The Basics of Marketing Experimentation

Digital marketing is an on-going process. You are never actually done and you cannot rely on the same marketing tactics over and over again.

How to remain ahead of your competition and keep seeing positive results from your marketing efforts?

You need to keep experimenting.

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Questions we discussed

Q1 How did you become a digital marketer? Please share your career story!

#Vcbuzz A1. I became a digital marketer after making the decision to self-publish my novel. Like most writers, I’m not oriented towards marketing. Digital appears to be a good way to ease into the process.
— Dana Lemaster (@DanaLemaster) November 3, 2020

A1 Total accident for me. My dream has always been to be either a teacher or a writer (or both). Still think I’ll become one one day #vcbuzz
— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) November 3, 2020

A1 I was a new virtual assistant and someone asked for a consultation. Came about he wanted a VA for a Webinar he was doing and wanted a VA that can help with whole marketing of Webinar too #vcbuzz
— Alison Wolf (@freelancerboss) November 3, 2020

A1 Started as a blogger, became a marketer! #vcbuzz
— Anna Fox (@manifestcon) November 3, 2020

Q2 What is marketing experimentation and how to run marketing experiments the right way? What do we test?

A2 Marketing experimentation is an investigation or a test that aims at confirming or denying marketing myths, effectiveness of certain tactics / theories, etc. #vcbuzz
— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) November 3, 2020

That’s really interesting. When I think of marketing experiments, I think of conversion testing and not SEO at all. #vcbuzz https://t.co/UwPgwORnul
— Gail Gardner (@GrowMap) November 3, 2020

A2 It is a lot easier to do conversion optimization oriented marketing tests today because there are tools that let you change one aspect of a page and see which version converts best. #vcbuzz https://t.co/cSYT4to1ZT
— Gail Gardner (@GrowMap) November 3, 2020

@GrowMap I know! Conversion testing is usually site-specific. SEO experimentation deals with testing Google’s algorithm responses which is more fascinating! 🙂 #vcbuzz
— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) November 3, 2020

Q3 What makes a good marketing experiment?

A3 in my opinion most marketing experiments have the same issue: They confuse correlation and causation…. If yours manage to avoid that, this is a great experiment #vcbuzz
— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) November 3, 2020

A3 Good marketing experiments are also isolated (to ensure no other factors stay in the way) #vcbuzz
— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) November 3, 2020

Yes, with conversion testing you “own” all parts of it from implementation to data. In SEO it is mostly a mystery #vcbuzz
— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) November 3, 2020

A3 The best conversion optimization marketing experiments only change 1 factor of a page at a time and run until you have statistical significant results. #vcbuzz https://t.co/SwvnW2AJH9
— Gail Gardner (@GrowMap) November 3, 2020

A3 Again, LOVE this one from @Moz on whether or not you need to publish MORE https://t.co/JBPBxX18MJ #vcbuzz
— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) November 3, 2020

Q4 Are there any good public examples of successful marketing experiments to learn from?

A3 MUST bookmark: 26 Marketing Experiments That Brands Can Use To Unlock New Insights https://t.co/HPLMLnRJKb via @TheCoolestCool via @SanaKnightly #vcbuzz
— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) November 3, 2020

10 social media marketing experiments to improve your reach https://t.co/VgLhVdI3sY via @canva #vcbuzz
— Sana Knightly (@SanaKnightly) November 3, 2020

Q5 What are your favorite marketing experimentation tools?

A5 Check out the marketing experiment resources @GuessTheTest They have a lot of articles that cover all things to do with Conversion Optimization. https://t.co/kAqtQBCE2t #vcbuzz https://t.co/Ibh4TF0GJw
— Gail Gardner (@GrowMap) November 3, 2020

A5 LOVE Finteza for A/B testing. Makes it easy: No need to hire a professional help when running experiments https://t.co/dyRvhQyegm #vcbuzz
— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) November 3, 2020

A5b Did you know there is a Google Optimize for WordPress and another for Shopify and probably one for most platforms? See @GuessTheTest resources at https://t.co/kAqtQBCE2t for instructions on how to use them. #vcbuzz https://t.co/Ibh4TF0GJw
— Gail Gardner (@GrowMap) November 3, 2020

YES! I did an article on that not so long ago: https://t.co/4dYPH1j61d RT @DonSturgill: Heat maps are useful as well. #vcbuzz
— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) November 3, 2020

A new toolset many are overlooking is the new Journalist Studio. Many of the tools are open to everyone: https://t.co/bJhFd4WYKu #vcbuzz
— Don Sturgill (@DonSturgill) November 3, 2020