Following on from Bas van den Beld in the interview series leading up to Conversion World 2016 is Martijn Scheijbeler. Martijn Scheijbeler is the Director of Marketing at The Next Web and will be presenting his session on the topic “So you setup your a/b testing program now what?” on day 2 of Conversion World on the 19th April during session 1.
Conversion World is an online conference that anyone in the world can attend, they have 3 full days of sessions with 35 world class speakers streamed straight to you. If you want to attend you can use the discount code IWANOW to save upto 40% through a special reader discount we have organised with the conference organisers.
Conversion World has 2 ticket options you can purchase, Livestream only or Livestream + download of session videos. You can buy the tickets online here.
Q: Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
A:As the Marketing Director at The Next Web I lead our marketing efforts, guiding a team of 15+ marketers means that I’m working on promoting, optimising and reporting on our efforts for all the projects that we run at The Next Web.
Q: Can you tell us a bit about The Next Web?
A: The Next Web is technology focused media company, well known from our blog thenextweb.com and The Next Web Conferences in Amsterdam and New York where we host of 15000+ annually.
Q: What is one company you worked for previously that you are still inspired by what they are doing today?
A: Before this I worked at Springest, an independent education comparison site. The main focus there was optimising everything we do, from making coffee to our Google Adwords campaigns. There I learned approaching everything with in mind that it can always be made better.
Q: What is one company out there that you think are doing amazing CRO projects?
A: SkyScanner, Booking.com, Spotify, Google, Facebook, Pinterest. These companies are able to build data platforms from the ground up with their own teams in order to create a culture of testing completely from within their organisation. We’re talking to them to see how we should optimise our efforts in CRO.
Q: What is one industry vertical that seems to always be leading in CRO?
A: Like you noticed with the above answer, the Travel industry is doing very well within CRO. As they’re so focused on getting a user to book their travel with them it means they optimise the whole process.
Q: What is the importance of accurate real-time data for CRO?
A: It depends, I mostly see a future for real-time data in making sure the data that is being collected is bug-free. As otherwise it could be you’re waiting for days on your test to get results but real-time data can tell you if a test is working or not. Besides that I think we shouldn’t be focused to much on real-time data, it sounds perfect, but who’s really using the data in real-time as well to draw conclusions, I rarely see it.
Q: What is the best platform for measuring CRO?
A: Google Analytics or any other primary web analytics tool. Analytics is still (or should be) the core of your CRO efforts.
Q: How many CRO tests have you run at TNW?
A: Last year we ran close to 200 A/B tests on-site and probably a couple dozen in email. This year we’re aiming for around 250 on-site and even more in email but we haven’t quantified this (yet).
Q: Can you tell us a bit more about your proposed topic “So you setup your a/b testing program now what?”
A: You’ve started testing and improving your conversion rates a tiny bit and you are running one or two tests as week, but you want more tests so you can generate more results. What opportunities are out there that you can take advantage off to take your testing program really to the next level and how are you able to scale this? In the session I go more in depth on we approached this at The Next Web. We were able to scale up our testing very fast by running over 200 tests in the past 12 months. But what is next for us, we can keep running at high velocity but how we do improve the results that we get from our testing program?
Q: Are there any other conversion world sessions/speakers you are looking to see?
A: Definitely, I’m always looking forward to hear Craig Sullivan talk on his ideas and philosophies on how to optimise our business. Next to that Talia Wolf always inspires on doing more with emotional targeting and elements.
Q: Where can people find you online if they want to engage, follow or connect?
A: Social media channels like Twitter, or follow me on Linkedin. Thank you Martijn for taking the time out to answer these questions.
If you want to catch Martijn’s session you can use the discount code IWANOW to save upto 40% when you buy the tickets online here.
Photo Credit: Friends of Search