Tag: A/B testing

Against A/B tests

Traditional A/B testsing rests on a fundamentally flawed premise. Most of the time, version A will be better for some subgroups, and version B will be better for others. Choosing either A or B is inherentlyinferior to choosing a targeted mix of A and B.

Michael Kaminsky locallyoptimistic.com

The quote above is from a post by Michael Kaminsky “Against A/B tests“. I’m still not fully convinced by Michael’s thesis but it is very interesting and thought-provoking. 

What are the best practices in planning & interpreting A/B tests?

Compiled by my teammate Yanir Serourssi, the following is a reading list an A/B tests that you should read even if you don’t plan to perform an A/B test anytime soon. The list is Yanir’s. The reviews are mine. Collective intelligence in action 🙂

  • If you don’t pay attention, data can drive you off a cliff
    In this post, Yanir lists seven common mistakes that are common to any data-based analysis. At some point, you might think that this is a list of trivial truths. Maybe it is. The fact that Yanir’s points are trivial doesn’t make them less correct. Awareness doesn’t exist without knowledge. Unfortunately, knowledge doesn’t assure awareness. Which is why reading trivial truths is a good thing to do from time to time.
  • How to identify your marketing lies and start telling the truth
    This post was written by Tiberio Caetano, a data science professor at the University of Sidney. If I had to summarize this post with a single phrase, that would be “confounding factors”. A confounding variable is a variable hidden from your eye that influences a measured effect. One example of a confounding variable is when you start an ad campaign for ice cream, your sales go up, and you conclude that the ad campaign was effective. What you forgot was that the ad campaign started at the beginning of the summer, when people start buying more ice cream anyhow.
    See this link for a detailed textbook-quality review of confounding variables.
  • Seven rules of thumb for web site experimenters
    I read this review back in 2014, shortly after it was published by, among others, researchers from Microsoft and LinkedIn. Judging by the title, one would expect yet another list of trivial truths in a self-promoting product blog. This is not the case here. In this paper, you will find several real-life case studies, many references to marketing studies, and no advertising of shady products or schemes.
  • A dirty dozen: Twelve common metric interpretation pitfalls in online controlled experiments
    Another academic paper by Microsoft researchers. This one lists a lot of “dont’s”. Like in the previous link, every advice the authors give is based on established theory and backed up by real data.