You might have heard of Omniture’s Test&Target product which has the ability to leverage sophisticated behavioral targeting plus Multivariate testing, but you might not completely understand whether it’s right for your business or what type of insight it can provide you. I decided to find out some more information by posing some questions to a Test&Target expert, Omniture’s very own Sr. Director of Product Marketing, Chris Duskin.
[Manoj]: Please provide an overview of the Test&Target framework and how you have integrated Touch Clarity and Offermatica.
[Chris]: The promise and the challenge of online marketing is the ability to meaningfully engage with your customers. One aspect of the promise is knowing which online experience or content is most relevant. And part of the challenge involves tools that give marketers control. TouchClarity and Offermatica combined as Omniture Test&Target give marketers the best tools to deliver relevance quickly and with very little IT involvement.
Testing, whether A/B/n or multivariate, helps marketers know which online experience is best. What we have learned, however, is that what is best for one group of visitors is not necessarily optimal for another. So testing and targeting are two sides of the same coin. Testing naturally leads to targeting – delivering specific content to specific users for even more relevance. Some basic examples of targeting include different experiences for new visitors than for returning visitors or different messaging based on a visitor’s geographic location. And, the most powerful targeting in terms of delivering relevance is one-to-one targeting based on predictive mathematical models. In a lot of cases, there is maximum benefit from letting an automated system determine the best content for the individual visitor at any point in time based on current intent. Omniture Test&Target is a single product providing all these capabilities, all of which are increasingly required by online marketers.
The integration of TouchClarity and Offermatica has certainly been a big effort, but it has been made easier by similarities between the two systems. Key components of the integration include a single tag or container for content delivery as well a single interface for content management, campaign creation, and user management. In coming releases, we’ll also deliver some very compelling, very powerful capabilities that even further build on the power of analytics, testing, and targeting.
[Manoj]: Why should Test&Target be a part of all ongoing landing page/content strategies?
[Chris]: Because more often than not, what we think will work is wrong. We think hard about the problem, look at all the data, consider all the options, leverage all our experience. But in the end, our traffic has the final say. Without testing and without targeting, relevance is left to chance, and the marketer is in a reactive mode. Test&Target lets marketing get into a proactive position and see in real-time what is effective and driving the business’s metrics.
[Manoj]: How much of a technical skill set is required to implement a customized test?
[Chris]: To be effective, marketers need control. In their tests and campaigns, they need to be able to make content, layout, and messaging changes wherever necessary. And they need to be able to do it quickly. So, Test&Target is designed for marketers who aren’t technical. Familiarity with html can be helpful as can the array of Omniture services options available to Test&Target customers.
[Manoj]: I’d like to know more about the specifics on the implementation of div tags and the fact that users have to pre-load their desired content in to the admin interface.
[Chris]: Our tags are javascript-based and allow marketers to use Test&Target’s online admin tool to change content in the tagged area. Implementing our tags is very straightforward and involves only a few lines of code. Once in place, the tag can be used repeatedly of course. The content that goes into those areas is either created in Test&Target or, more commonly, resides in a content management system. We also have features to allow the bulk upload of content that some customers find useful.
[Manoj]: Can you explain how different types of content are rotated based on predefined configuration or content performance?
[Chris]: Test&Target’s behavioral targeting campaigns allow the marketer to specify content for various site locations. Our algorithms then automatically capture and learn from hundreds of a visitor’s behaviors and characteristics to determine which of the content options to serve to the individual. The traffic to most sites is incredibly variable, and so is the intent of an individual. So a system like Test&Target that not automatically reacts to but is made stronger by this variability is incredibly powerful. This is what we mean by learning algorithms.
In terms of predefined configuration, marketers can also set rules that the models consider when determining what content to show. For example, some visitors may not be eligible for a particular offer depending on their geographic location or based on some other characteristic. Our system takes these rules into account. And, what’s also unique about our approach is that it’s effective for anonymous visitors.
[Manoj]: What factors (metrics) are used to help the system target based on behavior?
[Chris]: Success criteria used by our targeting algorithms can range from basic click-through to revenue events depending on the objective of the campaign.
[Manoj]: How can offline data be integrated?
[Chris]: Our customers load offline data into Test&Target using a set of APIs. A lot of companies that have transactions completed offline leverage this capability. For example, we have financial services customers who measure test campaign success by both online loan applications as well as offline loan approval. The loan approvals are loaded into the system using the APIs. The use of vanity or custom toll-free numbers is another technique some customers use to test different messaging or calls-to-action in both the online and offline environments. In these cases, call center activity is loaded into Test&Target for campaign evaluation.
[Manoj]: How can the Test&Target framework be used with email campaigns?
[Chris]: I mentioned earlier that our tag is javascript-based. We also have a non-javascript version used for configuring test content in emails. A leading coffee chain, a national moving company, and a large technology company have all recently tested email content with great success. This technique is also really compelling since it not only results in more effective email campaigns but essentially allows the content of unopened emails in inboxes to be altered to show fresher content. People are also thinking more and more about optimizing entire experiences rather than just pages. What this means is that testing and targeting don’t occur on a single landing page or even solely on the site. Instead, it starts at the first point of contact with a customer such
as in an email, continues across multiple site pages, and lasts for multiple visits. This kind of thinking reflects a real and deep focus on delivering relevance and is at the heart of Test&Target.
A little while back I got the chance to speak with Robert Bergquist, CEO of widemile (specializing in multivariate testing and optimization – based in Seattle). 
