Testing Mobile Pages — Simpler Than Thought
Many marketers have yet to explore mobile webpages as a marketing opportunity. If you are putting off tests because you think they are too complicated, take a look at this case study on mobile page testing we published today.
Mike Brown, VP, Internet Optimization, Vegas.com, and his team tested if catering to a mobile audience could improve site performance. The team showed mobile visitors a homepage and category pages designed for their devices. The test was a proof-of-concept on whether to invest in an end-to-end mobile experience for Vegas.com.
The tests successfully improved site metrics such as bounce rate and conversion rate (see the case study for details), and Brown’s team plans to rollout more mobile pages this fall.
Brown said these tests were easier than his team anticipated. From our conversation, I understood two criteria the team met to successfully run them:
– Mobile traffic present
Testing mobile pages only makes sense if your website receives mobile traffic. The team looked at its site analytics and noticed mobile visitors accounted for 7% of traffic, and growing rapidly.
– Testing and page design expertise
The team had extensive testing experience with Brown as the head of Internet Optimization. Also, the team used SiteSpect‘s multivariate and A/B testing tool to run tests. SiteSpect team members helped Brown’s team learn to create mobile pages, which Brown noted was surprisingly easy.
So if your team has capable developers, some mobile traffic and good testing experience, there should be little preventing you from running similar tests. And remember: you don’t have to dive in with a full investment. Brown’s team only dipped its toe and is now comfortably moving forward.
Categories: Mobile, Research And Measurement Mobile, optimization, testing