{"id":22787,"date":"2024-04-17T11:27:57","date_gmt":"2022-06-22T22:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bloomreach.com\/library\/testing-without-learning-solving-for-the-modern-ecommerce-learning-crisis"},"modified":"2024-09-19T16:55:05","modified_gmt":"2024-09-19T16:55:05","slug":"testing-without-learning-solving-for-the-modern-e-commerce-learning-crisis","status":"publish","type":"library","link":"https:\/\/www.bloomreach.com\/en\/blog\/testing-without-learning-solving-for-the-modern-e-commerce-learning-crisis","title":{"rendered":"Testing Without Learning: Solving for the Modern Ecommerce Learning Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a digital merchandiser or marketer, you\u2019ve probably heard the words \u201clet\u2019s test it\u201d more times than you can count. Even as the amount of data available to drive decision-making has exponentially exploded in the past several years, many teams find themselves waking up one day and realizing that their learnings are siloed, tactical, and short-lived.  <\/p>\n

Learnings Are Siloed<\/h3>\n

Functionally, A\/B testing usually takes place within a single channel, though nowadays, a website banner test, a paid social test, and a paid search test may all be taking place for a single campaign or promotion. However, all too often, the social team leaves with a social campaign learning while the website team leaves with a site banner learning. They don\u2019t necessarily share learnings with each other, or look for overlapping takeaways that, when converged, point to a meaningful, deeper truth.<\/p>\n

Learnings Are Tactical<\/h3>\n

Running over 150 tests on CTAs, subject lines, image types, etc. can be effective, but it won\u2019t leave you with much proprietary information about your customer, your products, or your vertical. This is often why big checks are written to firms specializing in customer research: Third-party research is the antidote to the affliction of lacking strategic learnings. <\/p>\n

Learnings Are Short-lived<\/h3>\n

Tactical best practices frequently live and die by the digital minute, whereas human truths about the fundamental ways in which a category is shopped, for instance, can last a lifetime. This means that the return on learning is often incremental and not exponential.<\/p>\n

So the questions is, how can we make learning connected, meaningful, and long-lasting?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Set Your Learning Sights High(er)<\/h3>\n

The reason so many learnings are tactical is because there is no higher, significant purpose for testing ever identified in the first place. The obsession over the almighty altar of conversion rate<\/a> has taken center stage, so don\u2019t be alarmed if you\u2019re reading this and realizing that conversion rate is the \u201csun\u201d of your testing universe. <\/p>\n

What are your organization\u2019s biggest strategic desired learnings? Think of the big, \u201chairy\u201d questions that are not easily answered with a survey or a simple A\/B test. What are the learnings that, if realized and leveraged, would help move a massive needle like market share? These desired learnings should be front and center as you create your learning agenda. Some examples could include:<\/p>\n