Boost Conversions and Raise your Revenues with A/B testing in Rails

Boost Conversions and Raise your Revenues with A/B Testing in Rails

Daniel PritchettTechCamp Memphis 2013

What do you mean by conversions?

Conversion optimization is a focused attempt to increase (optimize) the proportion of site visitors who choose to take specific actions that benefit your business (convert).

This is a $500 click.

How many clicks would you like?

Image Ⓒ Metro Atlanta Marketing

Target audience for today’s talk:● Customers

○ Products with highly relevant messaging find their way into the hands of people happy to pay for them

● Product owners○ Gain insight into which features of your product resonate most with customers

● Marketers○ Validate market appetites for different flavors of product messaging

● Designers○ Can propose alternate layouts without compromising overall design goals

● Developers○ Automation skills harmonize well with product and marketing groups in this arena

Nota bene

I’m a consulting application developer, so my design and marketing speech isn’t exactly native.

I met a new coworker speaking at TechCamp 2012 and I’m glad to be back.

dpritchett.net // coroutine.com

What do you mean by A/B testing?

Pick a single element of your presentation and think up an alternative. Set up your site to show one version to some viewers and the other to the rest. Track conversion results separately.

Implied: At the end of the test, keep the winning element.

What can we tweak?

● Copy● Positioning● Colors● Timing

● Pricing● Discounts● Everything!

How can I track a test?

Image Ⓒ Rahul Rodriguez

Why not A/B/C/D/E testing?

A/B tests are intentionally simple - fewer moving parts confer several benefits over a ‘multi-armed bandit’ approach:● Quicker to get started● Easier to explain to the rest of the company● Harder to misinterpret results

The Funnel

How do we shepherd front page viewers towards that $500 click?

Image Ⓒ Metro Atlanta Marketing

The Funnel

Usually more than one possible positive outcome.

Image Ⓒ Metro Atlanta Marketing

How do I start?

Consultant’s motto:“It depends.”

Visual Website Optimizer:“No coding or HTML knowledge required!”

Optimizely:“A/B testing you’ll actually use.”

By hand:Run page A for a week, run page B for a week

Bespoke:Roll your own toolkit

For Ruby on Rails...

Let’s try the “split” gem.

<% ab_test("login_button", "/images/button1.jpg", "/images/button2.jpg") do |button_file| %>

<%= img_tag(button_file, :alt => "Login!") %>

<% end %>

<img alt=”Login!” src=”/images/button1.jpg”>

or...

<img alt=”Login!” src=”/images/button2.jpg”>

Conversion trackingThanks for signing up, dude! <% finished("signup_page_redesign")

%>

Weighted test optionsab_test('homepage design', {'Old' => 20}, {'New' => 2})

Long-running testsfinished('experiment_name', :reset => false)

Split web UI

Time to go off-road!

techcamp-abtesting.herokuapp.com