Content experiments display different messages to customers
to determine which message is more effective at driving sales. These
messages can include marketing content, promotion recommendations,
category recommendations, catalog entry recommendations, merchandising
associations, and so on.Show Me
Before you begin
If the web activity that you want to experiment with does
not exist, create it. If you
are experimenting with different content, you also need two or more
pieces of content defined.If
you want to view revenue statistics that are related to the experiment,
make sure that a Site Administrator has enabled
the collection of revenue statistics before the experiment
starts.
Procedure
- Open the Marketing tool.
- Open the web activity for which you want to test the effectiveness
of the displayed message.
- In the palette, expand the Branching section.
- Drag an Experiment element
onto the flow connector immediately to the left of the element that
you want to test
For example, the Recommend
Content action or Recommend Category action.
Alternatively, you can right-click the element; then click Add
to Experiment.
A branch is created,
leading to a second path through the web activity. This is the experiment
path.
- Click the Experiment element.
- Enter the experiment properties:
Property | Description |
---|
Name |
Enter a meaningful name in the field. This name identifies
the experiment. |
Branch type |
Select one of the following options:
- Random path
- This type creates weighted random paths. You assign each path
a percentage so that, for example, 50% of customers follow Path A
and 50% follow Path B.
- First path for which the customer qualifies
- For this type, the customer can follow only one path, which is
the first path that starts with a target for which the customer qualifies.
The paths are evaluated from top to bottom as represented in the Activity
Builder.
The Random path branch type
is recommended for content experiments. |
Frequency of element changes for each customer |
Select one of the following options:
- No change - Customer always sees the same content
- This option specifies that customers always see the same content
during the life of the experiment.
- Session - Customer sees the same content within a session
- This option specifies that customers see the same content during
the current session. They might see different content during the next
session, if they qualify for a different path.
- Request - Customer might see different content on each view
- This option specifies that customers are not restricted to seeing
the same content for any length of time. They might see different
content as of the next site request, if they qualify for a different
path.
|
Maximum number of customers |
This option specifies the number of customers that participate
in the experiment. If you do not specify the maximum number of customers,
you must specify an end date. If the maximum number of customers
is reached when a customer reaches the experiment, they continue along
the control path. If the maximum number of customers is not reached,
then they are assigned to a path according to the branch type. When
the maximum number of customers is reached, those customers already
participating in the experiment continues along their assigned path.
New customers do not participate in the experiment. |
Start Date |
Define a start date and time for the experiment. You can either
enter a date in the field, or select a date by using the calendar
tool. Similarly, you can enter a time directly into the field, or
you can select one using the clock tool. If you do not specify a start
date, the experiment starts when the activity is scheduled to start. |
End Date |
Define an end date and time for the experiment. You can either
enter a date in the field, or select a date by using the calendar
tool. Similarly, you can enter a time directly into the field, or
you can select one using the clock tool. If you do not specify an
end date, you must specify the maximum number of customers. |
Session length |
The maximum duration of time to consider that the contents
of a customer's order were influenced by a marketing experiment. The
timing begins when the customer views an e-Marketing Spot that is
used in the experiment. The timing ends when the customer submits
an order. If the duration of time is less than the session length,
then the marketing services check whether the order contains SKUs
associated with the experiment recommendations. If so, revenue numbers
are included in the experiment statistics. If the Frequency
of element changes for each customer is set to Session,
the session length is also the amount of time during which
the customer sees the same test element. After the session time expires,
the customer might be assigned a different test element in the experiment. |
Status |
Select the status of the experiment. You can select either Running or Suspended. |
- Click the Paths tab, and enter each
path's properties:
Property | Description |
---|
Name |
Enter a meaningful name in the field. This name identifies
the path in both this tab and the Statistics tab. |
Percentage |
If the Branch type is Random
path, enter the percentage weighting for each path. This
percentage represents the frequency at which the server displays content
on a path. For example, if you have two paths, A and B, and each is
set at 50%, then 50% of customers see content A and the other 50%
see content B. |
Sequence |
This column displays the path's position relative to the other
paths in the experiment. This column is hidden by default; to display
it, see Using table views. |
Unique ID |
This column displays the internal database ID for this object;
this ID is used for troubleshooting purposes. This column is hidden
by default; to display it, see Using table views. |
- Optional: You can add more paths to the experiment
by right-clicking the Experiment element, and
then clicking Add Path. You can delete any
paths by right-clicking the path arrow, and then clicking Delete.
- Click the action element on the experiment path to display
its properties.
For example, the Recommend
Content action or Recommend Category action.
- Change the properties to display the experimental content.
- Click Save to save
the activity, or click Close to close the Activity
Builder and return to the previous page.
Example
The following image illustrates how
to use the Activity Builder to create a content experiment that tests
the effectiveness of displaying two different patio furniture ads
in the e-Marketing Spot in the first row of the store home page: