A/B Testing XXL

[I've tweeted about this before.]

If fashion stores believed in A/B testing, they would probably only sell white XXL shirts. Most customers would fit tent-sized garments; most colours go well with white. Giant colourless shirts would presumably have the better sales conversion rate by far.

But of course this would be far from optimal.

Customers come in different shapes and sizes. If you really want to maximise conversion, you will have to tailor to their specific needs and personal preferences. A/B testing might be the latest fashion, but the truth is that some customers will have a taste for B even though the majority might fancy A. This is why these 20 lines of code will beat A/B testing every time.

The trick is not to figure out whether A is better than B, but when A is better than B; and for whom.

Marketing should not be one-size-fits-all.

Marketing Personalization and the Uncanny Valley

Dear [prospect.first_name],

Following our last discussion on [prospect.last_contact_date] concerning [prospect.subject_area] I think the following article would be of particular interest to you.

Seth Godin writes.

Sure, it’s easy to grab a first name from a database or glean some info from a profile.

But when you pretend to know me, you’ve already started our relationship with a lie. You’ve cheapened the tools we use to recognize each other and you’ve tricked me, at least a little.

Increased familiarity begets heightened expectations. Personalization has its own uncanny valley.

The uncanny valley is a hypothesis in the field of robotics and 3D computer animation, which holds that when human replicas look and act almost, but not perfectly, like actual human beings, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers.

When you treat your customers as though you know them personally they will be personally offended if you do not. Beware of the eerie hollow of broken promise.