For e-commerce success, added revenue from existing customers can be more efficient than constantly pursuing new ones. Returning buyers are a vital piece of this strategy. We recently sat down with industry experts to discuss how optimizing customer experiences can drive upselling and cross-selling opportunities. They shared practical approaches for boosting average order value (AOV) while nurturing customer loyalty and retention.
Our speakers, each experts in testing, optimization, and conversion rate, provided insights into how brands can increase revenue through personalized, thoughtful customer engagement.
Meet the experts
Nicole Story: Co-Founder & Director at Hookflash Analytics, leading experimentation in testing, optimization, and personalization.
Gerred Blyth: Chief Product Officer at Giftory, with a background in interaction design and e-commerce.
In this article, we’ll explore actionable strategies from the webinar to help you personalize to existing customers and drive growth through upselling and cross-selling—not just new customer acquisition.
1. Optimizing the cart for upsells
Upselling at the cart and checkout stages can significantly increase AOV, but it requires a carefully planned approach. As Colette Carlson explains: “Before implementing anything, it’s crucial to understand how you’re going to measure success and ensure that your conversion rate is solid. When it comes to the cart and checkout process, if those aren’t optimized, adding upsell and cross-sell strategies will only introduce more noise.” Shoppers who have reached the cart are already primed to convert, so it’s important not to disrupt their momentum with irrelevant or poorly timed offers.
“Before implementing anything, it’s crucial to understand how you’re going to measure success and ensure that your conversion rate is solid. When it comes to the cart and checkout process, if those aren’t optimized, adding upsell and cross-sell strategies will only introduce more noise.”
Collette Carlson, Director of Optimization at Astound Digital
Coordination with internal teams is also important when designing upsell strategies. For instance, if an upsell is introduced at checkout, the process should be seamless – will the original product be automatically removed from the cart if the customer selects an upgrade, or will they need to make the changes manually? Likewise, if you’re offering a bundle or cross-sell, is your system prepared to handle it without disrupting the customer experience?
Effective upsell offers are relevant to the customer’s purchase. Suggesting complementary items or upgrades can boost AOV, as 80%of consumers are more likely to complete their purchase with brands offering personalized experiences. From upsell testing experience at Giftory, Jared advises against pushing unrelated or overly expensive items, which can confuse or deter customers altogether.
Using product recommendation algorithms can streamline upselling. Automating this process ensures that customers receive relevant suggestions without the need for manual curation, creating a smoother experience for your team and the customer. AB Tasty’s product recommendation engine allows upsells based on several criteria, including most recent products, associated products, similar or more expensive items, complementary items, and top promotions.
2. Strategic product recommendations for cross-selling
To effectively cross-sell, brands must identify the right moment in the customer journey. If you offer relevant products at key points without disrupting the experience, similar to upselling. But first, establishing cross-selling metrics can lead to stronger effectiveness.
The primary metrics will vary depending on what you’re testing—whether it’s an algorithm change, a new carousel design, or a different recommendation format. There are some essential KPIs to consider:
Engagement: Track how often customers interact with cross-sell offers, such as clicks or add-to-basket rates.
Conversion rate: Measure how many customers who engage with offers complete their purchases.
Average order value (AOV): Gauge how effectively cross-sell strategies are increasing the total order value.
Items per order: Monitor if cross-sell efforts lead to additional products being added to the cart.
Overall revenue: This ultimate metric reflects the total impact of your cross-sell strategy.
Once these metrics are in place, refine your strategy by determining where cross-sell offers should appear. For example, adding a cross-sell option in the mini cart or as a pop-up at checkout can add complexity, so testing can help avoid disrupting the customer experience.
Testing cross-sell algorithms in action
Nicole Story shared a valuable example of testing product recommendation carousels. Inspired by Amazon’s success, many brands rushed to implement carousels on their websites, but forgot the importance of context. Placing multiple carousels on the homepage often leads to irrelevant suggestions and a poor experience.
Nicole’s team tested various algorithms by tailoring product recommendations to the customer’s journey. On product detail pages (PDPs), carousels that showed “related product suggestions” outperformed those with generic recommendations. The tests revealed that adjusting algorithms based on context and customer behavior was far more effective than placing standard carousels throughout the site.
As Nicole explains: “Simply introducing product recommendations and checking that box off the roadmap isn’t going to deliver real value. The key is continuous optimization and discovering what works across the entire customer journey—that’s where the real value lies.”
“Simply introducing product recommendations and checking that box off the roadmap isn’t going to deliver real value. The key is continuous optimization and discovering what works across the entire customer journey—that’s where the real value lies.”
Nicole Storey, Co-Founder & Director at Hookflash Analytics
Relevance is everything
Cross-sell strategies must be highly relevant to what the customer is already doing. As Gerred Blyth from Giftory mentioned, “We have high expectations as customers and irrelevant offers can break that trust.” Customers expect brands to know their preferences and behaviors, so it’s important that recommendations feel personalized and timely.
3. Experimentation and testing for long-term loyalty and CLV
Continuous experimentation is critical for building long-term customer loyalty and increasing customer lifetime value (CLV). Instead of relying on a single strategy, brands should constantly test and improve their approach. Colette points out that starting by analyzing existing order data can uncover natural cross-sell patterns. This provides valuable insights into which products are frequently purchased together.
For first-time visitors, bombarding them with upsell offers might backfire. Instead, let them become familiar with your brand and key products before introducing additional offers. In contrast, repeat customers may be more open to cross-sells that align with their previous purchases.
Upselling with product recommendations
According to our data a customized UX can boost revenue and increase basket size by up to 10%. Product recommendations can be seen as a form of personalization and, as our panel pointed out in the webinar, experimenting with different formats—such as carousels, quizzes, or other interactive tools—can help identify what resonates with your audience and drives engagement.
We use AI to analyze visitors’ site interactions and purchase behavior, delivering targeted recommendations, each with a specific goal. This means you can better understand which products to offer, to whom and when during the customer journey:
Product Page: Guide users to explore more products or categories.
Last Seen Products: Help users quickly resume their browsing.
Add to Cart: Encourage users to add complementary items to their basket.
Cart Page: Suggest additional items to increase order value.
Homepage: Showcase personalized content and help users navigate the site.
Our panel also discussed how different types of algorithms are necessary depending on your vertical. You can divide your algorithms into three distinct types and choose how you prioritize:
Convert: These recommendations would offer top sellers, top trending products, top converting products, top reviewed products etc.
Upsell: This could suggest most recent products viewed, associated products, similar products, compatible products etc.
Personalize: This could suggest last visited products, last bought products, user affinity or similar or associated to cart products
If you work for a beauty site, customers will replenish their favorite products, whereas home and decor might recommend accessories or similar products. While personalization drives relevance, maintaining control over the recommendation process means you can speak directly to your customer’s needs.
Giftory: fostering loyalty with timely engagement
Giftory is beginning to focus on lifetime customer value. Their approach involves using cross-sell and upsell strategies similar to a CRM initiative, introducing customers to a broader range of products both during and after their purchase. They gather data on why customers buy gifts, such as birthdays or anniversaries, and use that information to send timely product recommendations in the future.
By reaching out to customers at the right moment, such as 11 months after an anniversary purchase, Giftory can re-engage them with relevant offers without overwhelming them with constant promotions. This creates a personalized experience that encourages long-term loyalty and repeat business.
4. Subscription models for upsell and retention
Offering subscription products to upsell can improve both immediate revenue and CLV. The challenge is to find the right balance: How can you encourage customers to subscribe without overwhelming them, while also ensuring the offer feels relevant and valuable over time?
Before launching a subscription model, look at your data to understand customer behavior. Consider the difference between a one-time purchaser and a subscriber. While offering a small discount for subscribing may lower the initial AOV, the long-term benefits of recurring revenue from a loyal subscriber can make up for it.
Testing and data-driven strategy
Launching a subscription model requires more than just adding an upsell feature—it involves a data-informed approach. Starting small with a minimum viable product (MVP) allows you to test how customers respond and fine-tune the offering. Metrics like renewal rates, engagement, and overall CLV will help guide decisions about whether to scale the program.
As Gerred advises: “Walk before you run. Start with the first test—an MVP. It doesn’t have to be the final version you’ll roll out, but that initial test will help you understand the value and prove the benefits. From there, you can evolve and continuously improve. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when you hear about advanced strategies and algorithms, but you don’t need to get there all at once.”
“Walk before you run. Start with the first test—an MVP. It doesn’t have to be the final version you’ll roll out, but that initial test will help you understand the value and prove the benefits. From there, you can evolve and continuously improve. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when you hear about advanced strategies and algorithms, but you don’t need to get there all at once.”
Gerred Blyth, Chief Product Officer at Giftory
Offering personalized options, such as different subscription tiers or flexible renewal cadences (monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly), can make the experience more appealing to a wider range of customers. Testing, refining, and adapting based on customer feedback will ensure that the model evolves in a way that meets both business goals and customer expectations.
Wrapping up
Just as you approach CRO with care and precision, cross-selling and upselling require a high level of attention.
Upselling and cross-selling don’t have to be complex when you have the right tools and the right strategy. If you want the expert’s opinion – watch the webinar below:
In a highly competitive digital marketplace, optimizing your website for a unique and seamless digital customer journey is no longer just a competitive advantage — it’s a necessity.
It’s important to remember that the digital customer journey does not begin and end with a purchase – it’s a web of all customer interactions and touchpoints with your brand.
AB Tasty has mapped out seven customer phases that we consider crucial in the journey. To craft unique experiences, you’ll need to differentiate these seven phases customers pass through and understand how to animate their digital journey.
Once you have a better understanding of these phases, you will be better equipped to set your business goals and properly optimize your website for growth and impact.
Click to view the full-sized infographic in a new tab
How exactly can you optimize each phase of the digital customer journey? Let’s dive right in and take a look at some examples.
Phase 1: Awareness
When visitors land on your website for the first time, a great first impression is crucial. Your page needs to be both visually appealing and intuitive. A dynamic above the fold design is a great place to start.
In this first phase, it’s important to let your best ideas shine to capture and keep your visitors’ attention. You can accomplish this by creating personalized welcome messages for first-time visitors, displaying your value proposition and organizing high-impact elements for better visibility.
Let’s take a look at Just Over The Top’s experiment to modify the layout of their homepage. They used AB Tasty’s experience optimization platform to test if their users responded better seeing a layout with product categories rather than individual products.
Original:
Variation:
After creating a test variation to run against the original layout, they saw a 17.5% click increase on the three blocks below the hero image. This brought many more users into the second phase of their customer journey.
Phase 2: Discovery
When consumers reach the second phase, they’ve already discovered your brand and they’re getting curious.
To accommodate visitors during this phase, your website should be optimized for an excellent browsing experience. Whether this means making your search bar more visible, creating dynamic filters while searching, or using a virtual assistant to get to know your visitors’ interests with a series of questions, an easy browsing experience with intelligent search is key.
In this example, Claudie Pierlot focused on optimizing the customer browsing experience by testing the search bar visibility. In their variation, the small search icon was made more visible by adding the word “recherche” (or search in English) in the top right-hand corner.
Original:
Variation:
This clear above the fold design made it easier for visitors to identify the search bar to begin their browsing experience. With this simple A/B test, they saw a 47% increase in search bar clicks and a 7% increase in conversion rates coming directly from the search bar.
In another example, Villeroy & Boch, a ceramic manufacturing company, wanted to leverage intelligent search on their website. With the help of AB Tasty, they implemented an AI search algorithm to navigate online shoppers.
With our solution, they designed a new and intuitive navigation complete with filters and a comprehensive autosuggestion feature.
By changing their search functions, Villeroy & Boch saw a 33% increase in search results clicks and a 20% increase in sales through the search function.
Phase 3: Consideration
Now is the time when your visitors are considering your brand and which products they are interested in. Showcasing your product pages in their best light during the consideration phase might be exactly what your visitor needs to continue moving down the funnel.
Let’s look at how Hanna Anderson optimized their product pages during this phase.
The clothing retail company wanted to experiment with the images on their product listing pages. Previously, their toddler line had only images of clothing sizes for an older child. They were convinced there was room for improvement and decided to run a test by changing their images to include toddler sizes.
Original:
Variation:
After implementing age-appropriate clothing images, the results were clear. During this test, the clicks on PLPs increased by almost 8% and the purchase rate on those items skyrocketed by 22%.
Phase 4: Intent
During the intent phase, your visitors are on the verge of becoming customers but need to be convinced to make a purchase.
Social proof, urgency messaging, and bundling algorithms are a few ideas to lightly nudge visitors to add to cart or add more to cart.
Let’s take a look at the impact that urgency messaging can have: IZIPIZI, an eyewear retailer, decided to add a special message flag next to their product description to show viewers how many people have purchased this product. The idea of this message is to show viewers that this product is popular and to encourage them to take action.
With this simple sentence of social proof to validate a product’s desirability, they saw a 36% increase in add-to-basket rate.
In another scenario, you can see that adding a progress bar is a simple way to upsell. With a progress par, you are showing your customer how close they are to earning free shipping, which entices them to add more to their cart.
Vanessa Bruno experimented with this additive with the help of AB Tasty and saw a 3.15% increase in transactions and a €6 AOV uplift.
Phase 5: Purchase
Purchase frustration is real. If customers experience friction during checkout, you risk losing money.
Friction refers to any issues the visitors may encounter such as unclear messaging during the payment (did the payment actually go through?), confusing or expensive shipping options, discounts not working, double authentication check-in delays, difficult sign-in, and more.
Optimizing your checkout sequence for your audience with rollouts and KPI-triggered rollbacks can help you find a seamless fit for your website.
Let’s look at an example for this phase: Galeries Lafayette, the French luxury department store, saw an opportunity to optimize their checkout by displaying default payment methods that do not require double authentication.
During this test, they saw a €113,661 increase in profit, a €5 uplift in average order value, and a 38% increase in the conversion rate by adding the CB (bank card) option for a quicker checkout.
Phase 6: Experience
Optimizing the buyer experience doesn’t end after the purchase. Now is the time to grow your customer base and stop churn in its tracks. So, how do you keep your customers interested? By maintaining the same level of quality in your messages and personalization.
Let’s look at how Envie de Fraise, a French boutique, leveraged their user information to transform a normal post-purchase encounter into a personalized experience.
One of their customers had just purchased a maternity dress and had been browsing multiple maternity dresses prior to their purchase. By knowing this information, they experimented with using the “you will love these products” algorithm to gently nudge their customer to continue shopping.
With a customized recommendation like this, Envie de Fraise saw a €127K increase in their potential profit. As your customer spends more time with your brand, you will learn more about their habits and interests. The more time they spend with you, the more personalized you can make their experience.
Phase 7: Loyalty
In the final step of your customer’s journey, they move into the loyalty phase. To turn customers into champions of your brand, it’s important to remind them that you value their loyalty.
This can be done by sending emails with individual offers, social proof, product suggestions, or incentives for joining a loyalty program to earn rewards or complete product reviews.
Another example of this is sending a personalized email displaying items that are frequently bought together that align with their purchase. This will remind the customer about your brand and give them recommendations for future purchases.
Why Optimizing the Digital Customer Journey is Essential to Boost Conversions
The fierce competition in the e-commerce marketplace is undeniable. In order to attract and retain customers, you have to focus on crafting personalized user experiences to turn passive visitors into active buyers.
Understanding their needs in each phase and optimizing your digital space is your best solution to nudge visitors down the purchasing funnel.
By personalizing the experience of your customers during each phase of the digital customer journey, you can ensure an optimal shopping experience, boost purchases, increase customer satisfaction, and see more repeat customers.
AB Tasty is the best-in-class experience optimization platform that empowers you to create a richer digital experience – fast. From experimentation to personalization, this solution can help you activate and engage your audience to boost your conversions.
Using personalization to enhance your customer journey
With the vast array of products and brands to choose from, customer loyalty has become more important than ever. By focusing on personalizing the digital customer journey, you can reduce the chances of your customer abandoning their purchase or opting for another brand.
An individualized customer journey is beneficial for the following reasons:
Option overload: As online brands fight for the attention of consumers, it’s important to set your brand apart from the rest, with a customer journey that is tailored to their needs.
Analysis paralysis: With a plethora of information now readily available to customers who are researching and comparing potential purchases, your digital customer journey can help to deliver the information they need with ease and offer them the best shopping experience, thereby tipping the scale in your favor.
Lack of loyalty: The ease with which a customer can change service providers has increased the pressure and importance of meeting their needs during the entirety of the digital customer journey. Every interaction matters.
Offering a personalized experience elevates the customer journey and helps to ensure customer satisfaction. By leveraging the power of personalization, you can adapt the individual phases of the customer journey to each customer’s needs for an optimal e-commerce experience.
Personalization is the key to customer satisfaction
There is no way to deny the intense competition in the e-commerce space. Attracting and retaining customers is more difficult now than it has ever been. To advance ahead of the competition, you must understand customer needs and personalize each user journey with the help of a customer journey model.
By personalizing each experience your customers have with your brand, you can be sure to give your customers an optimal shopping experience, guarantee customer satisfaction, and encourage customer loyalty.
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.
When it comes to optimizing your website for better performance, experimentation is key to uncovering the areas that will make the biggest impact. Every page and interaction is an opportunity to boost conversions, streamline the user experience, and reduce friction. But with so many possibilities, where do you start testing? What are the key hotspots on your website that can deliver quick wins and meaningful improvements?
Finding the right areas to test can be tricky, but knowing where to focus is important for getting results quickly. That’s why we’ve identified five key questions to help guide your experimentation efforts:
Is the content relevant to “me” (the visitor)?
Is the next action clear?
What may be distracting?
What could cause anxiety?
What is creating urgency?
By addressing these questions, you can start identifying the areas on your website—what we call Experimentation Hotspots—that offer the most potential for improvement. In this guide, we’ll explore these important areas, from the homepage to the checkout funnel, that are ideal for testing. Whether you’re optimizing for mobile, app, or desktop, these tips will help you kickstart your experimentation journey and start making impactful changes.
1. Homepage
The homepage is where you show people who you are and what your brand means. It serves as the gateway to various sections, from product categories to special offers, and is where users often return mid-session. Your homepage often sets the tone for the rest of the user’s journey, making optimization crucial.
One effective strategy is to experiment with the placement and labels of your call-to-action (CTA) buttons. Ensuring that users can quickly locate key actions, such as signing up or starting their shopping journey, can make a significant difference in engagement. Testing different CTA labels, such as “Explore Now” versus “Shop Now,” helps determine which drives the most conversions.
Additionally, it’s essential to test the layout and how content is presented. Category links, sales promotions, and other critical pieces of content should be placed in a way that draws attention without overwhelming users. Small adjustments—like changing the placement of sales banners or highlighting popular categories—can enhance the overall user experience and increase interaction with your content.
Areas to optimize
Header
Main Navigation
Categories
Content Pushes
Layout
AB Tasty customer success in action
The beauty brand, Lush, shifted its homepage messaging by testing two variations—one focused on self-care and another on gifting care packages. The version centered on gifting led to a 250% increase in engagement, showing how even minor tweaks in messaging can significantly improve user interactions.
2. Product listing page (PLP)
The product listing page (PLP) is where users begin narrowing down their choices. This page is most effective when visitors can scan and compare products easily, helping them make decisions more efficiently. While it might seem like there’s limited space to display information, there’s a lot of room for optimization that can smooth the path to purchase.
Testing how high-quality images, clear pricing, and CTAs like “Add to Cart” are displayed can improve product visibility. Adding reviews or badges like “Best Seller” can boost credibility and urgency. Experiment with hover effects to show additional details when users hover over a product.
Experiment with the placement and functionality of filters to make product discovery easier. Test whether a sidebar, dropdown, or dynamic filtering works best for your users. Simple adjustments to category labels or sorting options, like by price or ratings, can enhance the shopping experience.
Areas to optimize
Product Card Information (e.g., imagery, price, CTA)
Reviews and Badges
Hover States
Filters and Sorting Options
Headers/Banners
AB Tasty customer success in action
Clarins UK reintroduced the wishlist functionality to their PLP and PDP. This allowed users to save their favorite products for later, which led to a 1.54% increase in basket page views. It also increased the number of transactions by 1.83%, showing the value of small user experience enhancements.
It’s also important to consider the differences between mobile and desktop experiences when testing. A solution that works well on desktop might not perform the same on mobile due to varying user behaviors. Despite a long-standing focus on mobile optimization, it’s still common to overlook these differences.
3. Product display page (PDP)
The product description page (PDP) is the centerpiece of any e-commerce experience and at the center of a customer journey. Many retailers are now asking, “How can we make the PDP feel more like a landing page?” With more customers arriving directly on PDPs from social media, rather than the homepage, the PDP often serves as the first touchpoint. This makes it even more crucial, as it’s where customers ultimately decide whether or not to make a purchase. Reducing friction and providing clear, relevant information are essential to driving conversions at this stage.
Testing how high-quality images, clear pricing, and CTAs like “Add to Cart” are displayed can improve product visibility. Adding reviews or badges like “Best Seller” can boost credibility and urgency. Experiment with hover effects to show additional details when users hover over a product.
Experiment with the placement and functionality of filters to make product discovery easier. Test whether a sidebar, dropdown, or dynamic filtering works best for your users. Simple adjustments to category labels or sorting options, like by price or ratings, can enhance the shopping experience.
Key areas to experiment with
Product Imagery and Descriptions: Ensure your images and descriptions are high-quality, answering common questions about the product (e.g., size, fit, material).
Call-to-Action Buttons: Test the wording, design, and placement of your CTAs to find what drives the most conversions.
Additional areas to optimize
Page Layout (order of information)
Product Images and Videos
Shipping & Return Messaging
Cross-Sell Items
Call to Actions
Reviews and User-Generated Content
Experience for New Visitors
Mobile vs Desktop Experience
Add-to-Cart Behavior & Mini Cart
AB Tasty customer success in action
French beauty product L’Occitane implemented a social proof widget on its PDP, showing how many people had recently viewed a product. The first variation displayed “X people are viewing this product,” while the second version said “Selling Fast.” This simple tweak created urgency and reassurance, leading to a 5.76% increase in transaction rate and a 3.36% increase in revenue per visitor.
Social proof taps into user psychology—when customers see that many others are viewing or purchasing a product, it creates a sense of urgency and reduces anxiety, helping to drive sales.
4. Checkout funnel
The checkout process is where the real magic (or frustration) happens. It’s the final step in the customer journey, and even small obstacles here can lead to abandoned carts. Simplifying the checkout funnel can make the difference between completing a sale and losing a customer at the last moment. This stage is not just about speeding up the process—it’s also about building trust and ensuring customers feel confident in their purchase.
Optimizing your checkout involves refining everything from the mini basket to the confirmation page, making the experience as seamless as possible.
Testing opportunities
Product Imagery and Descriptions: Ensure your images and descriptions are high-quality, answering common questions about the product (e.g., size, fit, material).
Call-to-Action Buttons: Test the wording, design, and placement of your CTAs to find what drives the most conversions.
Additional areas to optimize
Basket Summary
Step Progression
Login and Guest Checkout Options
Account Creation
Form Field Labels & Microcopy
Payment Methods
Coupon Field Visibility & Design
Cross-Sells & Product Recommendations
Confirmation Page
AB Tasty customer success in action
Calvin Klein ran a test where they displayed a “last viewed” carousel on the empty cart page after a user removed all items from their cart. This reminded users of previously viewed products, reducing the bounce rate by 4.19% and increasing orders by 7.5%. By preventing the cart from feeling empty and offering product recommendations, the brand successfully retained potential customers and increased conversions.
5. Personalization
Personalization is key to creating a unique and engaging experience for each visitor. In an online shopping survey, 88% of respondents rated personalized product recommendations as helpful when asked to score them on a scale of 1-5 (with 5 being very helpful and 1 not helpful). By understanding user behavior and segmenting audiences, you can deliver tailored content that enhances user satisfaction and drives higher conversions. Personalization not only improves the shopping experience, but also fosters customer loyalty, encouraging repeat purchases over time.
Start with
Behavioral Targeting: Personalize content based on how users interact with your site. For example, use data on past clicks or scrolling behavior to serve more relevant offers.
Abandoned Cart Reminders: Encourage users to complete their purchase by reminding them of items left behind.
AB Tasty customer success in action
French fashion retailer, Maje created a personalized campaign for users who abandoned their carts. When those users returned to the site, they were shown the products they had previously left behind, making it easy for them to continue shopping. This strategy resulted in an 11% increase on click rate on the pop up, with a significant portion of those users completing their purchases.
In addition, AB Tasty tools like Emotions AI can help recognize emotional triggers or online body language (e.g., scroll behavior or clicks) to tailor content even further, providing users with the most relevant experiences.
Wrapping up
From optimizing your homepage to personalizing the user experience, every aspect of your website offers an opportunity for growth. Even small tests—like changing the placement of a carousel or adjusting CTA wording—can lead to significant results.
By regularly experimenting and optimizing key hotspots on your site, you can improve user engagement, reduce friction, and ultimately increase conversions. Remember, every site is different, so test frequently and use data to inform decisions. This approach helps ensure that you’re continually refining your site for optimal success.
If you want to get all the details. – watch the webinar below.
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.
The future of digital experience optimization has arrived and it’s driven by AI.
Are you ready for it?
AI can often be a sensitive subject, as loud voices in the room will boast how AI can replace people, careers, or even entire sectors of society. We’re scaling back the dystopian imagery and instead finding ways where AI can be your sidekick, not a supervillain.
There are two sides to the coin with AI: it can help optimize your time and boost conversions, but it can also be risky if not used properly. We’ll dig into the ways AI can be a helpful tool, as well as some considerations to take.
The positive impact of AI on your customer experience roadmap
In one of our last pieces about AI in the CRO world, we discussed 10 generative AI ideas for your experimentation roadmap. Since the publication of this article, we’re back with even more ideas and concrete examples of successful campaigns.
1. Display reassurance messages to visitors who value it
Some shoppers value their privacy and data safety above all else. How can you comfort these visitors while they’re shopping on your website without interfering with other visitors’ journeys? While salespeople can easily gauge these preferences in face-to-face interactions, online shoppers deserve the same personalized experience when they shop independently.
Let’s see an example below of how you can enhance the digital customer experience for different shoppers at the same time:
MAAF, a French insurance provider, knows just how complex buying auto insurance can be for visitors. Some shoppers prioritize safety and reassurance messages, while others don’t. With AI systems that segment visitors based on emotional buying preferences, you can detect and cater to this type of profile without deferring to other shoppers. “Intuitive” profiles are receptive to reassurance messages, while “rational” profiles tend to see these extra messages as a distraction.
The team at MAAF used advanced AI technology to overcome this exact challenge. Once the “intuitive profiles” were identified, they were able to implement personalized messages ensuring their commitment to their customers’ data protection. As a result, they saw an increase of 4% in quote rates for those directed to the intuitive segmentation, and other profiles continued on their journey without extra messaging.
2. Segment your audience based on their shopping behavior
With so many online shoppers, how can you possibly personalize your website to give each shopper the best user experience? With AI-powered personalization software.
Some online shoppers have a need for competition. Don’t we all know someone who loves to turn everything into a competition? These “competitive” shoppers are susceptible to social-proof messaging and are influenced by the opinions of other customers while searching for the best product. One of the best ways to personalize a listing page for competitive shoppers is to show ratings from their peers.
Meanwhile, what works for competitive shoppers, will not work effectively for speedy shoppers. Shoppers with a need for immediacy will appreciate a clear, no-frills browsing experience. In other words, they don’t want to get distracted. Let’s look at the example below.
This website implemented two different segments targeting online shoppers with a need for “competition” and “immediacy.” These two segments brought in a 9% increase in conversion rates and a 2% increase respectively. The campaign was a success, but how did it work?
Using AB Tasty’s AI personalization engine, EmotionsAI, this online shop identified its visitors’ main emotional needs and directed them toward a product listing page best suited for them. EmotionsAI turns buyer emotions into data-driven sales with actionable insights and targeted audiences.
Want to learn more about EmotionsAI? Get a demo to see how AI can impact your roadmap for the better!
3. Automate and personalize your product recommendations
European backpack designer, Cabaïa, used an AI-powered recommendation engine to generate personalized recommendations for their website visitors based on user data collected. The team at Cabaïa previously managed product recommendations manually but wanted to shift their focus to improving the digital customer experience.
AI recommendation tools put the right product in front of the right person, helping boost conversions with a more tailored experience. Since implementing this AI-powered recommendation engine, they’ve had +13% revenue per visitor, increased conversions by 15%, and raised their visitor’s average cart size by 2.4%.
4. Innovate your testing strategy with emotional targeting
According to an online shopper study (2024), traditional personalization is no longer enough. Personalizing based on age, location, and demographics just isn’t as precise anymore.
The team at Groupama, a multinational insurance group, wanted to take A/B testing a step further and better adapt their approach to fit their customers’ unique emotional needs. By using an AI-powered emotional personalization engine, they were able to identify two large groups of website visitors: emotionals and rationals.
They created an A/B test based on these customer profiles. One variation catered to the “emotional” buyers by showing reassuring messaging on the insurance quote to protect their data, and the other catered to “rationals” that displayed the insurance quote without any extra messaging that allowed them to have a distraction-free buyer journey. Within 2 weeks, Groupama saw an instant win with a 10% increase in quote submissions.
5. Simplify the customer journey and build buyer confidence
Like many financial services, purchasing insurance is inherently complex. Consumer behaviors and expectations in insurance are quickly changing.
As a leading insurer in Singapore, DirectAsia has embraced innovative technologies to better serve their customers. By pioneering new technology, Direct Asia was able to segment their visitors based on emotional needs.
The team at DirectAsia identified that the ‘safety’ segment (buyers needing reassurance) was the top unsatisfied emotional need for visitors on both desktop and mobile devices. With these insights, DirectAsia ran an experiment on ‘safety’ visitors, displaying two banners to reassure them and move them further down the form to the quote page.
The banners led to + 10.9% in access to the quote page for one, and +15% in access to the quote page for the other.
The potential risks of AI on your customer experience roadmap
Artificial intelligence has been evolving (very quickly!) over the past few years and it can be tempting to run full speed ahead. However, it’s important to find the right AI that works for you and helps you achieve your goals. Is AI powering something you need, impacting your business, or is it just there to impress?
With that in mind, let’s consider some precautions to take while using AI:
Unfactual or biased information on data reports, website copy, etc.
When researching or asking for data sources, it’s important to keep in mind that artificial intelligence can get it wrong. Just as humans can make mistakes and have biased opinions, AI can do the same. Since AI systems are trained to produce information following patterns, AI can unintentionally amplify bias or discrimination.
Lack of creativity, dependence, and over-reliance
Excessive reliance on AI can reduce decision-making skills, creativity, and proactive thinking. In competitive industries, you need creativity to stand out in the market to capture your audience’s attention. Your roadmap could suffer if you put too much faith in your tool. After all, you are the expert in your own field.
Data and privacy risks
Protecting your data should always be a top concern, especially in the digital experience world. You will want a trusted partner who uses AI with safeguards in place and a good history of data privacy. With the fast-developing capabilities of AI, handling your data correctly and safely becomes a hurdle. As a general best practice, it’s best not to upload any sensitive data into any AI system – even if it seems trustworthy. As these systems often require larger quantities of data to generate results, this can lead to privacy concerns if your data is misused or stored inappropriately.
Hallucinations
According to IBM, AI hallucinations happen when a large language model (LLM) thinks it recognizes patterns that aren’t really there, leading to random or inaccurate results. AI models are incapable of knowing that their response can be hallucinogenic since they lack understanding of the world around us. It’s important to be aware of this possibility because these systems are trained to present their conclusions as factual.
Conclusion: Using AI in the Digital Customer Experience
As with any tool or software, AI is a powerful tool that can enhance your team – not attempt to replace it. Embracing the use of AI in your digital customer experience can lead to incredible results. The key is to be aware of risks and limitations, and understand how to use it effectively to achieve your business goals.
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.
A/B testing is often seen as the magic bullet for improving e-commerce performance. Many believe that small tweaks—like changing the color of a “Buy Now” button—will significantly boost conversion rates. However, A/B testing is much more complex.
Random changes without a well-thought-out plan often lead to neutral or even negative results, leaving you frustrated and wondering if your efforts were wasted.
Success in A/B testing doesn’t have to be defined solely by immediate KPI improvements. Instead, by shifting your focus from short-term gains to long-term learnings, you can turn every test into a powerful tool for driving sustained business growth.
This guest blog was written by Trevor Aneson, Vice President Customer Experience at 85Sixty.com, a leading digital agency specializing in data-driven marketing solutions, e-commerce optimization, and customer experience enhancement. In this blog, we’ll show you how to design A/B tests that consistently deliver value by uncovering the deeper insights that fuel continuous improvement.
Rethinking A/B Testing: It’s Not Just About the Outcome
Many people believe that an A/B test must directly improve core e-commerce KPIs like conversion rates, average order value (AOV), or revenue per visitor (RPV) to be considered successful. This is often due to a combination of several factors:
1. Businesses face pressure to show immediate, tangible results, which shifts the focus toward quick wins rather than deeper learnings.
2. Success is typically measured using straightforward metrics that are easy to quantify and communicate to stakeholders.
3. There is a widespread misunderstanding that A/B testing is a one-size-fits-all solution, which can lead to unrealistic expectations.
However, this focus on short-term wins limits the potential of your A/B testing program. When a test fails to improve KPIs, you might be tempted to write it off as a failure and abandon further experimentation. However, this mindset can prevent you from discovering valuable insights about your users that could drive meaningful, long-term growth.
A Shift in Perspective: Testing for Learnings, Not Just Outcomes
To maximize the success and value of your A/B tests, it’s essential to shift from an outcome-focused approach to a learning-focused one.
Think of A/B testing not just as a way to achieve immediate gains but as a tool for gathering insights that will fuel your business’s growth over the long term.
The real power of A/B testing lies in the insights you gather about user behavior — insights that can inform decisions across your entire customer journey, from marketing campaigns to product design. When you test for learnings, every result — whether it moves your KPIs or not — provides you with actionable data to refine future strategies.
Let’s take a closer look at how this shift can transform your testing approach.
Outcome-Based Testing vs. Learning-Based Testing: A Practical Example
Consider a simple A/B test aimed at increasing the click-through rate (CTR) of a red call-to-action (CTA) button on your website. Your analytics show that blue CTA buttons tend to perform better, so you decide to test a color change.
Outcome-Based Approach
Your hypothesis might look something like this: “If we change the CTA button color from red to blue, the CTR will increase because blue buttons typically receive more clicks.”
In this scenario, you’ll judge the success of the test based on two possible outcomes:
1. Success: The blue button improves CTR, and you implement the change. 2. Failure: The blue button doesn’t improve CTR, and you abandon the test.
While this approach might give you a short-term boost in performance, it leaves you without any understanding of why the blue button worked (or didn’t). Was it really the color, or was it something else — like contrast with the background or user preferences — that drove the change?
Learning-Based Approach
Now let’s reframe this test with a focus on learnings. Instead of testing just two colors, you could test multiple button colors (e.g., red, blue, green, yellow) while also considering other factors like contrast with the page background.
Your new hypothesis might be: “The visibility of the CTA button, influenced by its contrast with the background, affects the CTR. We hypothesize that buttons with higher contrast will perform better across the board.”
By broadening the test, you’re not only testing for an immediate outcome but also gathering insights into how users respond to various visual elements. After running the test, you discover that buttons with higher contrast consistently perform better, regardless of color.
This insight can then be applied to other areas of your site, such as text visibility, image placement, or product page design.
Key Takeaway:
A learning-focused approach reveals deeper insights that can be leveraged far beyond the original test scenario. This shift turns every test into a stepping stone for future improvements.
How to Design Hypotheses That Deliver Valuable Learnings
Learning-focused A/B testing starts with designing better hypotheses. A well-crafted hypothesis doesn’t just predict an outcome—it seeks to understand the underlying reasons for user behavior and outlines how you’ll measure it.
Here’s how to design hypotheses that lead to more valuable insights: 1. Set Clear, Learning-Focused Goals
Rather than aiming only for KPI improvements, set objectives that prioritize learning. For example, instead of merely trying to increase conversions, focus on understanding which elements of the checkout process create friction for users.
By aligning your goals with broader business objectives, you ensure that every test contributes to long-term growth, not just immediate wins.
2. Craft Hypotheses That Explore User Behavior
A strong hypothesis is specific, measurable, and centered around understanding user behavior. Here’s a step-by-step guide to crafting one:
● Start with a Clear Objective: Define what you want to learn. For instance, “We want to understand which elements of the checkout process cause users to abandon their carts.”
● Identify the Variables: Determine the independent variable (what you change) and the dependent variable (what you measure). For example, the independent variable might be the number of form fields, while the dependent variable could be the checkout completion rate.
● Explain the Why: A learning-focused hypothesis should explore the “why” behind the user behavior. For example, “We hypothesize that removing fields with radio buttons will increase conversions because users find these fields confusing.”
3. Design Methodologies That Capture Deeper Insights
A robust methodology is crucial for gathering reliable data and drawing meaningful conclusions. Here’s how to structure your tests:
● Consider Multiple Variations: Testing multiple variations allows you to uncover broader insights. For instance, testing different combinations of form fields, layouts, or input types helps identify patterns in user behavior.
● Ensure Sufficient Sample Size & Duration: Use tools like an A/B test calculator to determine the sample size needed for statistical significance. Run your test long enough to gather meaningful data but avoid cutting it short based on preliminary results.
● Track Secondary Metrics: Go beyond your primary KPIs. Measure secondary metrics, such as time on page, engagement, or bounce rates, to gain a fuller understanding of how users interact with your site.
4. Apply Learnings Across the Customer Journey
Once you’ve gathered insights from your tests, it’s time to apply them across your entire customer journey. This is where learning-focused testing truly shines: the insights you gain can inform decisions across all touchpoints, from marketing to product development.
For example, if your tests reveal that users struggle with radio buttons during checkout, you can apply this insight to other forms across your site, such as email sign-ups, surveys, or account creation pages. By applying your learnings broadly, you unlock opportunities to optimize every aspect of the user experience.
5. Establish a Feedback Loop
Establish a feedback loop to ensure that these insights continuously inform your business strategy. Share your findings with cross-functional teams and regularly review how these insights can influence broader business objectives. This approach fosters a culture of experimentation and continuous improvement, where every department benefits from the insights gained through testing.
Conclusion: Every Test is a Win
When you shift your focus from short-term outcomes to long-term learnings, you transform your A/B testing program into a powerful engine for growth. Every
test—whether it results in immediate KPI gains or not—offers valuable insights that drive future strategy and improvement.
With AB Tasty’s platform, you can unlock the full potential of learning-focused testing. Our tools enable you to design tests that consistently deliver value, helping your business move toward sustainable, long-term success.
Ready to get started? Explore how AB Tasty’s tools can help you unlock the full potential of your A/B testing efforts. Embrace the power of learning, and you’ll find that every test is a win for your business.
