by Boris Grinkot, Associate Director of Product Development

Top challenges to implementing testing as part of LPO in 2010

Q. 39.0 - Was any of the following a challenge to testing in 2010?



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Compared with other challenges, such as boosting expertise gaps and arguing for increased LPO budgets, marketers reported that implementing a testing methodology was overall just "somewhat significant," as opposed to a "very significant" hurdle.

For some marketers, implementing a testing process may be perceived as more impersonal and mathematical than other operational challenges, which require significant time and effort to navigate often emotionally charged organizational and interpersonal dynamics. For others, perhaps reaching the testing stage of LPO (or even considering it) means that they have already overcome significant challenges. Consequently, implementing a testing process does not seem overwhelming by comparison.

However, these challenges can be damaging to a testing culture in your organization. Insufficient traffic requires more sophisticated statistics, and potentially a lower level of confidence to validate test results. Without the right data, tests may require too much time to be practical, making them neither feasible nor palatable to some marketers.

However, the amount of traffic a website generates is often outside of the LPO practitioner’s immediate control, which may account for the large segment that rated this challenge as "insignificant" – perhaps simply because their pages already get plenty of traffic.

Interestingly, sites that are focused on generating leads by offering free content reported they are less challenged by the need to connect Web analytics with offline transactions. Unlike marketers that generate leads directly by asking the visitor for information with nothing immediate in exchange (e.g., an RFP form), perhaps content marketers have had to evaluate the cost side of providing free content, and therefore are more conscious of being able to account for it on the revenue side.

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