That "always be A/B testing" advice cost me real money

I used to think running constant A/B tests on landing pages was the golden rule. Everyone in this sub swears by it, right? Well, I spent 6 months testing button colors, headline tweaks, and form lengths on a campaign for a client in Austin. After all that time, I had results that were statistically flat maybe a 2% lift on a good day. Meanwhile, I ignored the bigger picture like my page load speed was 4.2 seconds on mobile. Once I fixed that, conversions jumped 18% in two weeks. So yeah, testing is useful, but don't let it blind you to basics. Has anyone else found a popular tactic that turned out to be a distraction?

2 comments

2 Comments

margaret_bennett32d ago

Got burned by that same thing a few years back. I was testing different CTA fonts on a landing page for a client who sold organic dog treats, spent three weeks tweaking between Arial and Helvetica, got nothing. Meanwhile my coworker just added a simple "money back guarantee" badge and a 30 day timer, got a 12% lift in a weekend. Sometimes I think we overthink the small stuff because it makes us feel busy.

cameron_chen632d ago

Helvetica and Arial are almost identical so that three weeks was the real mistake.