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luni, 8 septembrie 2014

6 Things I Wish I Knew Before Using Optimizely

Posted: 07 Sep 2014 05:15 PM PDT

Posted by tallen1985

Diving into Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) for the first time can be a challenge. You are faced with a whole armoury of new tools, each containing a huge variety of features. Optimizely is one of those tools you will quickly encounter and through this post I'm going to cover 6 features I wish I had known from day one that have helped improve test performance/debugging and the ability to track results accurately.

1. You don't have to use the editor

The editor within Optimizely is a useful tool if you don't have much experience working with code. The editor should be used for making simple visual changes, such as changing an image, adjusting copy or making minor layout changes.

If you are looking to make changes that change the behaviour of the page rather than just straightforward visual changes, then the editor can become troublesome. In this case you should use the "Edit Code" feature at the foot of the editor.

For any large-scale changes to the site, such as completely redesigning the page, Optimizely should be used for traffic allocation and not editing pages. To do this:

1. Build a new version of the page outside of Optimizely

2. Upload the variation page to your site. Important: Ensure that the variation page is noindexed.

We now have two variations of our page:

www.myhomepage.com & www.myhomepage.com/variation1

3. Select the variation drop down menu and click Redirect to a new page

4. Enter the variation URL, apply the settings and save the experiment. You can now use Optimizely as an A/B test management tool to allocate traffic, exclude traffic/device types, and gather further test data.

If you do use the editor be aware of excess code

One problem to be aware of here is that each time you move or change an element Optimizely adds a new line of code. The variation code below actually repositions the h2 title four times.

Instead when using the editor we should make sure that we strip out any excess code. If you move and save a page element multiple times, open the <edit code> tab at the foot of the page and delete any excess code. For example, the following positions my h2 title in exactly the same position as before with three fewer lines of code. Over the course of multiple changes, this excess code can result in an increase of load time for Optimizely.

2. Enabling analytics tracking

Turning on analytics tracking seems obvious, right? In fact, why would we even need to turn it on in the first place, surely it would be defaulted to on?

Optimizely currently sets analytics tracking to the default option of off. As a result if you don't manually change the setting nothing will be getting reporting into your analytics platform of choice.

To turn on analytics tracking, simply open the settings in the top right corner from within the editor mode and select Analytics Integration.

Turn on the relevant analytics tracking. If you are using Google Analytics, then at this point you should assign a vacant custom variable slot (for Classic Analytics) or a vacant custom dimension (Universal Analytics) to the experiment.

Once the test is live, wait for a while (up to 24 hours), then check to be sure the data is reporting correctly within the custom segments.

3. Test your variations in a live environment

Before you set your test live, it's important that you test the new variation to ensure everything works as expected. To do this we need to see the test in a live environment while ensuring no customers see the test versions yet. I've suggested a couple of ways to do this below:

Query parameter targeting

Query parameter tracking is available on all accounts and is our preferred method for sharing live versions with clients, mainly because once set up, it is as simple as sharing a URL.

1. Click the audiences icon at the top of the page

2. Select create a new audience

3. Drag Query Parameters from the possible conditions and enter parameters of your choice.

4. Click Apply and save the experiment.

5. To view the experiment visit the test URL with query parameters added. In the above example the URL would be: http://www.distilled.net?test=variation

Cookie targeting

1. Open the browser and create a bookmark on any page

2. Edit the bookmark and change both properties to:

a) Name: Set A Test Cookie

b)URL: The following Javascript code:

<em>javascript:(function(){ var hostname = window.location.hostname; var parts = hostname.split("."); var publicSuffix = hostname; var last = parts[parts.length - 1]; var expireDate = new Date(); expireDate.setDate(expireDate.getDate() + 7); var TOP_LEVEL_DOMAINS = ["com", "local", "net", "org", "xxx", "edu", "es", "gov", "biz", "info", "fr", "gr", "nl", "ca", "de", "kr", "it", "me", "ly", "tv", "mx", "cn", "jp", "il", "in", "iq"]; var SPECIAL_DOMAINS = ["jp", "uk", "au"]; if(parts.length > 2 && SPECIAL_DOMAINS.indexOf(last) != -1){ publicSuffix = parts[parts.length - 3] + "."+ parts[parts.length - 2] + "."+ last} else if(parts.length > 1 && TOP_LEVEL_DOMAINS.indexOf(last) != -1) {publicSuffix = parts[parts.length - 2] + "."+ last} document.cookie = "optly_"+publicSuffix.split(".")[0]+"_test=true; domain=."+publicSuffix+"; path=/; expires="+expireDate.toGMTString()+";"; })();</em>

You should end up with the following:

3. Open the page where you want to place the cookie and click the bookmark

4. The cookie will now be set on the domain you are browsing and will looking something like: 'optly_YOURDOMAINNAME_test=true'

Next we need to target our experiment to only allow visitors who have the cookie set to see test variations.

5. Click the audiences icon at the top of the page

6. Select create a new audience

7. Drag Cookie into the Conditions and change the name to optly_YOURDOMAINNAME_test=true

8. Click Apply and save the experiment.

Source: https://help.optimizely.com/hc/en-us/articles/200293784-Setting-a-test-cookie-for-your-site

IP address targeting (only available on Enterprise accounts)

Using IP address targeting is useful when you are looking to test variations in house and on a variety of different devices and browsers.

1. Click the audiences icon at the top of the page

2. Select create a new audience

3. Drag IP Address from the possible conditions and enter the IP address being used. (Not sure of your IP address then head to http://whatismyipaddress.com/)

4. Click Apply and Save the experiment.

4. Force variations using parameters when debugging pages

There will be times, particular when testing new variations, that there will be the need to view a specific variation. Obviously this can be an issue if your browser has already been bucketed into an alternative variation. Optimizely overcomes this by allowing you to force the variation you wish to view, simply using query parameters.

The query parameter is structured in the following way: optimizely_x EXPRIMENTID=VARIATIONINDEX

1. The EXPERIMENTID can be found in the browser URL

2. VARIATIONINDEX is the variation you want to run, 0 is for the original, 1 is variation #1, 2 is variation #2 etc.

3. Using the above example to force a variation, we would use the following URLstructure to display variation 1 of our experiment: http://www.yourwebsite.com/?optimizely_x1845540742=1

Source: https://help.optimizely.com/hc/en-us/articles/200107480-Forcing-a-specific-variation-to-run-and-other-advanced-URL-parameters

5. Don't change the traffic allocation sliders

Once a test is live it is important not change the amount of traffic allocated to each variation. Doing so can massively affect test results, as one version would potentially begin to receive more return visitors who in turn have a much higher chance of converting.

My colleague Tom Capper discussed further the do's and don'ts of statistical significance earlier this year where he explained,

"At the start of your test, you decide to play it safe and set your traffic allocation to 90/10. After a time, it seems the variation is non-disastrous, and you decide to move the slider to 50/50. But return visitors are still always assigned their original group, so now you have a situation where the original version has a larger proportion of return visitors, who are far more likely to convert."

To summarize, if you do need to adjust the amount of traffic allocated to each test variation, you should look to restart the test to have complete confidence that the data you receive is accurate.

6. Use segmentation to generate better analysis

Okay I understand this one isn't strictly about Optimizely, but it is certainly worth keeping in mind, particularly earlier on in the CRO process when producing hypothesis around device type.

Conversion rates can vary greatly, particularly when we start segmenting data by locations, browsers, medium, return visits vs new visits, just to name a few. However, by using segmentation we can unearth opportunities that we may have previously overlooked, allowing us to generate new hypotheses for future experiments.

Example

You have been running a test for a month and unfortunately the results are inconclusive. The test version of the page didn't perform any better or worse than the original. Overall the test results look like the following:

Page Version	Visitors	Transactions	Conversion Rate
Original	41781	1196	2.86%
Variation	42355	1225	2.89%

In this case the test variation overall has only performed 1% better than the original with a significance of 60%. With these results this test variation certainly wouldn't be getting rolled out any time soon.

However when these results are segmented by device they tell a very different story:

Drilling into the desktop results we actually find that the test variation saw a 10% increase in conversions over the original with 97% significance. Yet those using a tablet were converting way below the original, thus driving down the overall conversion rates we were seeing in the first table.

Ultimately with this data we would be able to generate a new hypothesis of "we believe the variation will increase conversion rate for users on a desktop". We would then re-run the test to desktop only users to verify the previous data and the new hypothesis.

Using segmented data here could also potentially help the experiment reach significance at a much faster rate as explained in this video from Opticon 2014.

Should the new test be successful and achieve significance we would serve users on the desktops the new variation, whilst those on mobile and tablets continue to be displayed the original site.

Key takeaways

Always turn on Google Analytics tracking (and then double check it is turned on).
If you plan to make behavioural changes to a page use the Javascript editor rather than the drag and drop feature
Use IP address targeting for device testing and query parameters to share a live test with clients.
If you need to change the traffic allocation to test variations you should restart the test.
Be aware that test performance can vary greatly based on device.

What problems and solutions have you come across when creating CRO experiments with Optimizely? What pieces of information do you wish you had known 6 months ago?

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duminică, 7 septembrie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Marine Le Pen Ahead of Hollande in France Presidential Poll; Le Pen Blames EU for Crisis in Ukraine

Posted: 07 Sep 2014 12:10 PM PDT

French president Francois Hollande's term does not end until 2017, but for the first time ever Marine Le Pen's Front National party is on top in head-to-head polling.

Her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen once shocked France by taking Front National to round two in the 2002 election, but was defeated by incumbent president Jacques Chirac who obtained 82% of the votes.

The Financial Times reports Poll shows Le Pen beating Hollande in presidential run-off

Marine Le Pen, leader of France's far-right National Front, would beat struggling incumbent François Hollande in a run-off election for the French presidency, according to a new poll.

The unprecedented finding came as a fresh blow to Mr Hollande at the end of a week in which he suffered a cascade of bad news, including the publication of a lacerating book by Valérie Trierweiler, his former partner.

A poll for Ifop, published on Friday, showed that Ms Le Pen would beat Mr Hollande by 54-46 per cent if they were matched today in the decisive second round of the presidential election. The next election is due in 2017.

The survey confirmed an earlier poll showing Ms Le Pen leading all other contenders of left and right in the first round. But it was the first time she had been shown ahead of a mainstream candidate in the second round – a scenario regarded to date as unrealistic.

The Ifop poll followed another on Friday by TNS-Sofres giving Mr Hollande an all-time low approval rating of just 13 per cent.

Mr Hollande's 13 per cent approval rating compared with the 20 per cent floor hit during his term by Mr Sarkozy, who was shown by the Ifop poll beating Ms Le Pen in a presidential vote by 60-40 per cent.

Mr Hollande has little choice but to try to tough out his demoralising slump in the hope that his reform policies will finally revive the stalled economy, the root source of his problems. But his opponents scent blood.

"Inexorably, one senses the moment is coming when François Hollande finds himself completely paralysed," commented the rightwing daily Le Figaro, which published the latest polls.

Le Pen Blames EU for Crisis in Ukraine

Please consider Crisis in Ukraine is 'all EU's fault' – France's Marine Le Pen.

"The crisis in Ukraine is all the European Union's fault. Its leaders negotiated a trade deal with Ukraine, which essentially blackmailed the country to choose between Europe and Russia," Le Pen told Le Monde daily in an interview.

"The European Union's diplomacy is a catastrophe," Le Pen told RT's Sophie Shevardnadze in an exclusive interview in June. [See Marine Le Pen: EU robbed us of all liberties, we should fight to get them back]

"The EU speaks out on foreign affairs either to create problems, or to make them worse."

"Ukraine's entry into the European Union; no need to tell fairy tales: Ukraine absolutely does not have the economic level to join the EU," Le Pen told RT.

In her fresh interview with Le Monde, the National Front leader had a positive attitude towards Russian President Vladimir Putin and the economic model he builds.

"I have a certain admiration for the man [Putin]. He proposes a patriotic economic model, radically different than what the Americans are imposing on us," said Marine Le Pen.

Citing "admiration" for Putin is probably not going to play well with French voters.

And her assertion "The crisis in Ukraine is all the European Union's fault" is certainly wrong given the role the US played at Maidan, leading to the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych, former Ukraine president.

Nonetheless she is correct regarding European Union's diplomacy being a "catastrophe". So is EU agricultural policy, tax policy, and countless other policies.

2017 is a long way away. Much can happen between now and the next election for both Hollande, and Le Pen. Will Hollande even survive that long?

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Under Pressure From Democrats, Obama Delays Immigration Action Until After Midterm Elections

Posted: 07 Sep 2014 12:03 AM PDT

In June, President Obama promised executive action on immigration.

He lied.

With polls showing a mere 26% Approval Rating for Obama's Immigration Reform Policies, the president bowed to political pressure from his own party and delayed his immigration cram-downs until after the mid-term elections.

Please consider Obama to Delay Executive Action on Immigration.

President Barack Obama will delay executive action on immigration until after the midterm elections, White House officials said Saturday, a bow to political pressure from Democrats in tough Senate races who had complained the action could hurt their campaigns.

The delay breaks Obama's promise, broadcast from the Rose Garden in June, that he would act on his own by summer's end to fix as many problems of the immigration system as the law allows.

Now, White House officials say the president will act by the end of the year.

The official added: "The president is confident in his authority to act, and he will before the end of the year.

The executive action had been widely expected to ratchet back deportations and possibly offer work permits to people in the U.S. illegally, perhaps millions. It might also include administrative changes pushed by companies that would produce more legal visas for people seeking to work in the U.S.

On Saturday, Scott Brown, a Republican who is running for the Senate in New Hampshire, and has used immigration to challenge his opponent, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, denounced the White House's move as cynical.

"President Obama's decision to delay executive action to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants until after the election is of little comfort to people like myself who believe in the rule of law," he said. "Make no mistake: President Obama plans to grant amnesty, it's just that he will cynically wait until after the election so as not to harm Senate Democrats like Jeanne Shaheen."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), who faces a tough challenger this fall, also denounced the move.

"What's so cynical about today's immigration announcement is that the president isn't saying he'll follow the law—he's just saying he'll go around the law once it's too late for Americans to hold his party accountable in the November elections," he said.

Voter Opinions

For a look at voter opinions, please see 26% Approval Rating for Obama's Immigration Reform Policies.

Democrats and Republicans alike disapprove of Obama's immigration plan.

A mere 26% of voters approve Obama's plans, and an even smaller 24% think the president has the legal authority to grant amnesty to these illegal immigrants without Congress' approval. And his own party does not approve of his plan.

Will that stop him? Of course not. He will do as he pleases after the election.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

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Seth's Blog : Different kinds of broken systems

Different kinds of broken systems

From healthy to toast...

Something is broken, we know it's broken, we can fix it right away and we'll learn from it.

It's broken, we know it's broken, we fixed it, don't worry, but we learned nothing, it will break again, I'm just doing my job.

It's broken, we know it's broken, but we don't think we can afford to fix it.

It's broken, but we don't know it's broken.

It's not broken (it is, but we're not willing to admit it).

It's broken, we may or may not know it's broken, but mostly, we don't care enough to try to fix it, to learn how we could fix it better or even to accept help from people who care.

• Email to a friend •

sâmbătă, 6 septembrie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

China Banking Crisis "Almost" Certain Says Senior International Economist; Global Banking Crisis "Is" Certain Says Mish

Posted: 06 Sep 2014 10:16 AM PDT

The Sydney Morning Herald warns about a 'clear and present danger': Australia to be Hit as Chinese Economy Unravels

Speaking at a conference on Thursday, the federal government's former top resources forecaster Quentin Grafton said the iron ore price was unlikely to recover quickly, leading to a painful downturn in the Australian economy in 2015.

"This isn't about doom and gloom, it's about looking at the risk and numbers. It's a clear and present danger," Mr Grafton said.

He said the Reserve Bank of Australia should prepare for a difficult ride as the overpriced property market and high dollar created a challenging economic environment as coal and iron ore prices dropped.

Mr Grafton's comments join an increasingly vociferous choir of concern about the Chinese economy, with investor fears stoked by a Chinese residential property market that is experiencing its worst slump on record.

The average price of new homes has been falling in China for months, with the rate of decline accelerating from June (0.5 per cent) to July (0.8 per cent), sending tremors through the economy. It dropped another 0.6 per cent in August, bringing the average to $US1737 per square metre.

Property market issues are of critical concern for the Chinese economy and global investment community, as the property sector is a key economic driver that contributed 15 per cent of China's 2013 gross domestic product.

China's property market woes are directly linked to the Australian economy as Chinese residential property construction is a leading consumer of iron ore, which accounts for $1 of every $5 of Australian exports.

The dropping demand and oversupply issues have caused the iron ore price to drop to a five year low. It is currently hovering around $US84.38 a tonne.

The next historic low would take a significant slide to $76 a tonne, a rate not seen since September 2009.

Commodity Producer Countries Will Be Hit Hard

I have been discussing the same setup for quite some time. One of the first on this train has been Michael Pettis at China Financial Markets.

China is going to slow, without a doubt, and commodity producer countries such as Australia and Canada will take a hit.

China Banking Crisis 'Almost Certain'

Here's an article that caught my eye, not for what it said, but rather for what it dis not say.

Please consider China banking crisis 'almost certain', warns economist Gabriel Stein.

China's financial system is "almost certain" to face a full blown banking crisis according to a senior international economist.

Gabriel Stein, of economic consulting firm Oxford Economics, told a Sydney audience on Tuesday that Chinese authorities were understating the extent of bad loans on their banks' books and faced tough choices in dealing with the potential bank failure.

"We don't know when there will be a China banking crisis and how it will play out but it is almost certain there will be one," said Mr Stein, a professor at the University of London who served as chief economist at consulting firm Lombard Street from 1991 to 2012.

"We do think the financial risks are high. Bad loans are understated.

"If you compare to 20 years ago, credit growth had been the same and the Chinese authorities owned up to about 30 per cent of non-performing loans in the banking system. They currently claim its one per cent"

Global Banking Crisis is Certain

Gabriel Stein is an optimist.

Remove the word "almost" in the above paragraphs and and replace it with nothing. Next, remove the word "China" and replace it with the word "global" and you have the true state of affairs.

Here Goes ...

"The global financial system is certain to face a full blown banking crisis. We don't know when there will be a global banking crisis and how it will play out, but it is certain there will be one."

With the Fed, ECB, Bank of Japan, Bank of China, Bank of England, and virtually every central bank on the planet all engaged in emergency tactics of some sort, with loans made that cannot possibly be paid back, with Japan off the deep-end in Abenomics, with covenant-lite junk bonds again on the rampage in the US and starting to gear up in Europe, with derivatives and unfunded liabilities in the trillions of dollars, and with the ECB recklessly pursuing ways to stimulate lending amidst major structural flaws with the euro, how the hell can there not be a global financial crisis of some sort?

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Time to Give the Middle Class a Chance

Featured

Weekly Address: Time to Give the Middle Class a Chance

In this week's address, the Vice President discusses our continued economic recovery, with 10 million private-sector jobs created over the past 54 months. Yet even with this good news, too many Americans are still not seeing the effects of our recovery.

As the Vice President explains, there's more that can be done to continue to bolster our economy and ensure that middle-class families benefit from the growth they helped create, including closing tax loopholes, expanding education opportunities, and raising the minimum wage.

Click here to watch this week's Weekly Address.

Seth's Blog : Crucial elements for the placebo effect

Crucial elements for the placebo effect

Placebos, used ethically, are powerful tools. They can cure diseases, make food taste better and dramatically increase the perceived quality of art. They can improve the way teachers teach, students learn and we judge our own safety.

Not all placebos work, and they don't function in all fields. Here are some things that successful placebos have in common:

They do best when they improve something that is difficult to measure objectively.

Does this stereo sound better than that one? Is your headache better today than it was yesterday? How annoying was it to wait for the bus in this new bus shelter?

Sometimes the outcome is difficult to measure objectively because it's abstract, but sometimes it's because it's personal.

If you claim that a new driver makes a golf ball go further, a simple double-blind test is enough for me to know if your claim is legitimate, and if it's not proven, it's significantly harder for me to buy in, which of course is the key to the placebo effect working.

If I tell a teacher something about his students, and that knowledge causes the teacher to take a more confident approach, test scores will go up. But what the placebo did was change the teacher (hard to measure), which, by extension, changed the test scores.

Straining credulity is a real danger, one that denudes the effect of placebos.

In 1796, when homeopathy was first developed, we knew very little about atoms, molecules and the scientific method. As a result, the idea behind these potions was sufficiently sciencey that it permitted many people to convince themselves to become better. Today, informed patients find it can't possibly work, so it doesn't. The same thing is true for astrology, which was 'invented' before Copernicus.

Twenty years ago, audiophiles actually paid $495 for a digital alarm clock that made their stereos sound better. It faded fast, mostly because it was embarassing to admit you'd bought ridiculous magic beans like these. But today, $100 usb cables continue to be sold, because, maybe, just maybe, something is going on here. We're not sure we actually know enough about dielectrics and the skin effect to be sure.

Argue all you want about whether or not you want to be buying or selling placebos, but it's quite likely that the right placebo with the right story can dramatically increase certain outcomes.

If you want to improve performance, the right placebo is often the safest and cheapest way to do so. The opportunity is to find one that's likely to work, and to market it in a way that's ethical and effective.

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luni, 8 septembrie 2014

6 Things I Wish I Knew Before Using Optimizely

6 Things I Wish I Knew Before Using Optimizely

1. You don't have to use the editor

If you do use the editor be aware of excess code

2. Enabling analytics tracking