1 http://engage.opentext.com/products/optimost

2 WhichTestWon.com

This guide was collaboratively developed by OpenText Optimost1 and WhichTestWon2

OpenText Optimost is a comprehensive web testing, targeting, and personalization software solution that enables marketers to deliver engaging, profitable websites and campaigns. Optimost includes self-service capabilities as well as professional consulting to help you test confidently when the stakes and complexity are highest, immediately when speed is of the essence, and accurately so you can match the right content to the right customer.

With guidance and tools from Optimost, you can build long-term success and take your testing programs from invisible to invincible. Optimost has partnered with property and casualty, life, and health insurers worldwide.

WhichTestWon (WTW) is the dedicated A/B testing and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) resource that reports on the latest in testing trends and techniques. WTW produces the popular Test of the Week, where testers guess which test version they think won, and are then shown the real life results. WTW also produces testing and CRO-related interviews, awards, and popular conferences.

Contents

Introduction ///

Become more strategically relevant to your organization

Organizational roadblocks to centralized CRO ///

Testing & CRO limitations

The biggest testing hurdles

Get yourself on track

Office politics

Revamp office culture through testing

Test in line with industry regulations

Overcome organizational challenges

Change the culture: Planning ///

Define your testing roadmap

Create a testing roadmap timeline

Build a testing roadmap

Build flexibility into your testing plan

Additional roadmap design considerations

Develop a roadmap with limited resources

Change the culture: Prioritization ///

The dangers of RATs

Prioritization system

How does prioritization help you?

Push back the HiPPO

Change the culture: Build smart hypotheses ///

Hypothesis building in your industry

Change the culture: Continuous optimization ///

Continuous optimization checklist

Key to the C-suite: Tie CRO to business KPIs ///

What Are KPIs?

Common KPIs

KPIs beyond website visitors

Use KPIs that matter to management

Conclusion ///

How do you know when you’re there?

Get in touch

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Do you feel like you’re slaving away, trying to boost your company’s website conversion rates with little sustained success?

Are you meeting stiff resistance before you can even express or implement your ideas? Or perhaps you see the impact you’re making, but wonder why you’re not climbing the ranks?

If this situation sounds familiar, you’re not alone.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is such a simple idea and a powerful marketing strategy. But those who aren’t familiar with it—and haven’t seen its full potential—scarcely believe it when optimization experts, like you, promise happier customers and millions in higher revenue.

We know you know there’s a better way. And, that’s why we’ve produced this guide. It shows you how to make your organization as clear-eyed about CRO as you are.

By showing you how to deliver on the promise of CRO, this guide will help you be more persuasive, more relevant, more sought after, and more successful in your organization.

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We developed this guide based on proven success working with hundreds of enterprise customers across many industries. We’ve helped them achieve annual revenue uplift—from tens of millions of dollars to hundreds of millions of dollars—all through optimization.

B U T H O W D O Y O U G E T T H E R E ?

This how-to guide provides practical advice, expert strategies, and step-by-step instructions to help you overcome obstacles and help your organization accelerate success. You’ll also set yourself up as a more a persuasive, relevant, and successful CRO expert, tester, and digital marketer.

So, if you feel stuck in your cube and want to move to that corner office, read on to empower yourself and move to the next level.

Let’s get started!

These companies share common traits. They’ve all:

> Built a dedicated team.

> Invested in learning and codifying best practices.

> Recruited executive champions.

> Tested before every feature release.

> Put customers at the center of their decision-making process by making suretesting and optimization are at the heart of their digital experience development.

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B E C O M E M O R E S T R A T E G I C A L L Y R E L E V A N T T O Y O U O R G A N I Z A T I O N

To get ahead, you need to make testing and CRO more central to your organization.

Overcome organizational challenges by building consensus: Agree with your colleagues on what defines success, and stress how testing can achieve success for every department throughout the organization.

Align internal business objectives and get stakeholders involved in the CRO process: Plan and prioritize what to test, develop smart hypotheses, and continually optimize your hypotheses to build a record of repeat successes.

Communicate the value of CRO and testing: Spread the word about your testing initiatives, and develop team-building activities that engage stakeholders to help them understand the value of testing.

Speak management’s language by using the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) they respond to: Tap into the metrics that matter most to management; then communicate the value CRO delivers using their terms.

BROADLY SPEAKING, HERE’S HOW:

1 3

2 4

Now let’s go through each of these steps in more depth.

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T E S T I N G & C R O L I M I T A T I O N S

Testing and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) requires a lot of time, money, and effort.

Many companies aren’t convinced it’s worth allocating significant resources to testing or CRO.

Does this sound like a belief held in your organization? If you’re having a hard time convincing

management about the value of testing, you’re not alone.

We’ve worked with many testing experts in your shoes and helped them change the game at

their organizations, so take heart and read on!

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T H E B I G G E S T T E S T I N G H U R D L E S

In 2015, WhichTestWon’s State Of Online Testing Report found the biggest hurdles stopping companies

from testing more included:

1 Inadequate time, funding, and staff

2 Limited testing knowledge

3 Limited traffic

Let’s look more at all of these constraints and explore ways to overcome them.

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O F F I C E P O L I T I C S

Beyond budget, time, resources, and knowledge, culture

is one of the biggest challenges likely holding back many

organizations from maximizing the value of their testing

and optimization efforts.

In fact, office politics is probably the biggest conversion

killer out there! Case in point: the HiPPO

(Highest Paid Person’s Opinion). The HiPPO might

single-handedly be accountable for squeezing the life

out of your CRO efforts.

Your HiPPO may be responsible for the death of more

meaningful tests each year than all other corporate

roles combined.

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Deflate the HiPPO

Everyone talks about “the elephant in the room,” but the

HiPPO often doesn’t get the mention they deserve. And

that’s too bad, because the HiPPO needs to be addressed—

and deflated.

HiPPOs are problematic when they base decisions on

conjecture instead of data. It’s like a wild card. Their opinions

may make perfect sense, or they may be totally out in left

field. Either way, their suggestions may not actually be best

for the business or your customers.

In reality, your users may feel or act much differently.

And, that’s what matters most!

To maximize profits, your site needs to reflect what

works best for your customers. But, you can’t know

what that is if you aren’t testing.

If your HiPPO is (ironically) pig headed, you might find

yourself in a tricky position. You’ll need to rein in their

unfounded ideas, while still getting their support for

CRO and testing resources.

If this seems an impossible task, the good news is, it’s

not. It’s actually quite simple. You just need to use a

data-driven testing approach.

My wife was on the website last night and found the navigation confusing. We should fix this.

An actual HiPPO quote

“”

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Data-driven testing approach

To tame the HiPPO, data is your best weapon. Use data,

not anecdotes, to drive decisions.

That means testing, measuring, and analyzing every

step of the conversion funnel on your website. Any site

changes should be made because you have quantitative

proof that they will improve the outcome you’re driving.

That said, if your HiPPO remains adamant their opinion

is right, co-opt them through data-driven testing.

Incorporate your HiPPO’s suggestions into your test

planning and prioritization. It’s a great strategy to help

you get ahead, because it helps show your HiPPO you

value their ideas. Doing so is important to garner their

support. Also, planning and prioritizing helps you bring

order to the chaos and decide what to test first.

Senior management will love you if they see that

you’re not only doing the work right, but doing the

right work. When you do both, your HiPPO can show

he or she is delivering more overall value to the

company. And, in turn, your work will be deemed more

valuable.

As the CRO owner, you probably already have much

more detailed data than your HiPPO. So, you can easily

use it to your advantage to fuel your CRO/testing

agenda.

Do the work right, and the right work

Anticipate roadblocks your CRO program might hit, before they arrive.

Get step-by-step guidance to overcome them and change your organization’s culture through better planning, prioritization, and more.

Learn how to get your executives to listen, love, and lavish resources on you and your team.

No!

We never mention p-values, t-stats, two-tailed tests, or confidence levels (well, ok, we do mention confidence levels once, in a footnote. We couldn’t resist).

This guide is NOT about how to run a test or interpret its results (though we have a great deal to offer on that score, if you’re interested). It’s about how to make better decisions about where to test, what to test, and get the most resources, skills, buy-in, and attention for your conversion rate optimization program.

It’s a step-by-step guide to make you a superstar!

Is this yet another guide to optimization?

Thanks for reading the preview!

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