Adore Me, a lingerie company, uses A/B testing to determine
which photos generate the most clicks and the most buys. For reach product, Adore Me photographs
multiple versions of models to run on the websites. Each characteristic is photographed – from different models, poses, angles, colors,
hand positions – and the photos are tested on the website to see which one
sells better.
“We see the impact of each picture in some sort of parallel
process,” Adore Me Founder and CEO and
Harvard Business School grad Morgan Hermand-Waiche comments. For every thousand people who visit the
website, 500 will be shown Picture A and 500 will be shown Picture B, and
whichever group buys the most will conclude which picture was more successful. This exercise, known as A/B testing, is used
throughout the technology space. Netflix
A/B tests its queue design to maximize binge-watching; Google A/B tests the
color of its links to maximize clicks; the Obama campaign A/B tests its website
to maximize campaign donations. Although
these websites use big data to optimize human behavior and maximize conversion,
Adore Me uses beautiful human beings to generate sales on its website.
Adore Me is not the only online clothing retailer that uses
A/B testing to optimize product display. “I would say a large majority of
online retailers are doing some level of A/B testing for campaign optimization,”
says Matt Helmke, the PR rep for Monetate, which provides “multichannel
personalization” through A/B testing for over 300 top retail brands. If the website determines that you are female, it will provide a different e-commerce experience by showing you a picture of the product on real women, because "that's what women like".
It is interesting to see how A/B testing has evolved from
the simple subject-line, timing of day, content e-mail and website layout testing to more personalized shopping experience on the website. In the old glorious advertising days, print ads were tested to see which ad would resonate better with the consumer. Now, photography testing is done online in real-time to see which photo sells most.
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