VistaPrint — Seasonal A/B/C Test
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About VistaPrint
VistaPrint helps small business owners and entrepreneurs create a custom and cohesive brand. Their free, templated designs can be used across multiple printed products (e.g. business cards, promotional products, signage, and more) and their online printing services allow users to create and receive them quickly and affordably.
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Problem Statement
How might we leverage VistaPrint’s lucrative holiday season to test the analytical and financial impact of potential website templates in advance of the following year’s high-stakes product page template redesign.
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TL;DR
We launched a split traffic A/B/C test in the United States and parts of Europe to test two landing page layouts against the legacy page format. I was co-designer and sole developer of the three landing pages (HTML, CSS, JavaScript). One of the new test pages was a statistical winner, bringing in more qualified purchases with a potential $750K a week win.
Background:
The Holiday season brings vistaprint.com the highest volume of online traffic and sales (think personalized holiday cards and custom gifts). Every change to the user interface and experience has potential to yield significant financial swings to the bottom line (an equally exciting and anxious time as a designer!). The Web/UX team saw the 2017 holiday season as an opportunity to leverage the paid search channel (in an effort to limit some risk) to test the analytical and financial performance of new product page templates ahead of the following year’s website redesign.
My role: Co-designer, Principle Developer.
Process:
Because the paid search holiday season is so short (statistically speaking), a cross-functional team of product owners, designers, and researchers devised and launched a straightforward, in-market A/B/C test across the United States and parts of Europe focusing on the metrics of revenue and average order value. Each page was built with intensive click-tracking to help craft the narrative of user behavior to help iterate on the page templates after the season.
Legacy Product Page Template (Control)
New Product Page Grid Template (Test)
New Product Hub Page Template (Test)
Results:
Both test pages beat the control, but the inspirational, long-format hub page brought more qualified purchases (a potential $750,000 a week win). We rolled all traffic toward the inspirational, long-format hub page in the United States market and parts of Europe for the remainder of the holiday season.
The insights from the test have not only influenced design decisions of the new website product page templates, but also the design direction and strategy ahead of next year's holiday season.