Sarah DeAtley shares how she started a conversion optimization program at Cobalt

Sarah DeAtley is a Web & Optimization Analyst at Cobalt. In this second interview in our on-going Facebook interview series on conversion optimization, Sarah shares how she started a conversion program at Cobalt, and offers tips and advice for anyone looking to start their own program.

Can you tell us a little about your conversion optimization role?

I am a web and optimization analyst at Cobalt, a company that provides automotive marketing services for a large number of dealer websites across brands. Within the business intelligence group, I get to work on the entire analytics and optimization cycle and play with data all day. This includes looking at data regularly to measure performance, and using analytics insights and user centered design to directly influence A/B testing. We’re fortunate to have access to a variety of data sources, so I can tie offline actions to online behavior, and do lots of cool segmentation.

How has your conversion optimization process evolved so far?

How is it evolving? Our conversion optimization process has gone from “What is an A/B test?” to people constantly asking if we can help them test new designs. It’s been great to see co-workers and clients get excited about optimizing sites and making data-based design choices. We’re trying to grow our program both from the top down and the bottom up. Meaning we’re working away at the low-hanging fruit (usability, campaign landing pages) while increasing top-level support to implement more complex tests with behavioral targeting. The ultimate goal is to move toward optimizing the consumer journey from brand sites to dealer sites.

Which team members do you work with on a normal basis?

I am a huge believer in collaboration; you never know where good test ideas will come from. Because of that we don’t have some of the issues other organizations have, where developers are the enemy of testing. Usually I work with developers, analysts, statisticians, designers, SEM managers, and account managers.

If you started the conversion program at your organization, what was the number one challenge you faced and how did you overcome it?

I was part of the launch team at Cobalt for conversion and optimization, and helped form our practice here. The #1 challenge we faced educating people within the company on optimization and its value. Overcoming that is an ongoing process, but reaching out to teams with test ideas helped spread the word about optimization. We also helped start a conversion optimization summit, which allowed us to share test successes and emphasize the need to be a data-driven organization. (Having awesome test results didn’t hurt either).

What is the best thing about being a part of the conversion optimization process?

Definitely the best part for me is being able to help the user and the client at the same time. Convincing clients why designs are not usable or in the client’s best interests can be difficult without data to prove it. Through conversion optimization and A/B testing, I can combine user centered design and analytics to make our sites more usable and persuasive; which leads to more conversions and ROI. Win-win.

What is one final piece of advice you would give to someone just starting out in conversion optimization?

I’m going to cheat and list 2 pieces of advice. 1. Come to #CROchat on Thursdays at 1PM EST and talk to other conversion optimization practitioners—they’re great sources of information on how to get started. 2. Start testing. The best way to learn is to just start testing and keep testing. Even if you use a personal site to practice.

Other Recent Interviews

Tim Eschenauer, SEO Specialist, Austin & Williams

Christoph Cronimund, Online Marketing Director, Swarovski