So, your company wants to increase revenue. They want more conversions, more clicks, more shares, and more users. What do they tell you to do first? Well, A/B test! Compare two versions of a page, define a key goal (ex. clicks), and see if you get more clicks. But, does this actually work? Is it really the approach you should take? Let’s look at the data. For apps with millions of users, small cosmetic changes to your app, like color, layout, and language could net you some noticeable increases in your key metrics, like more clicks and user engagement. The real question is this: for companies with smaller user bases, should you try to focus on different “Sign Up!” button colors or focus on actually making your product better? A/B testing for many companies becomes a band-aid for poor value propositions. If your content is not being shared, maybe your content is actually not share-worthy, regardless of how amazing you make your “Share Now!” button.
Survey Data
This data is from a qualitative and quantitative A/B testing survey of 26 A/B testing practitioners conducted from May 1 to May 30 of this year. While this is not the end-all be-all of surveys, it could still give us some meaningful insights.
Key Points
45 percent of respondents said that their companies start a new AB test once every 3 months, with 40 percent starting one per week or month;60 percent of respondents said that their AB tests last between 1 week and 1 month;38 percent of respondents said that less than 10 percent of their AB testing experiments actually translate into action; and45 percent of respondents said that application changes from AB testing persist for 1 to 6 months.
Interview Data
To supplement the quantitative research, A/B testers (from 2 to 6 years of A/B testing experience) were asked open-ended questions regarding the efficacy of A/B testing. Here are some of the key take-aways:
10 of 12 interviewees noted that a major drawback of A/B testing was that 90 percent or more of experiments ‘failed’;6 of 12 interviewees noted that it was very difficult to make product decisions based on AB testing results since most results were inconclusive or clearly failed. This means that the status quo was maintained roughly 90 percent of the time; and10 of 12 interviewees noted that the primary benefit of A/B testing was to ‘increase revenue’.
Making A/B Testing Useful
Overall, what does this data tell us? Companies may be running A/B tests too frequently for too little time, contributing to a high failure rate that makes A/B test results less valuable and meaningful. Here are some tips to help make A/B testing useful for your application.
