Talking A/B Testing with Roboboogie Experts

Last week, Camp Optimization returned for a special, expert panel edition, featuring three website optimization pros from the Roboboogie team. We gathered at Teote Mezcalería on NE Alberta in Portland for an evening of A/B testing discussion, and an IRL A/B test with Mezcal. Our panel featured design, development, and data experts coming together to talk about why optimization matters, and how our multi-disciplinary team works together to leverage each other’s skills and achieve remarkable results for our clients. Read on for a few highlights from the event and some wisdom from our rockstar panel.

Lacie Webb on Removing Subjectivity from Design

“Don’t just launch a site like a baby bird. Nurture it to make sure it flies with A/B testing.” – Lacie Webb, Sr. Strategic Designer

“Design & data are two sides of the same coin. They inform each other. If you’re making design decisions in a vacuum, you’re basing your design on intuition, which will only get you so far.” – Lacie Webb, Sr. Strategic Designer

Lacie Webb, Sr. Strategic Designer

Missed her event sneak peak video? Check it out here!

Jeremy Sell on the Truth about A/B Testing

“Launching a website without measurement and testing is just a form of gambling.” – Jeremy Sell, Sr. Experience Engineer

“You need buy in from your whole organization to be successful with A/B testing so you can move nimbly to actualize revenue.” – Jeremy Sell, Sr. Experience Engineer

Jeremy Sell, Sr. Experience Engineer

Missed his event sneak peak video? Check it out here!

Tyler Hudson on a Wholistic Approach to Performance Evaluation

“Take a cascading approach to optimizing different parts of a site in sequence to build on each other and generate momentum.” – Tyler Hudson, Behavioral Analyst

“Having a wealth of data is not always helpful. It’s about distilling down data and making it actionable.” – Tyler Hudson, Behavioral Analyst

Tyler Hudson, Behavioral Analyst

Missed his event sneak peak video? Check it out here!

See you next time!

Save the date for May’s Camp Optimization, where we’ll partner with the Technology Association of Oregon for an evening of libations, casual networking, and knowledge sharing. Want to learn more about our measurable approach to improving web performance? Drop us a line!

Roboboogie's March Camp Optimization Event 2019

A Depressing Look at Digital Marketing in 2019…and the Bright Side

On Friday afternoon at the SEMpdx Engage Conference , a friendly voice came over the mic: “The first part of this talk will be depressing,” Rand Fishkin, Founder of SparkToro and former CEO of MOZ, explained. He then proceeded to discuss some major changes that the SEO & Digital industries are experiencing, and where the opportunities lie as we move into 2020. We’ll distill a few key takeaways from his talk specifically focusing in on the continual reduction of Social Media engagement, the shifting nature of searches on Google and leave you with a few actionable opportunities to overcome these tactical industry changes.

Social Media: Bigger but not better.

Let’s kick it off with social media: everyone’s favorite subject because everyone knows what it is and we all use it. Some love it, some hate it, but are you utilizing it correctly for your brand? It’s pivotal before diving into this to understand that social media platforms want you to stay on their site. Ultimately, they will do whatever it takes to keep you coming back and engaging with content on their platform, because this is what makes them money (even if it means de-prioritizing your content in their algorithm). It’s a simple concept, but often overlooked. If you’re thinking, “But what about my ads? They want my ad money!” they definitely do, but to it is often a secondary priority. Ads can only exist if there’s a large audience, and if the user isn’t coming back to the platform, ads can not and will not exist. Plus, the click through rate and subsequent onsite bounce rate on most ads is abysmal, but that’s another show…

Rival IQ recently published a Facebook Engagement breakdown by industry that Rand discussed in his talk, included below. It got us thinking and we’ll tell you why. Truthfully, we can not think of a many things that we’d sink any amount of time into for a 0.09% engagement rate. Engagement is down across all platforms, and social referrals have continued to decline over the past few years in nearly all industries. This is largely attributed to sites intentionally adjusting the experience to keep traffic on the platform (i.e. Facebook’s shift to prioritize friends and connections over businesses; great for user retention, not so great for companies looking to serve content via Facebook).

**For context, engagement rate is calculated by the amount of interactions (likes, comments, shares, and reactions) divided by total follower count.

Clickless queries and the story of how Google is really, really good at what they do. Maybe too good…

Let’s talk about clickless queries, or searches on Google that resulted in no engagement with SERPs (paid or organic). As mobile devices continue to gain web market share, clickless queries are increasing inline with the growth. In September 2018, 61.5% of mobile searches were clickless. This is a staggering number, and is largely attributed to the evolution of Google’s search engine.

Say you’re a raving fan of cinema and one day you search “best movies of 2018,” as any truly authentic cinema fan would. The results are vastly different now than they were a few years ago. Now you see this:

Perfect, right? It’s by far a better user experience, but behind the scenes it is greatly reducing the likelihood of users clicking through to the actual content producers.

Hold on, it gets worse…

Again, awesome experience for the user: We just browsed all the valuable information that Paste Magazine could give me, but they received absolutely zero of the benefits. This will continue to be a problem for websites as Google continues to get better and better at crawling for content.

In contrast: growth in long tailed queries.

Another big shift in the industry is the growth in long tailed queries. Long tailed queries refer to a search that contains more detail than a typical, generic search. For example a search for fast food could look like “fast food near me,” or for your tech-savvy, intentional, fast food connoisseur, it may look like “best fast food chicken sandwich near me.” Long tailed queries traditionally have a much higher CTR as the search intent is already more specific. It’s interesting to note the growth in clickless and long tailed queries because they seem counterintuitive to grow together, but both are a result of continual improvements Google has made to their algorithm.

Let’s take a pause, this post seems somewhat negative so far. I’ve outlined the diminishing returns on social media, the growth in clickless queries and the increase in long tailed queries. If you’re thinking “shit, now what?” you’re not alone. Rand discussed a few points that not only resonated with our team, but also line up with a few of the wins that we’ve seen internally with our own work.

Hopefully the final third of this will leave you challenging some of the industry norms, and give you the momentum to keep refining and optimizing your marketing tactics as we head towards 2020.

Don’t worry, there’s a bright side.

In our opinion, as Google continues to improve their algorithm, which they will, both of these search patterns will continue to grow. But wait, there’s hope! Long tailed queries typically have a much higher CTR than generic search terms. This presents an incredible opportunity to increase the intentionality of your keyword research, and holistically analyze your rankings by CTR to inform the content on your site. An easy way to get started with this is to sort your Google Search Console data by highest CTR, and identify the keywords with high click through rates weighted by impressions.

Now to address the increase in clickless queries. Pay attention to your meta descriptions, as these will become increasingly more important. Meta descriptions present an opportunity to invite potential customers to click through to your site and engage with your content. Keep them brief, but compelling. Do some up-front research on the keywords most often associated with your organic traffic, and adjust your descriptions to address them.

And finally, the necessary evil, social media. Spend time getting to know your audience and build a following that feels organic and not forced (easier said than done). Social media is a huge opportunity to reinforce your brand value for a very large audience. However, from all the data we have, the social channel typically comes with a much lower engagement rate with onsite content, and conversion rates are almost always lower for social attributed sessions. Social generally has the highest bounce rate across channels, but this too can be addressed. We’ve found A/B testing to be a great way to remedy the underperforming channel by optimizing landing page performance to adapt to the content your social following is looking for, and to keep this traffic engaged on your site. The testing mentality can be applied across your entire marketing ecosystem, and we’d urge anyone in the industry to begin incorporating this a data-driven approach into your day-to-day work.

[Quick sidebar while we’re talking about channel performance: if you’re not trying to grow your email subscribers, it’s time to start. From improved data collection, to higher conversion rates, the email channel is something to invest in. Take steps to grow your subscribers through experiential tests on your site, and begin utilizing your email lists intentionally. These customers have already self-identified with your brand; serve them content that reinforces your value proposition and you’ll see improvement in your KPIs.]

Always be testing.

If there’s one thing to walk away with that applies to everyone no matter the industry: Test it! If you have an idea you believe will drive impact for you company, put it to the test. If it fails, you’ll learn why it’s failing and you’ll be able to make better decisions down the road as you iterate towards the optimal solution.

At Roboboogie, we are firm believers in the power of testing and its ability to drive a large scale impact. If your company has been utilizing the same digital strategies for the past five years, maybe it’s time for a reboot. Testing your SEO and social strategy is an excellent first step. Want to talk more about refreshing your digital strategy? Drop us a line!


A sneak peak of what is in store at March’s Camp Optimization

Camp Optimization January 2018

On Thursday, March 21st, Roboboogie is hosting a special, expert panel edition of Camp Optimization at Teote, located at 2700 NE Alberta St. in Portland. This meet-up will feature Roboboogie’s very own website optimization pros, sharing their wisdom across three unique disciplines. Read more below for a sneak peak of our expert panel, and their thoughts on the importance of A/B testing and what we help our clients achieve.

“I consider design and data to be two sides of the same coin. When you’re only making design decisions in isolation, you’re basing your design decisions off of best practice and intuition, which will only get a design so far. By using data, designers get to challenge themselves to respond reactively to what data is showing them that users respond well to.” – Lacie Webb, Sr. Strategic Designer

“A lot of times, people think of A/B testing in a really simplistic manner. Changing a headline or changing copy or a button color or something. We like to think of testing more in the multivariate style of testing, where we want to make drastic changes to see drastic results” – Jeremy Sell, Lead Experience Engineer

“A/B testing resonates for me because it is assigning a data point to experiences on the site” -Tyler Hudson, Behavioral Analyst

We are incredibly excited for this special edition event, and can’t wait to see you there! Anyone interested in learning more about the process, tools and techniques required to make a test-and-optimize program successful should attend March’s Camp Optimization. As if that is not enough, we will also explore the merits of consuming mezcal with an A/B test, and enjoy light appetizers and the Latin-American flair of Teote. Learn more and RSVP for free on Eventbrite. Questions about March’s Camp Optimization Event? Contact us!

FullStory + Roboboogie Teaming Up To Improve Customer Experiences

We are excited to announce our partnership with FullStory, the newest tool in our tool belt for improving user experiences and maximizing performance.

We love partnering with technologies that are pushing the envelope in their area of expertise, and FullStory’s methods are innovative and continuously evolving.

A great customer experience is no longer merely a competitive differentiator—it’s a business imperative. FullStory’s session replay, analytics, and debugging technology will help us better understand what our clients need, why, and how to deliver solutions around objectives quickly.

“The FullStory team is thrilled to begin a partnership with Roboboogie. They bring incredible expertise from across a number of disciplines including optimization, UX/UI, and digital analytics. We are confident in their ability to utilize FullStory in a way that drives tremendous value for clients. Excited for a fantastic year ahead together!”

– Chris Samilla, VP of Partnerships at FullStory

Wait for more collaboration from our two teams as we partner for webinars, field events, and customer stories. Stay tuned!