Glossary

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A disclaimer: I’m not a statistician nor am I a Web analytics or testing professional. If you are, then you almost certainly know more about testing and math than I do. But, I didn’t write this Glossary for you.

Instead, my goal is to help the typical working marketer learn more about testing, so they can improve their results and grow their careers. As such it’s written in marketer-friendly language and speaks about topics from a marketer’s point of view. (Testing professionals tend to be more technical and precise when they write about their work.) I hope you like it.

The good news is benchmark studies have shown that conversion rate of a typical campaign landing page can be increased up to 40% — on average — with a few well-designed tests.

The problem is “well designed”. Tools such as Google Website Optimizer make testing easy, but unless you have testing expertise, you may not always get useful results. It’s sort of like writing – just because most people can type doesn’t mean they’re all great copywriters.

Some marketers are looking for practical information so they can improve their own testing skills. Others have used trial test results to convince their organizations it’s worth investing in professional testing services to expand the work. I’m in favor of whatever works best for you and your organization, as long as you keep on testing! The point of this Glossary, and my site Which Test Won?, is to be a form of support and inspiration to help get you there.

I’d like to thank Tom Leung, Senior Business Product Manager for Google’s Website Optimizer for his hands-on help in reviewing this Glossary. He was great. Any errors, omissions, and subjective language are all mine.

Also, I’d like to thank Mark Wachen, Steve Krug, Avinash Kaushik, the Eisenberg Brothers, Josh James, Tom Phillips, and Stefan Tornquist for their role over the years in inspiring and educating me on testing. And most of all, my thanks to the folks at WiderFunnel whose sponsorship made this project possible.

You guys rock.

Anne Holland
Publisher, Which Test Won?
Founder & Past President, MarketingSherpa, Inc.