start testing and improving web pages.