Optimizing Your Conversion Funnel with a Hybrid Experimentation Tool
By Mike Fradkin
June 19, 2024
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Competitive companies refining their digital strategies understand even minor web and app changes can significantly impact conversion funnel efficiency. Is your team aiming to perform more A/B tests and get faster results? A hybrid experimentation tool might be the exact solution you need.
Traditional A/B testing methods, while valuable, often fall short of the agility and depth needed for thorough experimentation. Many currently available tools focus on either client-side or server-side testing, leading to a slower, more fragmented process. This siloed approach means fewer iterations, slower test deployment, and an increased risk of time-consuming code cleanup.
Hybrid testing, on the other hand, not only combines the client side and server side under a single platform but enables the use of both simultaneously as part of a single experimentation effort.
A/B testing already saves developers up to 75% of their efforts in debugging and maintaining code—so with a hybrid experimentation tool like SiteSpect, your organization stands to save significantly on development resources and time while optimizing your conversion funnel with more strategic experimentation.
Ready to fuel business growth and improve conversion rates? Then this is your guide. Keep reading to explore how you can use a hybrid experimentation tool across each stage of your user flow to iterate with increasing complexity and win more conversions.
The Hybrid Experimentation Approach
Traditionally, client-side, server-side, and feature flag capabilities have been separate. A hybrid experimentation tool allows your organization to leverage the right techniques to accomplish your goals: client side for front-end changes and quick iterations, server side to address complex functionality, and combining both methods to tackle complex challenges while preserving speed and agility.
This process is faster because a server-side feature released with a feature flag can be iteratively combined with client-side changes without the need for new code releases for each iteration. With a more cohesive approach, your team can streamline resources, accelerate testing, and enable comprehensive testing across all devices and single-page applications (SPAs).
Additionally, the efficiency of a hybrid experimentation tool minimizes the burden on your development team. With fewer disruptions and less technical debt to manage, developers can focus on innovation rather than maintenance. This shift not only speeds up the testing cycle but also ensures that your team can adapt quickly to market changes, delivering a superior user experience that drives conversions at every stage of the funnel. Hybrid experimentation enables more iterations, fewer code releases, and more results!
Increasing Test Volume and Velocity
Whether you’re experimenting with earlier funnel components like your home page and product pages or bottom-of-funnel elements like your checkout process, the ability to run campaigns and get results with speed and agility is crucial.
One of the standout benefits of a hybrid experimentation tool is the ability to conduct a multitude of highly customized client-side tests overlaid on a winning server-side variation. This capability allows for a more nuanced approach to testing where you can fine-tune user experiences with precision and without the typical delays associated with separate server-side tests.
By leveraging SiteSpect’s integrated platform, your team can rapidly deploy and iterate on tests, significantly reducing the time from hypothesis to actionable insights. This streamlined process not only boosts the volume of tests you can run but also enhances the quality of your experiments. More tests mean more data, and more data leads to better decision-making and higher conversion rates.
Improving Collaboration with a Hybrid Experimentation Tool
For most organizations, conversion rate optimization is a cross-functional effort, bringing in product and marketing teams and developers. Product leads and marketers have often relied on developers to meet optimization goals—but with a hybrid experimentation tool like SiteSpect, developers don’t have to code every single test, and they no longer have to edit their codebases or handle all the analytics. Rather, they can offload some work by creating feature flags and server-side tests that can be iterated on by non-developers in the SiteSpect UI. This strategy allows for seamless collaboration on tests that go beyond experimenting on one variable at a time.
A hybrid experimentation tool like SiteSpect offers several clear benefits for development teams:
- Free developers of the full burden of coding and releasing tests
- Empower the entire team to iterate and experiment outside of code releases
- Oversee analytics and client-side changes collaboratively within the SiteSpect UI
- Increase testing velocity by retaining the power of quick iterations while tackling complexity
- Manage your experimentation program with greater efficiency by integrating previously disparate testing functions and uniting them in a single platform
Using a Hybrid Experimentation Tool Across the Conversion Funnel: Examples
To determine what to test with hybrid experimentation, start by identifying complex functionality that requires server-side coding and release once under a feature flag. Then, experiment and iterate on top of that functionality using client-side techniques. This method enables both broad and nuanced experimentation to accommodate initial tests and more experimentation rounds down the line. Here are some examples of how to use this technique at different points in your conversion flow:
Top of Funnel: Test promotional offers, combinations of product grids and large hero images, and calls to action to enhance initial interactions and encourage higher user engagement. Top-of-funnel experiments can often be executed entirely using client-side techniques, and more significant changes can be made outside of code releases by leveraging SiteSpect’s transformation engine.
Middle of Funnel: Experiment with different content placements, product recommendations, product descriptions, and default filtering options to keep users engaged and guide them toward conversion. Once you have an effective layout, you can change elements such as messaging to refine your page further. Identify ideas to experiment with and then proceed to iterate using client-side techniques. By isolating critical server-side functionality, you can cut back on lengthy code releases.
Bottom of Funnel: Optimize the checkout process to reduce cart abandonment. Define the best set of payment options, then add adjustments to form fields or security assurances to test them simultaneously. Checkout flows and algorithms are common examples of functionality that require server-side code changes. Isolate the fundamental functionality with a server-side feature flag and iterate on trust signals and urgency messaging with client-side techniques.
Final Thoughts
Hybrid experimentation tools ensure there is no limit to the types of tests or the customization of your variations. This detailed approach allows for major and minor changes, streamlining resources and accelerating the optimization process without overloading development teams. More iterations, fewer code releases, and greater results—that’s hybrid experimentation.
With comprehensive testing at every stage, a hybrid experimentation tool enhances the overall user journey and makes your conversion funnel more effective.
Looking for more ways to improve your testing program? Request your personalized demo to see how we can help.
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