The word I chose to explain in this assignment is ” A/B testing”. This term was frequently mentioned in my commerce class last semester, which shows the importance of this technical term.
Notes to the instructor: the Italic part of the Expanded explanation includes the sentence explanation and Parenthetical explanation.
Audience and Use profile :
A common dilemma that a company face, is that the product they sell does not meet the expectations of customers. They think they understand customer’s behavior, but customers always act differently than they think. Hence, knowing A/B testing is not only important to market managers but also important for marketing students.
A/B Testing
What is A/B testing?
A/B testing (or split testing, also known as simple controlled experiment ) is a statistical way to compare two or more versions of a product, the product can be a website, landing page, or other marketing assets. After the company has created variations, A/B testing helps to avoid unnecessary risks by allowing the marketing manager to use minimum resources to achieve maximum effect.
Figure 1: A/B testing used in a website (source :https://www.google.com/search?q=A/B+testing+in+marketing&rlz=1C5CHFA_enCA884CA884&sxsrf=ALeKk01dXW2ej6O6r8PvjioMf7PTCUGJDQ:1591422715336&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjL3InNv-zpAhVMnp4KHTgsB-gQ_AUoAXoECBEQAw&biw=1027&bih=573#imgrc=YHLKJIf65ijKhM&imgdii=zm6wu44ewBUx3M)
As indicated in figure 1, Website A and Website B all have the same content, but Website B changes the color scheme, which attracted more users. If there is only A version of the website, the company (say the Wix website company) will lose some potential users.
How did it develop?
The concept of A/B testing was introduced by Claude Hopkins, an advertising pioneer in the early twentieth century. Hopkins promotes a scientific approach to advertisement, he uses different versions of promotion coupons to test his campaigns. Google engineers also used A/B testing in the year 2000, to determine the optimum number of results to display when people use their search engine. In 2011 alone, Google ran over seven thousand A/B tests to test their alternative versions.
How is it Used?
Modern A/B testing is used when companies are making marketing decisions. For example, large social media sites could either change the color scheme of their landing page or font of their logos and test which version of their landing page/ logos attract more users.
Sources:
Box, Joan Fisher (1987). “Guinness, Gosset, Fisher, and Small Samples”. Statistical Science. 2 (1): 45–52. doi:10.1214/ss/1177013437
Young, Scott W. H. (2014). “Improving Library User Experience with A/B Testing: Principles and Process”. Weave: Journal of Library User Experience. 1 (1). doi:10.3998/weave.12535642.0001.101. hdl:2027/spo.12535642.0001.101. ISSN 2333-331
Pardot. (2012).The ABCs of A/B Testing. Retrieved from https://www.pardot.com/blog/abcs-ab-testing/
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