At AB Tasty, we love providing our users with the best possible experience by making it easy to create and execute optimization campaigns. That’s why we recently significantly improved our Modification Engine, one of the core components of our Visual Editor and our JavaScript tag.
The Modification Engine is the system that dynamically alters our client’s website content and appearance without requiring direct changes to the source code. It applies the modifications defined in campaigns by injecting the changes via JavaScript on the visitor’s browser.
Here are the two big improvements:
Maximum compatibility with our clients’ websites, including Shadow DOM and iFrames support.
Optimized performance for faster loading and smoother execution of modifications, enhancing the experience for visitors on our clients’ sites.
Enhanced Compatibility with Modern Technologies
Our clients are developing increasingly complex websites, utilizing technologies like Shadow DOM and iFrames to structure their web applications. Now, our Visual Editor is compatible with these technologies so you can create, modify, and manage content to deliver the latest in experiences to your visitors.
A lighter JavaScript tag: The overall impact of AB Tasty has already been reduced by 2.3 KB, with further optimizations planned.
Less impact on overall performance: We observed an improvement up to 11% in website performance, depending on the number of modifications applied.
Optimized Loading and Execution Times
More efficient JavaScript execution: The average execution time for modifications is 30% to 55% faster.
Decreased “Render Blocking Time”: Improvements range from 11% to 50%, with even greater benefits for larger campaigns.
No longer classified as a “Long main-thread task”
Faster Application and Reapplication of Modifications
Another key improvement in this update is the speed of applying and reapplying modifications:
Applying modifications is 2.2 to 2.75 times faster.
Reapplying modifications is 4 to 5.7 times faster, a major advantage for dynamic A/B testing.
Real-World Examples
We conducted tests on various campaigns to measure these improvements in action:
Campaign with 19 Modifications:
Total execution time: 1.79ms (down from 3.96ms, 2.2 times faster).
Reapplying time after a modification is removed: 0.58ms (down from 3.34ms, 5.7 times faster).
up to 5% improvement in overall site performance.
Campaign with 64 Modifications:
Total application time: 4ms (down from 10-11ms, 2.5 to 2.75 times faster).
Reapplying time after a modification is removed: 2.7ms (down from 11-12ms, 4 to 4.4 times faster).
Up to 11% improvement in overall site performance.
With these enhancements, our newest Modification Engine version is now more robust, faster, and better suited for modern websites.
You benefit from a smoother user experience, and your visitors enjoy faster loading times. And this is just the beginning: stay tuned for even more powerful optimizations in the coming months.
Feel free to test these improvements and share your feedback with us!
AB Tasty’s Visual Studio Code extension lets developers manage their experimentation and personalization campaigns directly from their IDE. This game-changing tool streamlines technical workflows and makes experimentation more accessible across your organization.
We’re all about making experimentation and personalization seamless for all teams. While AB Tasty’s UI is designed to be intuitive, we know that many developers prefer to work directly in their IDE. That’s why we built the AB Tasty Visual Studio Code extension—inspired by user feedback and driven by our mission to simplify the dev experience.
With this extension, you can:
Eliminate back-and-forth between your IDE and the AB Tasty web interface.
Leverage VS Code’s power: smart autocomplete, built-in linters, syntax highlighting, real-time validation, and more.
The benefits of VS Code Extension for server-side:
With AB Tasty’s Feature Experimentation and Roll-outs, from the Visual Studio Code Extension you can: ✅ Manage feature flags and product experimentation with a code-first approach ✅ Call key campaign resources (flags, targeting keys, goals) ✅ Detect and create feature flags directly from your codebase
The benefits of VS Code Extension for client-side:
With AB Tasty’s Web Experimentation and Personalization, from the Visual Studio Code Extension you can: ✅ Manage product experimentation with a code-first approach ✅ List and access segments, triggers, and favorite-URLs linked to your account ✅ List and access campaigns (variations, targeting, modifications) ✅ Manage JS scripts tied to accounts, campaigns, variations, and modifications
AB Tasty Joins the “Dev-Friendly” Movement
Our vision is clear: AB Tasty should adapt to developers, not the other way around. This extension is just the beginning—we have plenty more enhancements in the pipeline.
Mobile commerce has revolutionized how consumers interact with brands — from browsing products on the go to researching the latest trends. Yet, despite mobile usage soaring, the full potential of mobile commerce remains untapped. While traffic from mobile devices continues to rise, conversion rates still trail behind other channels. What’s driving the gap between browsing and purchasing on mobile?
In this post, we’ll explore key mobile performance stats, delve into the challenges behind these numbers, and showcase how Quantum Metric and AB Tasty collaborate to help brands close this gap. If you want the your own mobile playbook, the insights shared here are based on data from Quantum Metric’s eBook, How Mobile Performance Builds Consumer Confidence.
1. Mobile is everywhere, but conversions lag.
Mobile traffic is not just a trend, it’s the backbone of online shopping. Consumers are increasingly using their phones for everything from discovering products to making final purchase decisions. However, despite this surge in mobile traffic, conversions still don’t match the volume of visits. So, what’s going wrong?
Insight:
Mobile accounts for 73% of monthly traffic, but only 47% of sales.
Travel sees the highest mobile traffic (73%), but the lowest sales share (39%).
Challenge: Consumers love to browse on mobile — reading reviews, comparing prices, and window shopping. But when it comes time to make a purchase, they often shift to desktops or other channels. This disconnect between browsing and buying is a critical challenge.
Solution: Quantum Metric delivers real-time insights to identify where users drop off in their mobile journeys, helping brands pinpoint key friction points. Armed with this data, AB Tasty can run A/B tests and experiments to optimize mobile conversions by improving layouts, simplifying checkout, or personalizing offers based on user behavior.
2. Personalization drives engagement (and sales).
With so much information available at their fingertips, consumers expect personalized experiences that speak to their unique preferences. But while mobile apps can deliver these tailored experiences, it’s not always the case that mobile users receive the level of customization they desire. So, how can brands keep up with the demand for hyper-personalized mobile experiences?
Insight:
39% of consumers prefer mobile apps, but 33% have reduced app usage.
Conversion rates on mobile apps are 3X higher than on mobile web.
Challenge: Consumers are increasingly expecting experiences that are customized to their preferences. Whether it’s personalized product recommendations or location-based offers, users demand content that resonates with them on a deeper level. But how do brands manage to provide this while maintaining convenience and ease of use?
Solution: Quantum Metric provides detailed session data, revealing exactly what users are engaging with and where they’re dropping off. AB Tasty then uses this data to create personalized experiences through hyper-targeted experiments, ensuring that each user sees content that’s most relevant to them — ultimately boosting engagement and driving conversions.
3. Building confidence in mobile transactions.
Even with mobile traffic growing, many consumers are still hesitant to make purchases — especially larger ones — on their phones. Trust is a major factor in whether or not a consumer feels confident enough to complete a mobile transaction. But how can brands overcome the hurdles of security concerns and poor mobile experiences?
Insight:
59% of consumers only feel confident making purchases of $50 or less on mobile.
Desktop AOVs are 70% higher than mobile for retail and nearly 2X higher for travel.
Challenge: Security concerns and clunky mobile experiences can drive away customers before they even hit the checkout button. Many consumers feel more comfortable making purchases on desktops, where they associate higher transaction values with a more secure, familiar environment.
Solution: Quantum Metric identifies friction points — slow load times, security concerns, or error messages — that can erode trust. AB Tasty uses A/B testing and experiments to address these pain points, creating smoother, more secure user flows that enhance trust and improve conversion rates.
4. Performance matters more than ever.
With consumers’ expectations for speed at an all-time high, mobile performance can make or break the user experience. From slow loading times to app crashes, mobile performance issues are a significant barrier to conversions. So how can brands ensure their mobile experiences are fast and seamless?
Insight:
59% of users have experienced slow performance; 43% have faced app crashes.
API error rates are 2-3X higher on mobile than desktop, with issues like long spinner rates causing 48% higher friction.
Challenge: Users have little patience for performance issues. A slow-loading page or app crash can lead to frustration and, ultimately, abandonment. The pressure to deliver fast, smooth mobile experiences is higher than ever.
Solution: Quantum Metric’s real-time data quickly highlights performance issues, from slow page loads to API errors. Once identified, AB Tasty can experiment with various solutions, optimizing mobile performance and delivering a smoother, faster user journey.
5. Turning data into action.
In the fast-paced mobile landscape, time is of the essence. Consumers expect quick, efficient mobile experiences, and if a transaction takes too long, they won’t hesitate to abandon it. So, how can brands ensure they are responding to user behavior in real time?
Insight:
55% of consumers will abandon a mobile transaction if it takes longer than 3-5 minutes.
Challenge: The pressure to scale innovation without losing sight of the customer is real. Mobile transactions need to be fast and seamless, or customers will simply walk away — especially when it comes to on-the-go transactions.
Solution: Quantum Metric empowers brands with real-time behavioral data that shows where and when users drop off during their mobile journey. AB Tasty then helps turn this data into action by running targeted experiments that address specific friction points, reducing abandonment and improving the overall mobile experience.
Conclusion: turning mobile commerce into your competitive edge.
Mobile commerce isn’t just another sales channel — it’s a key competitive advantage. To succeed, brands must focus on delivering fast, personalized, and secure mobile experiences that build consumer trust. By combining Quantum Metric’s real-time behavioral insights with AB Tasty’s experimentation platform, brands can close the gap between browsing and buying, unlocking the true potential of mobile commerce.
The Contentsquare & AB Tasty integration helps you optimize your A/B testing lifecycle, driving high-value outcomes with low-risk scenarios. Let’s dive into how this integration will help you improve your customer experience (CX) and boost your growth metrics.
A side-by-side comparison of 2 webpages using Contentsquare analysis
An overview of the integration
When Contentsquare and AB Tasty are used separately, you only get half the success of your test results. Say you want to test a hero banner. Using AB Tasty, you test 2 versions, and find there’s no improvement to your conversion rate. But, perhaps one of the versions increased customer engagement? Without the help of Contentsquare, you’re limited in your view of how your tests impact your entire customer experience.
Or, let’s say you’ve analyzed your customer journey using Contentsquare and discovered one of your conversion pages has a high drop-off rate. You come up with a hypothesis as to why this might be the case and hard-code a change, but this leads to more drop-offs, not less. Without AB Tasty, you’re unable to test your hypotheses, which results in wasted time, resources, and a potentially worse customer experience.
But, it doesn’t have to be this way. By integrating Contentsquare and AB Tasty, you can dive deeper into your customer experience to pinpoint and prioritize the most critical friction points or opportunities to experiment. You can also build better hypotheses based on key metrics, create and run data-informed tests, and better understand why variations perform well (or not).
With Contentsquare, you gain a more comprehensive understanding of your customer experience, enabling you to conduct more informed, data-driven tests with AB Tasty.
Benefits of the Contentsquare and AB Tasty integration
Where Contentsquare provides deep and meaningful insights into your customer behavior, AB Tasty empowers you to act on those insights, in real time.
“AB Tasty is a technology partner with Contentsquare. We facilitate A/B testing, experimentation, personalization, and audience segmentation. We help facilitate activation of the data that you get out of Contentsquare to fuel that endless cycle of experimentation.”
Mary Kate Cassh, Head of Growth Marketing, North America, AB Tasty
Hyper-personalization features to deliver tailor-made experiences to boost conversion rates
A simplified, streamlined workflow that eliminates data silos by having data accessible across easy-to-understand dashboards
Greater business impact by uncovering hidden opportunities in your customer journey and testing your hypotheses before hard-coding changes
Comprehensive experiment analysis with easy-to-understand visuals and side-by-side comparisons of your control and variation
Continuous improvement to your digital strategy
Want to know the fundamentals of how the Contentsquare and AB Tasty integration works? Learn more.
How Contentsquare can inform your testing in AB Tasty
Let’s look at how this works in practice, using the framework of a continuous testing cycle. There are 5 stages to the continuous testing cycle—here’s how the Contentsquare and AB Tasty integration works to optimize each step along the way:
Stage 1: analysis phase
This first stage involves finding friction points or opportunities at each point of your customer journey. Then, it’s about generating test hypotheses to help solve or optimize the points that need the most attention.
You can break down this stage into 2 forms of analysis.
Innovation analysis, where you work out whether your content is optimized for the best customer experience you can provide
2. Troubleshooting analysis, where you uncover errors or friction points in the customer journey, preventing users from moving forward.
With Contentsquare’s Experience Analytics, you can find out how your customers are behaving page by page, from entry to exit, and why. With a suite of capabilities, you can deep-dive into your customer experience and analyze areas that need the most improvement.
Screenshot of Contentsquare’s Experience Analytics dashboard, open on the Heatmaps capability.
What are the behaviors of customers at critical conversion points?
What’s causing rage clicks or other frustration behaviors?
Where are customers encountering errors?
Rage clicks are when customers click on an element (clickable or not) of a website or app multiple times in frustration or anger. They’re often caused by technical issues, confusing navigation, or a cluttered design.
What’s the most attractive content/category on the page?
What’s leading to the most conversions? Is it visible enough?
In what order do customers consume the page?
Are there any frictions or rage clicks on the page?
Stage 2: analysis resolution
Now you’ve got a few hypotheses to test, it’s time to work out how to prioritize what to test first.
The focus should be on tests with low effort, high reward and those with the biggest impact on your key performance indicators (KPIs). Contentsquare’s Impact Quantification can help you prioritize your tests and make better decisions by assessing the impact of each test. All you need to do is clarify your goal and then segment users based on whether they completed the goal of your A/B test.
Contentsquare’s Impact Quantification in action.
Impact Quantification can then be used to compare these segments and confirm how much revenue the success of the test will likely generate.
Stage 3; experimentation roadmap
Once you’ve established which hypotheses have the greatest potential to impact your KPIs, it’s time to start fleshing out your testing roadmap.
This roadmap will help guide every step of your testing process—from the build to the design and copy and finally, the execution. This roadmap is where you detail who’s doing what and when, giving you an overview of your site. This is especially useful if you’re running tests on multiple pages.
The dos and don’ts of your testing roadmap
Do’s
✅ Run your tests in at least 2-week increments to account for site traffic cycles and seasonality.
✅ Color-code your roadmap for the different stages of your experimentation so it’s easy to quickly see where each test is at.
Don’t
❌ Have 2 tests running on 2 pages at the same time—it can muddy the data and lead you to potentially misread your results.
❌ Don’t run multiple tests on the same page independently—use multivariate tests to see how changes to multiple sections interact with one another.
Stage 4: start A/B testing
All that hard work has finally paid off—it’s time to put your hypotheses into action and start running tests with AB Tasty.
Using your roadmap as a guide, start building out your tests in AB Tasty to optimize, personalize, and improve your customer experience.
Stage 5: analysis and results
Get site statistics directly through AB Tasty and couple that with Contentsquare’s customer behavioral insights.
From AB Tasty, get direct reports based on page statistics—giving you a snapshot of what’s going on in your campaign testing period.
From Contentsquare, as soon as your test goes live, you can watch how your customers behave in the control and variation, side-by-side using Heatmaps and Session Replay. Get a visual understanding of why and how your customers behave differently in your variation and use these insights to inform your next testing phase.
How the partnership works in real life
Now that you know how the Contentsquare and AB Tasty partnership works, it’s time to see what it’s like in the real world.
Here’s how 2 leading brands have embraced the integration of experience analytics and experimentation into their CX to drive real growth outcomes.
Clarins
Global skincare company Clarins wanted to find out whether a “wishlist” option on their site would help to increase pageviews and conversions.
Using the Contentsquare integration with AB Tasty, they tested adding a heart icon to their product listing pages (PLPs) and product description pages (PDPs). This heart allowed users to save their favorite products to potentially purchase them at a later stage.
This test increased the overall number of transactions and resulted in
+1.54% increase in basket page views
+1.83% increase in transactions
“We are really passionate about continually optimizing what we’re already doing well plus also testing new theories to drive a great customer experience and continue to drive the commercial priorities of our website.”—Roisin O’Brien, Ecommerce Trading Manager at Clarins UK
Rather than focusing on conversion rates, Mel Parekh, Head of ecommerce at Hotel Chocolate and his team wanted to focus on engagement and clickthrough rates.
Recognizing the importance of layout and user experience on customer engagement, the goal was to create a more visually appealing and intuitive homepage.
WithContentsquare’s integration with AB Tasty, his team redesigned the homepage, focusing on the category tiles, which were found to be the most attractive elements on the page.
By optimizing the homepage, they saw a
-10% reduction in bounce rates
+1.67% increase in visiting time
+0.54% increase in overall conversion rates, +7.24% increase on desktop
Mel Parekh, Head of ecommerce at Hotel Chocolate talked about customer loyalty at a recent Contentsquare CX Circle event.
Smarter insights with Contentsquare
Contentsquare is the all-in-one Experience Intelligence platform designed to be easily used by anyone that cares about digital journeys. With our flexible and scalable platform, you quickly get a deep understanding of your customers’ whole online journey.
Our AI-powered insights provide those “ah ha” moments you need to deliver the right experiences. You get to work faster and smarter with the confidence to know what to do next to improve your digital experiences. Leading brands use Contentsquare to grow their business, deliver more customer happiness and move with greater agility in a constantly changing world. Our insights are used to optimize the experience on over 1.3 million websites worldwide. For more information, visit: www.contentsquare.com
Hello! I’m Léo, Product Manager at AB Tasty. I’m in charge of AB Tasty’s JavaScript tag that is currently running on thousands of websites around the world. As you can guess, my roadmap is full of topics around data collection, privacy, and… performance.
It’s why I’m so excited to give an update on our performance, and how we’ve worked hard to be the best. We’re now providing loading times up to 4 faster than other solutions on the market.
In a world where every second counts, slow-loading pages are the fast track to lost revenue. At AB Tasty, we know that speed isn’t just about convenience; it’s about delivering the smooth, reliable experience that today’s consumers expect.
That’s why we’re thrilled to be recognized by ThirdPartyWeb.today for having one of the lowest impacts on web performance among top experimentation and personalization platforms. This acknowledgment affirms our commitment to speed, scalability, and brand satisfaction.
But what does this actually mean for brands using AB Tasty?
Let’s dive into how prioritizing performance can improve your SERP rankings, customer experience (CX), and overall campaign effectiveness.
Why Web Performance Impacts Your Bottom Line
Imagine clicking on a page that seems to take forever to load. Chances are, you’d be out of there faster than you could say “conversion rate.” And you wouldn’t be alone: slow page load times can lead to increased bounce rates, missed opportunities, and, ultimately, frustrated visitors.
Good performance translates into smoother customer journeys, which leads to better engagement and, most importantly, higher conversion rates.
ThirdPartyWeb.today: The Performance Benchmark
ThirdPartyWeb.today is an independent performance data visualization initiative that analyzes the impact of various platforms on page speed. It ranks tools according to their performance cost, drawing data from nearly 4 million websites to create an unbiased performance benchmark. For brands aiming to deliver a seamless experience without sacrificing speed, ThirdPartyWeb.today provides a reliable guide for evaluating the performance impact of their tools.
Being recognized as one of the most performance-friendly Experience Optimization platforms by ThirdPartyWeb.today means our clients know they’re partnering with a technology designed with speed in mind.
What Makes AB Tasty the Fastest?
Our tech teams have worked tirelessly to make AB Tasty not only an intuitive experimentation and personalization platform, but one that prioritizes high performance. Here’s a quick look at the innovations that make AB Tasty so fast and reliable:
Modular Architecture with Innovative Dynamic Importing and Smart Caching Technology Our platform is built with a modular architecture, where only essential code is loaded for each campaign. This keeps file sizes lean, reducing load time and resource consumption.Our proprietary smart caching technology ensures that visitors only need to load the data they haven’t accessed before. By minimizing redundant data calls, we significantly reduce load times across all devices. We also provide worldwide API endpoints and have a global CDN presence with multiple Edge locations and regional Edge caches for fast response times no matter where you and your site visitors are.
Performance Center AB Tasty’s dedicated Performance Center allows you to monitor your campaign performance in real-time. This tool gives you full transparency into what’s happening behind the scenes, so you can make adjustments as needed to keep things running smoothly. It provides recommendations to help you monitor and improve tag weight. Learn all about it here.
Single-Page Application (SPA) Compatibility AB Tasty’s platform is SPA-compatible without requiring custom code, making it easier for developers to integrate AB Tasty into their tech stack. AB Tasty is running on a native Vanilla TypeScript framework. Our tag is compatible with modern JS frameworks, including React, Angular, Vue, Meteor or Ember. The tag is unique for all environments and doesn’t require any additional implementation. Many of our customers have left their previous provider due to challenges with SPA pages. In these tools, changes are often not “sticky” or flicker when there is a dynamic content load. SPA tests in these environments often require custom code for each test, which makes testing more complicated and less user-friendly.
Flicker-Free Experiences AB Tasty’s tag uses a blended approach of both synchronous and asynchronous scripts to eliminate flicker, while maintaining optimised performance. Other solutions will prescribe “anti-flicker” snippets to eliminate flicker, which is not a recommended practice. It means hiding the body’s content while the tag loads, which ultimately delays the rendering of the site. This causes a worse user experience, increases your Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) metric, and may ultimately lead to increased bounce rates and decreased conversions. In contrast, AB Tasty’s synchronous tag uses 3kb of render-blocking to allow the tag to execute quickly before the page loads, as opposed to blocking the visibility of the page for the full package size.
And that translates to…
First loading time < 100ms Caching loading time < 10ms Execution time < 500 milliseconds Minimal Lighthouse Core Web Vitals impact
Cheers to Our Product and Tech Teams
This wouldn’t be possible without the dedication of our Product and Tech teams (thanks team!). We’ve dared to innovate, pushing the limits of what’s possible with web performance in the experimentation and personalization space.
The Bottom Line
When brands choose AB Tasty, they’re choosing a platform that prioritizes both innovation and performance. By minimizing impact on web performance, we’re helping brands deliver faster, better experiences that delight customers and drive results.
Curious to learn more about? Contact us today to discover what else sets us apart.
In today’s mobile-first world, where smartphones dominate more than half of global web traffic, optimizing for mobile has never been more crucial. Mobile usage surpassed desktop in the US in 2022 and in the UK in 2023, signaling a clear shift in consumer behavior. Brands are now urged to design with mobile in mind first, adapting for desktop as needed, rather than the reverse. This shift may seem daunting for teams, but it’s a necessary evolution to meet the expectations of today’s users.
Whether your customers are researching products or making purchases, their mobile experience can make or break their journey with your brand. While it’s clear that more shopping is done on mobile devices than on desktop, the real question remains: how significant is mobile shopping overall? Today’s mobile-savvy consumer isn’t just using their device for convenience, but to blend their in-store and online shopping into one seamless experience. In fact, nearly 80% of shoppers globally use their smartphones to browse a retailer’s website while shopping in-store, and 74% use the store’s app. However, only 33% of consumers prefer making purchases on their phones, with 49% reporting a smoother experience on desktop or tablet. This highlights just how important it is for brands to enhance their mobile offerings for a seamless experience across all devices.
To delve into the complexities of mobile optimization Mary Kate, AB Tasty’s Head of Growth Marketing for North America, teamed up with Allie Tkachenko, a UI/UX Strategist at WPromote, for a webinar on mastering mobile. AB Tasty’s platform enables brands to deliver personalized customer experiences, while Wpromote helps design and optimize engaging web experiences that convert. They emphasize a key message: mobile optimization isn’t just about resizing for a smaller screen – it’s about creating an intuitive, seamless journey that aligns with today’s mobile-first consumer’s behaviors and expectations.
It’s critical that mobile websites excel in areas like speed, navigation, and user-friendliness. Let’s dig into three actionable strategies from the webinar to help your brand stay ahead and deliver an improved mobile experience for your customers.
1. Maximizing limited space
One of the biggest challenges in mobile design is maximizing limited screen space without overwhelming users. The key is to keep crucial content above the fold—on mobile, this means placing essential elements like navigation bars, CTAs, and product highlights in a prominent position, visible without scrolling. This is particularly important on search landing pages, the homepage, and other high-traffic areas. A well-organized and streamlined navigation system that helps users quickly find what they need can lead to higher engagement and reduced bounce rates.
While desktops offer ample space to break down navigation into detailed categories, mobile design requires a more simplified structure due to space constraints. Consider grouping categories under broader buckets like “Top Categories” or similar, allowing users to easily explore the site without feeling overwhelmed by too many options. Another key strategy is leveraging responsible design, such as implementing sticky navigation bars or menus that stay visible as users scroll. This approach, widely adopted across industries, ensures easy access to important links and minimizes the effort required to navigate the site.
AB Tasty in action
The UX team at Clarins wanted to make their product more visible on their category pages. In the original layout, filtering and sorting functions were stacked, removing space from the second row of products appearing. After testing a column layout for the filtering and sorting menus, the team saw a significant improvement—bounce rates decreased, and clicks to products increased by 34%.
The “Thumb Zone” refers to the area of the screen that is easiest for users to reach with their thumbs, typically the lower portion of the screen. Since most users interact with their phones one-handed, placing critical CTAs, buttons, and interactive elements within this zone is important for accessibility and ease of use.
Consider this: a navigation bar that starts at the top of the page but shifts responsively to the bottom as the user scrolls. This keeps it in an expected spot initially, avoiding any disruption to the user’s flow, and then moves it to a more reachable area as they continue browsing.
Another thing to keep in mind is sizing. Whether it’s buttons, images, form fields, or menu links, the size of these elements plays a huge role in usability. You can’t just shrink them to save space—you have to ensure they’re “tappable” so users can easily interact. While reachability is key, think about what doesn’t need to be within reach, like informational banners or logos. You can place those outside the thumb zone, saving prime space for interactive elements.
Brands that prioritize the thumb zone in their mobile designs see improved user engagement and lower frustration levels. This small shift can make a significant difference in usability and customer satisfaction.
AB Tasty in action
The team at Club Med, a leading travel and hospitality brand, observed that their original mobile site displayed a navigation bar at the top of the page, which would disappear as users scrolled down. To increase user engagement with different category offerings, they created a variation of the mobile homepage with a sticky navigation bar which remained at the bottom of the screen while scrolling.
The results of the A/B test revealed a 12% increase in click rates, a 12% increase in access to the transaction funnel, and a 2% decrease in the bounce rate for users showing the variation with the sticky navigation bar. This approach effectively makes information more physically accessible.
Optimizing the thumb zone
Bottom Navigation
Sizing
Reachability
3. Improving processes
Lengthy forms and cumbersome checkout processes are major obstacles to conversion in mobile digital experiences. Mobile users expect a seamless, fast journey, and frustration with complex forms often leads to abandoned carts. Streamlining these processes—especially form fills and checkouts—can reduce friction and improve conversions. We’ve all experienced the annoyance of having to redo a form, fearing progress might be lost, which can lead to users abandoning the process entirely. Key areas for optimization include simplifying checkout by offering guest checkout options and exploring one-click payment methods.
Search and product discovery also present unique challenges on mobile devices due to limited screen space. With condensed menus and site navigation, users often rely heavily on the search function. Optimizing your search results pages to help users quickly find specific products can drastically improve the user experience. The space constraints of mobile mean that every element, including search results, should guide users efficiently to what they’re looking for.
Lastly, page load speed plays a vital role in retaining users. A slow-loading site can deter users, leading them to abandon your site altogether. Reducing load times is crucial for keeping users engaged. Understanding your audience and continuously optimizing these processes will help ensure your site meets their needs and encourages conversions.
AB Tasty in action
Travel insurance company, DirectAsia, needed users to fill out a form to generate an insurance quote. The team observed that customers were not completing the forms as smoothly as expected. To address this, they implemented a variation in the test where bolded check marks appeared to validate each completed field. This change created a sense of progress for users as they navigated the form and alleviated any uncertainty about needing to go back to correct errors.
As a result of this test, DirectAsia achieved a 1.97% increase in quote generations and a 7.78% increase in transaction rates. By reassuring users throughout the form-filling process, DirectAsia successfully guided more customers through their quote generation form.
Optimizing mobile processes
Checkout
Search and discovery
Speed & image loading
Wrapping up
Mobile optimization is about much more than making your website look good on a smaller screen; it’s about crafting a seamless, user-friendly experience that enhances the customer journey. Whether you’re focusing on improving site speed, optimizing design for better accessibility, or streamlining complex processes, the suggestions above provide a solid foundation for mastering mobile optimization. By understanding the nuances of mobile behavior and catering to the needs of your users, your brand can create a frictionless experience that drives conversions and fosters customer loyalty.
Stay ahead in the mobile-first era by ensuring your website design and processes align with the expectations of today’s consumers. AB Tasty can help achieve this goal by providing innovative tools and data-driven testing to enhance your mobile strategy. As mobile usage continues to grow, so does the importance of providing a smooth, engaging, and conversion-focused experience.
If you want to get all the details. – watch the webinar below.
As we approach the most lucrative time of the year for e-commerce—Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the broader holiday season—businesses are laser-focused on maximizing their revenue potential. The stakes are high and the competition is fierce, but with the right strategies you can set your brand apart and significantly boost your bottom line. In this blog, we’ll dive into some key tactics for winning big during the holiday season which can all be found in our “30 Tests for Black Friday” e-book.
Understanding the E-Commerce Landscape During the Holidays
The holiday season, particularly around Black Friday and Cyber Monday, represents a critical period for e-commerce businesses. Last year alone, consumers spent over $9 billion on Black Friday. With more and more customers shopping online, the opportunity for e-commerce businesses to capture market share is immense.
However, this opportunity comes with challenges. The influx of traffic can strain your website, and the sheer number of competitors vying for attention can make it difficult to stand out. That’s where a well-designed strategy comes into play.
Prioritize Website Performance and Reliability
One of the first steps to ensure a successful holiday season is to prepare your website for the surge in traffic. Testing your website load is crucial. Even a one-second delay in page load time can lead to a 6% reduction in conversions.
Start by simulating high traffic volumes to identify potential bottlenecks. Optimize your servers, compress images, and streamline your code to ensure your website can handle the holiday rush. Remember, a smooth user experience is non-negotiable.
Craft Compelling and Urgent CTAs
The holiday season is all about urgency. Limited-time offers, countdowns, and exclusive deals create a sense of urgency that drives conversions. We can’t emphasize enough the importance of A/B testing your calls-to-action (CTAs) to find the most effective wording, design, and placement.
Experiment with phrases like “Limited Time Offer,” “Exclusive Black Friday Deal,” or “Shop Now Before It’s Gone.” The goal is to create a sense of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) that compels customers to take immediate action. A/B testing here is an ideal way to help you find the messaging that works best for your audience.
Personalization is Key
Consumers expect a personalized shopping experience, especially during the holidays. Tailoring your content and offers to individual users can significantly increase engagement and conversions. Use previous interactions, browsing behavior, and purchase history data to deliver personalized recommendations and offers.
For example, if a customer frequently purchases tech gadgets, highlight your latest electronics deals in your email campaigns and on-site recommendations. We strongly advocate using dynamic content that changes based on user behavior, ensuring that each visitor sees the most relevant offers.
Optimize Your Mobile Experience
With more than half of all e-commerce transactions now happening on mobile devices, optimizing your mobile experience is no longer optional—it’s essential. A seamless mobile experience can differentiate between a sale and an abandoned cart.
Ensure your website is responsive, with easy navigation, fast load times, and simplified checkout processes. Test your mobile site thoroughly, focusing on the user experience from landing to checkout. Our mobile-first world demands a smooth mobile experience, so it’s crucial to run mobile-specific A/B tests to identify and fix any friction points.
Leverage Social Proof
Social proof is a powerful tool in the e-commerce arsenal, particularly during the holiday season. Customer reviews, ratings, and user-generated content can significantly influence purchasing decisions.
Consider showcasing recent customer reviews on your product pages or adding a “Trending Now” section highlighting popular items. Social proof can increase trust and encourage hesitant shoppers to make a purchase.
Experiment with Pricing Strategies
Pricing plays a crucial role in holiday season sales. Dynamic pricing, flash sales, and bundling products are just a few strategies that can entice customers to buy more. Running A/B tests on pricing strategies can help you determine what resonates most with your audience.
For instance, you might test a “Buy One, Get One Free” offer against a “25% Off” deal to see which drives more conversions. The key is to stay flexible and willing to experiment until you find the ideal message for your audience.
Use Email Marketing to Drive Conversions
Email marketing remains one of the most effective channels for driving holiday sales. A well-crafted email campaign can keep your brand top-of-mind and encourage repeat purchases. Segment your email list to target different customer groups with personalized offers.
You can test subject lines, send times, email content, and more to optimize open rates and conversions. Consider sending reminder emails for abandoned carts and exclusive early access deals to your most loyal customers.
Streamline Your Checkout Process
Cart abandonment is a major challenge during the holiday season, with many shoppers dropping off at the checkout stage. To combat this, ensure your checkout process is as smooth and simple as possible.
Minimize the number of steps required to complete a purchase, offer multiple payment options, and provide clear shipping information. Test options like a one-click checkout option to see if it reduces cart abandonment rates.
Invest in Retargeting Campaigns
Retargeting is a powerful way to re-engage visitors who have shown interest in your products but haven’t yet made a purchase. During the holiday season, retargeting can help you recover lost sales and boost your conversion rates.
Set up retargeting campaigns that display personalized ads to users who have visited your site or abandoned their carts. Timing is so important when it comes to retargeting—start your campaigns early and increase frequency as the holidays approach.
Offer Free Shipping and Easy Returns
Shipping costs and return policies can make or break a sale, especially during the holidays. Offering free shipping can be a strong incentive for customers to complete their purchases. Likewise, a hassle-free return policy can reduce the perceived risk of buying online.
We suggest promoting these benefits prominently on your website and in your marketing materials. Consider running tests to see how different shipping and return options impact conversion rates. Another great option is to test using a progress bar to encourage larger orders in exchange for free shipping.
Plan for Post-Holiday Retention
While the holiday season is a prime time for acquisition, it’s also an opportunity to focus on retention. Customers acquired during this period can become repeat buyers if nurtured correctly.
Post-holiday, consider running loyalty programs, offering exclusive discounts for future purchases, and sending personalized thank-you emails. Maintaining engagement with your customers beyond the holiday season will build long-term loyalty.
Conclusion: Prepare, Test, and Optimize
The e-commerce holiday season is a marathon, not a sprint. To truly win big, it’s crucial to prepare in advance, test rigorously, and optimize continuously. By implementing the strategies outlined in this blog—and leveraging the proven tests from AB Tasty’s “30 Tests for Black Friday“—you can position your business for success during the most critical time of the year.
Remember, the key to a successful holiday season lies in your ability to adapt and respond to the ever-changing needs of your customers. Stay agile, keep testing, and make data-driven decisions to maximize your holiday sales.
This guest blog was written by Kit Heighway, Director of Optimization, at Daydot, a digital agency that specializes in crafting exceptional experiences to drive measurable revenue growth. They are experts in Conversion Rate Optimization, Performance UX Design, and Customer Lifecycle Optimization for Subscription, eCommerce, and Non-Profit brands.
Let’s imagine you are relaxing at home after a long day’s work, when the doorbell rings. You jump up, eager to see what’s waiting behind the door – a new clothing item, a cooking kit, or perhaps a treat for your pet? The excitement is real, and it’s all thanks to your recent subscription box sign-up.
Subscription boxes have quickly become consumer’s favorite way to shop from brands they love. In fact, the global subscription box market is projected to exceed $75 billion by 2025.* With so many brands wanting to get in on the action, the key question is: how can you participate in a way that resonates with your audience? A/B testing subscription features is a great starting place.
The Daydot team dive into the subscription box world and try out 5 of the most popular subscription purchase journeys. In the article below, we share what features we loved the most, giving you our round-up of the best features to test on your digital subscription journey.
The subscription journeys reviewed: Abel and Cole, Bloom and Wild, Gin-box, Dear-bump, Bella & Duke, Perky Blenders, Butternut Box.
5 Subscription Trends to Test
1. Combining expected USPs with what makes your business different
In 2024 certain features have become standard expectations in the world of subscription services. Phrases like “Free delivery,” “Home delivery,” or “Cancel anytime” are no longer points of differentiation – they’re baseline consumer expectations. However, these essentials still matter, and this is where the savvier brands really stand out, by mixing their unique personality with those expected USPs.
Take Abel & Cole, for example. As the leader in organic products, they don’t settle for the dull “Free delivery to your door.” Instead, they integrate their brand personality into the message with “Get your ethical food delivery dropped to your door.” It’s a small tweak, but it adds a layer of authenticity and makes a difference in standing out.
Abel and Cole: “Get your ethical food delivery dropped to your door”
Test ideas:
Expected USP copy improvements
2. Cancelation reassurance throughout the user journey
Subscription cancellation will happen but how you handle it can make or break the customer experience. A recent study shows that over 25% of consumers prioritize easy, penalty-free cancellations when choosing a service.* People value the assurance that they can leave without any hassle.
The best brands excel in this area by offering clear, upfront reassurance about cancellation. From the product listing page, where they confidently state, “There’s no commitment – you can skip or cancel at any time,” to the basket page with a gentle reminder, “Delivered weekly, but you can cancel anytime.” Right before the final step, they reinforce the message: “Count on us for reliable weekly delivery, with the flexibility to skip, pause, or cancel anytime.”
By making cancellation easy and transparent, these brands turn a potentially stressful decision into another positive touchpoint, helping customers feel in control from start to finish.
Test ideas:
Homepage cancelation reassurance
Product listing/details cancelation reassurance
Basket cancelation reassurance
Checkout cancelation reassurance
Cancelation messaging tone formal vs friend
3. Showcasing how subscriptions could fit into users’ real lives
For physical subscriptions, the key is to make them feel tangible and exciting in the early stages of the purchase journey. In a digital world getting something tangible is a huge draw.
How can you showcase that experience on a website without sending samples?
Butternut Box achieves this with a fun, heartwarming video on their landing page. It walks potential users through the excitement of the box arriving at the door, the thrill of unboxing, and of course, a happy dog enjoying their treat. It’s more than just a video—it’s a mini-experience that brings the product to life.
And Abel & Cole? They’re leading the way again, by adding recipe ideas and videos directly on the product page. It’s far more engaging than a simple image gallery, sparking users’ imaginations and making their experience more immersive.
Test ideas:
An unboxing or arrival video
A social media feed showing real users enjoying your subscription
Previews of activities you can do with the subscription (like recipe guides, or dog games)
4. Remembering that users don’t just subscribe for themselves
It’s easy to overlook that many users aren’t subscribing for their own needs – they’re often gifting a subscription to someone special. Whether it’s for a child heading off to college or a new colleague at work, recurring subscription businesses miss this opportunity by sticking to a one-size-fits-all approach.
Perky Blenders, however, has mastered the art of gifting by offering flexible three, six, and twelve-month subscription options for their premium, freshly roasted coffee.
Test ideas:
Gifting subscription journey
Business gifting journey
Personalization based on gift giving intent (supporting a friend, new home, starting uni, new parent etc)
5. Not assuming that subscriptions will last forever
Consumers want subscriptions to be as hassle-free as possible. Hidden or complicated cancellation processes can be a major turnoff.
Surprisingly, more businesses aren’t testing fixed, limited-time prepaid subscriptions. Some customers don’t want to commit to an ongoing plan, no matter how easy cancellation is. Offering a set subscription period could disrupt the subscription box journey in a big way.
Bloom & Wild are ahead of the curve here, letting customers pick between three, six, and twelve month subscriptions without any automatic renewal.
Test ideas:
3 month fixed term subscription
6 month fixed term subscription
X time fixed term subscription (reflecting a particular life-stage your product may be purchased for)
Wrapping up
These five innovative strategies are helping subscription leaders enhance their customer journeys, boost conversions and drive revenue growth. Now is a good time to evaluate your own subscription flow and consider integrating some of these ideas. But don’t just copy and paste – Remember, about 80-90% of digital ideas flop because they weren’t tested first. That’s why Experimentation is essential before implementing. It allows you to identify what clicks with your users and ensures that you invest in features that deliver results, rather than relying on assumptions.
If your organization is having trouble successfully running A/B tests in areas of your site where customers are going through the purchase flow, the issue may be due to Single Page Applications (SPAs) on your site. As customers move through the process, your A/B testing tool might not recognize their progress in an SPA environment.
There is enormous value in A/B testing critical areas of the web experience that are often operating in SPA environments, such as an eCommerce checkout.
This guest blog post was written by Jason Boal, The Principal Analyst & Optimization Strategist at 33 Sticks – a leading American analytics agency. Let’s address this common issue and uncover ways to overcome this to unlock hidden revenue on your site.
1. What is a SPA and how can I tell if the web experience uses one?
In a Single-Page Application (SPA) environment, content is loaded dynamically without requiring a full page refresh or reload. User interactions occur on a single page, with new content being loaded as the user navigates. Gmail is a prime example of an SPA. At a high level, an SPA functions similarly to a standard client-server interaction, but the key difference lies in what is returned to the browser.
To determine if you are operating in a Single-Page Application (SPA) environment on your site, pay attention to whether the page reloads as you interact online. If you see the page load indicator—such as the spinning icon in the browser tab (in Chrome)—it means the page is reloading, and you are likely using a traditional multi-page application (MPA).
Many websites are hybrids, meaning that only certain sections, like the checkout process, function as an SPA. To find out which parts of your site are SPAs, you can ask your development team for clarification.
2. Does my testing tool work within SPA environments and what do I do if it doesn’t?
Visual editors are becoming extremely popular in the A/B testing space, for many reasons. One is that Marketers are developing and launching more tests compared to the DEV team. If your testing tool has a difficult time loading and testing content in the visual editor, the reason could be that the tool is either not equipped or not set up to properly handle SPAs. This often happens in a secure checkout flow, where the customer is required to step through items like shipping address, billing, etc. The page you are attempting to A/B test on will not properly load in the visual editor and you will receive an error message.
FIGURE 1 – VISUAL EDITOR SPA ERROR MESSAGE
Ask your vendor if your testing tool can detect changes in the DOM and if it has a mechanism to look for timing.
Here are two challenges that some A/B testing tools face:
Visual Editors: Some A/B testing tools rely on the initial page load to determine what content to modify. These tools may struggle when content needs to change without a page reload. For example, if your test content is on page 3 of your site’s checkout flow, which is an SPA, the tool might not detect the need to inject content changes because there are no page loads as users navigate through the checkout flow.
Timing: As content on the page changes, it can be tricky for an A/B testing tool to insert test variations at the right moment. Variations can’t be applied before the content starts loading, but waiting until the content has fully loaded can result in users seeing the content change, a phenomenon known as “flicker.”
AB Tasty has extensive experience creating A/B tests in Single-Page Application (SPA) environments. We recommend implementing a delay on our tag’s execution so that it only triggers when the page is fully ready. This is achieved using a proprietary locking mechanism. This is just one example of how AB Tasty stands out in the A/B testing industry.
3. How do I take it to the next level?
Once you’ve unlocked A/B testing in SPAs, it is time to brainstorm testing ideas and develop a strategic roadmap to uncover ways to increase revenue for your organization. Here are a few ideas to help you jump-start that process!
Test various methods of updating cart quantity.
Test product detail page functions such as color variant selection methods.
Test buy box functions such as stock amount and store information.
Test different shipping messages based on cart value.
Test reordering flow steps.
Test navigation patterns or menu structures to optimize user flow within the SPA.
A/B test various UI/UX elements like buttons, forms, or interactive features specific to your SPA.
Test personalization strategies based on user behavior and interactions within the SPA.
Key Takeaways
There is enormous value in A/B testing critical areas of the web experience that are often operating in SPA environments, such as an eCommerce checkout flow. This is usually the last stage of any digital customer journey and vital to get right.
Determine whether or not your site leverages SPAs anywhere on your site.
Dig into your testing tool to ensure it can properly load test content changes with SPA environments.
Understand what other AB testing tools are out there and how they handle SPAs.
Develop an optimization roadmap based on your new knowledge!
Shiva Manjunath shares how debunking best practices, embracing failure, and fostering a culture of learning can elevate experimentation to new heights.
In this episode of The 1000 Experiments Club, guest host and AB Tasty’s Head of Growth Marketing UK, John Hughes, sat down with Shiva Manjunath, Senior Web Product Manager of CRO at Motive and Host of the podcast From A to B. Shiva’s journey through roles at Gartner, Norwegian Cruise Line, Speero, Edible, and now Motive, has made him a passionate advocate for the transformative power of experimentation.
During their conversation, Shiva discussed the pitfalls of following “best practices” blindly, the importance of creating an environment where failure is seen as a step toward success, and how companies can truly build a culture of experimentation.
Here are some of the key takeaways.
The myth of ‘Best Practices’
Too often, the so-called experimentation best practices become a checkbox exercise, rather than a thoughtful strategy.
“If you’re focused on best practices, you’re likely missing the point of true optimization,” Shiva notes.
He recounted a situation at Gartner where simplifying a form—typically hailed as a best practice—actually led to a sharp drop in conversions. His point? Understanding user motivation and context is far more important than relying on one-size-fits-all rules. It’s this deeper, more nuanced approach to experimentation that drives real results.
“If what you believe is this best practice checklist nonsense, all CRO is just a checklist of tasks to do on your site. And that’s so incorrect,” Shiva emphasized, urging practitioners to move beyond surface-level tactics and truly understand their audience.
Embracing failure in experimentation
A major theme of the discussion was the pivotal role failure plays in the journey to success. Shiva was candid about his early experiments, admitting that many didn’t go as planned. But these “failures” were crucial stepping stones in his development.
“My first ten tests were all terrible. They all sucked,” Shiva admitted, underscoring that even the most seasoned experts start with mistakes. He stressed that organizations must create an environment where employees can experiment freely, learn from their mistakes, and continue to improve.
“If you’re penalized for running a losing test, you’re not in a culture of experimentation,” Shiva insists.
Organizations that punish failure are stifling innovation. Instead, Shiva advocates for an environment where employees can test, learn, and iterate without fear. “The idea that you have the flexibility to discuss failures and focus on, ‘Well, I ran this test. It lost. Now, what do we do next?’—that’s a culture of experimentation.”
Scaling experimentation maturity
Shiva also explored the varying levels of experimentation maturity within organizations. Many companies claim to have a “culture of experimentation,” but few truly practice it at scale. Shiva emphasized the importance of making experimentation accessible to everyone in the organization, not just a select few.
Reflecting on the loss of Google Optimize, Shiva acknowledged its role as a gateway into the world of experimentation. “I got into experimentation through Google Optimize,” Shiva recalled, recognizing the tool’s importance in lowering the barrier to entry for newcomers. He urged companies to lower barriers to entry and enable more people to engage with experimentation, thereby fostering a more mature and widespread culture of testing.
The role of curiosity and data in experimentation
Another critical point Shiva raised was the importance of curiosity in experimentation. He believes that genuine curiosity drives the desire to ask “why” and dig deeper into user behavior, which is essential for effective experimentation.
“If you’re not genuinely curious about the why behind many things, I don’t know if experimentation is the field for you,” Shiva stated, underscoring curiosity as a crucial soft skill in the field.
Shiva also highlighted the foundational role of being data-driven in any experimentation strategy. However, he cautioned that having data isn’t enough—it must be effectively used to drive decisions.
“If you’re in a business setting and the business looks at your program and this is zero test wins, right? And then after two years, they would rightfully say ‘is this the way it’s supposed to go?’” Shiva remarked, pointing out that data-driven decisions are key to sustaining a culture of experimentation.
What else can you learn from our conversation with Shiva Manjunath?
Why it’s crucial to critically evaluate industry buzzwords and ensure they align with real practices.
How true personalization in experimentation goes beyond just adding a user’s name.
The need for thorough analysis to genuinely support data-driven decisions.
Shiva’s take on the future of experimentation after Google Optimize and how companies can adapt.
About Shiva Manjunath
Shiva Manjunath is the Senior Web Product Manager of CRO at Motive and Host of the podcast From A to B. His insatiable curiosity about user behavior and deep passion for digital marketing have made him a standout in the world of experimentation. With experience at top companies like Gartner, Norwegian Cruise Line, and Edible, Shiva is dedicated to demystifying CRO and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in the field.
About 1,000 Experiments Club
The 1,000 Experiments Club is an AB Tasty-produced podcast hosted by Marylin Montoya, AB Tasty CMO. Join Marylin and the Marketing team as they sit down with the most knowledgeable experts in the world of experimentation to uncover their insights on what it takes to build and run successful experimentation programs.
