A / B Analysis for beginners. How to understand exactly what works for you?

Paysto offers tools for your projects, but how effective these projects are depends only on you. One of the main areas of work on the project is to optimize its presentation on the network. There are many tools and techniques for this, but today we decided to focus on A / B analysis , as one of the most effective ways to select the optimal version of your page, which allows you to accurately assess the result that brought a particular change.


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Receive A / B Analysis is widely available due to its effectiveness and clarity of the presented results. Today there are many approaches to analysis and methods of its implementation, both technical ( Google Website Optimizer , ABTest.ru , Optimizely ), and methodological. The bottom line is that users are shown different versions of your page, which differ in one or more elements.

The most important

In order for the test results to be reliable, you need to follow a couple of simple rules:

- The user does not need to know what is involved in testing. You should not write something like “we are testing to evaluate the effectiveness of a particular menu structure in terms of conversion”;

- Different options are demonstrated to different users;

- Collect enough data. You cannot rely on test results with 100-200 reports. The larger the sample, the more reliable the result;

- Believe the results. Even if you are 146% sure of the effectiveness of a particular solution, and the test suggests the opposite - do not write it off as an error.

- Give preference to new visitors, and not the habitues of your site. Novice assessment is more objective.

Select the object to test :

Traditional set

- The ultimate goal . What do you want to achieve from the user? Pressing the "Buy" button? Experiment with its design. Filling the form? Try changing the content and layout of the fields. By the way, according to the source , the page shown in the bottom image on the right received 21% more clicks simply by changing the color of the button.



- Navigation . Sometimes, it is enough to change the name of the item in the menu in order to increase page traffic by 1.5 times.

- Registration form . Give your customer easy access. Find exactly the form that suits the absolute majority, and not become Cerberus on the way to your site.

- Articles , content, headlines.

- Look for the right answer. A small test budget allows you to experiment with various elements of the site. Highlight those that are key to your area and optimize them.

Watch what is happening

Use user activity tracking services. Compare which elements attract the user's attention, how much the changes attract attention to the element being tested, and, just as importantly, whether the visitor is distracted from the key components of your page.

Give the customer what he is looking for

Google Analytics allows you to track search history for your site (Behavior> Site Search> Search Terms). We are talking about queries that the user enters in the search menu after pressing Ctrl + F. This service will allow you to clearly understand what exactly people are looking for on your website and bring its design (do not forget about the content) to the appropriate form. Sometimes it is enough to use custom queries for navigation design to get a stunning result.

Specify to be more effective

Despite the fact that users do not like to answer questions, you can get a good result if you approach this method correctly. The main task is to reduce the user's efforts to zero and to obtain reliable information. If the first is a question of the interface, then the second depends on the content. Remember that asking a question may affect the user's response.
If you emphasize your efforts spent on creating the site, you will get much more positive reviews, but you will not get reliable information. The same thing happens if your previous question affects the answer to the next one. If you ask the user three questions about the menu, and then ask “What did you like most about the page?”, Many will remember about the excellent menu of your site.

In combination with the control of activity, the survey can bring the greatest result. If the user has clicked the "register" button and hangs on the registration form, ask what delays it. It is necessary to immediately offer several options, including “the inconvenience or difficulty of filling in some fields,” the choice of which will provide the user with the indication of which sections he does not like.
Do not impose. Place the questionnaire in a zone that is sure to be in the field of view of the client, but do not make it a pop-up window that expands to full screen.

What should not be forgotten

No matter how effective a tool is, improper use reduces its efficiency to zero. When planning your work, remember that:

- as long as you do not have a clear understanding of what you want to receive, testing will not give you any result. Form a hypothesis and test it, repeating until you get the desired result;

- You should use only those results that carry the necessary information. You should not go into extraneous analyzes, concentrate on assessing the effectiveness of the element being tested, simplify the rating system as much as possible (sometimes a couple of indicators are enough: number of clicks and activity zones);

- The alphabet has a lot of letters. No one limits you to two options. You can first carry out A / B / C / D analysis, and then A / B of the most effective options;

- there are various devices. Do not underestimate the importance of the effectiveness of mobile versions of the site;

- Sufficient traffic is required. If no one visits the site, its testing is absolutely meaningless.

A / B analysis is not a panacea, but it will give a clear answer to the question of the appropriateness of certain changes in the interface or content of the site. The correct approach to this procedure will be the key to the effectiveness of your time and labor costs to convert the page, as well as allow you to better understand the needs of visitors.