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Multivariate testing (aka multivariable testing) is a process by which more than one component of a website may be tested in a live environment. The test can be tens or hundreds of different versions or it can be a simple A/B test. You can run multivariate testing on keyword campaigns, ad copys, slight website variation, form placement, search bar placement, any pictures of the page (for example: number of people, race, age, sex, etc), and many other factors. Multivariate testing is important, because increasing conversion rate just 1% can mean millions in revenue for some companies. Is it important for small mom-and-pop stores or smaller websites? Yes and no. Yes, because in the long run it should pay off, especially as the store grows. No, if your budget and traffic is small and you have no intentions of increasing and you are perfectly fine with the number of sales.
Testing can be carried out on a dynamically generated website by setting up the server to display the different variations of content in equal proportions to incoming visitors. Statistics on how each visitor went on to behave after seeing the content under test must then be gathered and presented. Outsourced services can also be used to provide multivariate testing on websites with minor changes to page coding. These services insert their content to predefined areas of a site and monitor user behavior.
In a nutshell, multivariate testing can be seen as allowing website visitors to vote with their clicks for which content they prefer and will stand the most chance of them proceeding to a defined goal. The testing is transparent to the visitor with all commercial solutions capable of ensuring that each visitor is shown the same content as they first saw on each subsequent visit.
With multiple variations of content in multiple locations on a website, a large number of combinations need to be statistically tested and medium/low traffic websites can take some time to get a large enough sample of visitors to decide which content gives the best performance. For example, if 3 different images are to be tested in 3 locations, there are 27 combinations to test. Taguchi methods (namely Taguchi orthogonal arrays) can be used in the design of experiments in order to reduce the variations but still give statistically valid results on individual content elements.
Some websites benefit from constant 24/7 continuous optimization as visitor response to creatives and layouts differ by time of day/week or even season.
Multivariate testing is currently an area of high growth in internet marketing as it helps website owners to ensure that they are getting the most from the visitors arriving at their site. Areas such as SEO and pay per click advertising bring visitors to a site and have been extensively used by many organisations but multivariate testing allows internet marketeers to ensure that visitors are being effectively exploited once they arrive at the website.
In short, multivariable testing significantly / statistically compares new versions of something against old versions. The BIGGEST piece to keep in mind is TRACKING. You MUST have the proper tracking and statistical know-how to run a successful multivariable test.
Source: Wikipedia multivariable testing
Technorati Tags: multivariable testing, multivariate testing, internet marketing
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