Anyone who has ever ventured into the world of digital marketing knows that conversion rate optimization (CRO) can be a long, laborious and expensive task. Traditional methods like A/B testing are slow and often ineffective, with an average of just one in every five experiments leading to successful returns. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be that way. Modern CRO tools, such as the versatile Sentient Ascend platform, leverage the power of advanced artificial intelligence and evolutionary algorithms to supercharge the CRO process, slashing testing times and leading to a greater return on investment. To learn more, let’s take a deep dive into how this revolutionary technology is disrupting the digital marketing status quo.
The Power of Artificial Intelligence
Conversion rate optimization is an essential piece of any online marketing effort, but it’s a heavily data-driven affair. Successful CRO requires observing trends and customer behaviors, executing extensive A/B comparison testing, analyzing the results and implementing solutions based on the resulting data. Because traditional A/B testing is only capable of conducting one experiment at a time, this process is often slow and clunky. The process also relies on human intelligence and intuition, and as a result, it may miss the subtle cues and interactions that often make the biggest difference between failure and success.
With AI-driven tools, however, these tasks can be condensed and streamlined to produce a far faster and more efficient optimization process. Artificial intelligence is capable of running a multitude of integrated multivariate tests at once across an entire website, carefully analyzing every distinct element and identifying the most effective choices and combinations. From messaging to navigation to design cues, AI tools like Sentient Ascend can evaluate thousands – even millions – of permutations more quickly and accurately than is possible through traditional means. Additionally, powerful predictive analysis and streamlined CRO processes make it easier to adapt to shifting visitor profiles and other changes as they arise. In the fast-paced world of online marketing, that degree of responsiveness and flexibility is invaluable.
An Evolutionary Approach
In many respects, digital marketing is a Darwinian exercise: only the strongest and most adaptable thrive under the pressures of fierce competition and the ever-changing needs and desires of customers. It makes sense, then, that the most effective approaches to conversion rate optimization draw on the driving principles behind evolution and natural selection. This is perhaps the most vital aspect of Sentient Ascend, which leverages the power of genetic algorithms to drive an organic evolutionary approach to digital marketing and design.
The fundamental process behind this evolutionary approach is simple. Beginning with a basic set of design elements, AI-driven tools run a litany of tests to determine which elements are best adapted to survive and thrive in the marketing environment. As in the natural world, these most successful elements are combined to “breed” brand new designs featuring an assortment of different combinations. Subsequent rounds of testing continue to weed out the weakest elements, eventually leaving only the elements that are most effective at boosting conversion rates and meeting other metrics for success.
Optimizing Optimization
Despite its vital importance, the significant investment of time, money and other resources demanded by most traditional conversion rate optimization solutions means that many marketing efforts ultimately fail to maximize their returns. CRO is a data-intensive effort, and utilizing it effectively often means acquiring expensive statistical and data science resources. The process is also slow and laborious, requiring careful administration and oversight, significant traffic volume and extensive testing of individual elements and design choices. As a result, creativity is stifled and many ideas often go untested.
Artificial intelligence changes all of that. AI tools significantly reduce the burden of administration by largely automating the testing and optimization process, handling staging, management and analysis with little direct input required. The ability to automate the testing of virtually endless variations also speeds up the entire CRO process, packing months or years worth of traditional A/B testing into a span of just weeks. This speed and flexibility also makes it possible to test and implement more ideas more quickly, ensuring that no idea needs to be rejected out of hand on grounds of cost or time considerations. This helps to foster an atmosphere of free-flowing creativity and collaboration – a valuable asset for any marketing campaign.
Digital marketing is an exceptionally competitive field, and the margin between success and failure is often vanishingly thin. A quality approach to conversion rate optimization is of paramount importance, and AI-powered CRO tools represent one of the best value opportunities available. In fact, the average return on investment for CRO tools is a staggering 223 percent. Pairing testing and optimization efforts with artificial intelligence and machine learning is a natural fit, and the opportunities for growth for marketers are virtually unlimited.
Dil Bole Oberoi
