The results were stunning (for 2001) and showed that 80% of the advertising spend was pretty poor indeed. Not surprisingly our client was over the moon with this new-found transparency and their business exploded when they invested in the right online advertising and had faith in the value of it. It was a real way to measure the actual return on advertising investment.

VITES™ 1.0

Born in the middle of 2003, this was the first time page content was linked to data recorded. It was clear that first time visitors to a website needed to be encouraged to return to generate revenue, and that returning visitors to the website needed to be treated differently to first timers. So a simple “tunneling system” was implemented that established where the visitor was in the sales cycle by understanding their previous activity on the website and also by interrogating the offline CRM system.

By doing this, VITES™ dropped people into the most appropriate tunnel and fed them tunnel specific content, imagery and, most importantly, applications.

Conversion rates rocketed. We had stumbled across a killer application for the web. In much the same way as Sergey Brin devised a method at Stanford University to “rank” sites in importance based on inbound links – which then became the basis for Google – we stumbled upon the link between recording and behaviour and predictive purchasing or behavioural targeting was born.

VITES™ 1.5

The original version was a killer. It doubled conversion rates overnight but it was very cumbersome to build sites around it and the clunky tunnels were flawed when it came to bookmarking and search engine maps. This needed addressing so a specification to improve the whole system was hastily put together in 2004 to meet these shortcomings.

This was a simpler beast to operate, more flexible, more powerful but still required hand cutting of the tunnels. We had tunnel vision!

VITES™ 2.x

A huge step in development was identified in late 2005 and the move to visitor profiles is set in stone. The whole system needed to be rewritten and was completed by the middle of 2006. This included a number of innovations including profiles, rules and confidence ratings (how confident the system is that a person fits a profile).

The latest platform is developed was the established LAMP platform and the task of rolling it out to the first handful of clients started.

The tool

Soon after VITES™ 2.x was launched it was realised that customers were coming up with great ways in which to use this tool. It became a very natural and easy tool to customise web content so sites could change at the weekend or overnight or when the call centre was busy or any other internal or external event.

Market leading online advertising companies became exposed to the technology and started sharing their data with VITES™ allowing it to make better decisions. We’ve only just scratched the surface with the VITES™ tool – there are a hundred or even a thousand more uses for it that we are yet to find.

The art of improvement is simple; make a change and then test it. If it’s better then use the latest version as the best and then cycle round again. The compounding effect of making lots of small improvements gives a number of key benefits:

• Continual improvement drives the performance up, relentlessly
• A frequent change culture encourages the testing of lots of ideas, sometimes the daftest or smallest of ideas have a major impact on performance
• Reduction of risk, a poorer performing idea is quickly and efficiently scrapped
• Much wider pool of thinking, more ideas from more people adheres closely to the concept of “the wisdom of the masses”
• Avoids the “Highest paid persons opinion” (HiPPO) quandary where decisions are made at the wrong level by the wrong people
• Compounding small improvement generates a huge improvement over time
• Real learning is possible and this helps the feedback loop for the next test
• No idea is right or wrong – it simply generates learning

The downside of kaizen in the digital world is that most web-site environments are simply not built to allow the kind of rapid change, test function that is required to get the most from this approach. VITES™ at it’s core is built around this philosophy.

Trial and error culture

Connected adopt a Kaizen approach to ongoing development and conversion rates where staying agile and making lots and lots of small changes – each time testing them to measure success – and then moving on again. Connected offer a number of services to help make this happen:-

• Fixed Kaizen contracts. A fixed number of tests or hours in a given period with a planned target to reach.
• A/B testing suites. Utilising the VITES™ platform to provide accurate, reliable A/B testing.
• Profile/persona-based testing. VITES™ supports unlimited profiles and profiles types, each can be tested independently or raced against a “banker”.
• Micro-site build & development. Avoiding the need to completely re-develop a client web-site and provide much of the improvement via a micro or landing-page site.
• Business Intelligence reporting. VITES™ Passport ™ provides a huge mine of data that can be accessed to provide unique learning. Provided as a service or as an API.
• Landing-page heavy lifting projects. The key first-wins for most commercial traffic sites, provided as a service, turnkey or consultancy.
• Performance contracts. Fixed target-based contract rewarded around specific goals and milestones.

Connected provide these services either standalone or linked with existing build-and-manage contracts.

What results can you expect?

Depending on the start point most clients can expect to achieve a doubling of conversion rates during the first year. The law of diminishing returns can apply and often the major advances are made in the early part of the project. Pushing down the “long tail” still has great value and the ongoing refining of the solution frequently uncovers surprises and big jumps on online conversion rates.

Keen to find out more?

Thinking of entering this world? Talk to Liam, Nick or Martin on 0845 051 4228 and he’ll sit down with you and go through the various options available and how to best approach improving your digital offering.