How to use experiment feature flags

Experiments can be used to send users down various paths or provide different functionality of a single feature, either as an A/B test or multivariate testing. Experimentation is extremely useful for making data-driven decisions by monitoring the impacts of various code paths. Experiment feature flags can be used for website wording, website or application flow changes, and ad timing.

A/B testing is not just for short-term conversion rates. It's a best practice that can also lead to a better user experience over the long term, which in turn leads to higher conversion rates. Used continuously and consistently, it can be a powerful tool for your business for years to come.

Website wording

If you want to improve the effectiveness of your website, you can leverage experimentation to test your copy. Let’s say you have a list of potential improvements to copy that you want to show users. Testing copy with a list of potential improvements is a great example of how the process of creating, considering, and evaluating these options is effective. 

You can create various versions of copy for certain areas on your site. If you wrap them behind a feature flag, you can randomly assign users to see different messaging. The versions of your page with ineffective copy can be eliminated. As you run your experiment and gather feedback based on how users interact with your site, you can learn which variations perform better and show those more frequently.

A/B testing is the fastest way to find out what's working on your website or app. It’s a straightforward way to tell you what content will convert visitors into leads and make purchases. Knowledge of what works and what doesn't will make you more successful in converting leads and gaining revenue.

Website or application flow changes

Conducting A/B tests allows you to keep your users engaged. By optimizing the order in which elements are presented, or changing the color, image, or text on a certain element, to fit user preferences you can retain visitors on-site for a longer period of time. The more time visitors spend on your site or app, the more likely they are to find the value in your content and convert.

The way a user interacts with your website or app is incredibly important. However, for mobile apps, a user having a successful onboarding experience is particularly crucial. 25% of users abandon an app after just one use and retention rates increased by up to 50% with effective app onboarding proving the importance of leveraging the importance of experimentation for a user's onboarding flow through your app.

Testing the messaging in your onboarding, the number of steps in the process, as well as the overall onboarding experience, are simple experiments that can have a significant impact on the long-term success and user engagement level of your app.

In addition, finding the ideal checkout experience for buyers is a significant challenge for e-commerce sites. Browsers typically abandon their carts before completing the purchase. A/B testing can be used to find the perfect combination of tweaks to order pages that will keep customers from abandoning their cart before checkout.

Ad timing

Experimentation feature flags can help with optimizing your ad timing. Reaching out to your users at the right time is incredibly important in increasing engagement. With a feature flag, you can test the timing that a user receives a message to see which timing performs best. Let’s say you’re a food delivery company like UberEats. If you want to send out a lunch promotion, you could send half your users a message at 11:30 am while the other half would receive a message at 12 pm. Based on which timing led to more conversions, you can clearly see which one performed best. Based on the results of the A/B test you could use the time that performed better for lunch promotions moving forward.

Learn more with DevCycle

Testing your site and mobile app with different A/B tests will increase the number of sales, not only in the short term but also in the long run. It's important to improve your site because testing provides better customer experiences which, in turn, breeds trust in the brand. People are loyal to brands that have excellent customer service and are continuously improving their websites and mobile apps.

Start leveraging experimentation feature flags with a 14-day free trial of DevCycle.

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