Want an effective social media campaign? Why not test it? AB testing is where the majority of digital campaigns are decided. Working in the digital space for a number of years provides me with a unique view of AB Testing.
So what is AB testing and when did it start? AB testing is not a new concept; it has been around since 1908 but it has a new name. In the medical field we have the control and experimental groups. This same logic now applies to you in your everyday web surfing. You are either in the control group, having normal content displayed to you. Or you are in the experimental side and the content is different. The message is different. The color is different. Something is different.
The reason companies use AB testing are endless. The main reason is they want to test a hypothesis. For example, do you like yellow or blue as your background color on the page? Do you respond better to multiple colors of the same product or just one product? What is the number of products to displaying to customers: 32, 64, 128? What media campaign has the best ROI? All of these examples are just a small fraction of the reasons why companies perform AB testing.
Performing AB testing seems normal for any marketer. It provides the quickest feedback on the best marketing campaign? This option is low cost as only affects .001 percent of the digital traffic. You can start and end AB testing whenever you wish, and finally it’s all within your control. If the data generated is acceptable within the first day, campaign A is performing better than campaign B. Guess which one we are using for the next 30 days.
The problem with AB testing for people like me, is which side of the fence do I reside in when I surf the web? Am I on the control or experimental side? If I’m am always in the experimental side do, I live in a warped world where nothing is true. Which side of the AB testing equation do you reside in? By the way, you can’t tell which side of the AB testing equation you reside in. Only the marketing folks do. Just food for thought.
WMBA Marketing Blog 
Phew! You had me on the ‘hook’ (so to speak) with this piece, up until the end when I was able to understand a) what ‘AB’ in the name stands for; and b) that it’s not possible for users/consumers/customers to know which side of the AB testing equation they’re in. So just out of curiosity, can a marketer (who obviously isn’t affiliated with the AB testing campaign) somehow figure this out? And as an extension to this question, is it possible, or is there a way for someone like you or me who now know a thing or two about marketing, to know which side of the AB testing ‘fence’ we reside in when we surf? This is just for pure curiosity, and nothing more! 🙂
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