Choosing The Best Method to Answer Your Questions
Marketing experimentation and marketing research surveys both aim to get questions answered but they vary in the types of questions they solve for.
When you need a general idea of what your customers think, how they feel, and their behaviors, conducting a marketing survey is the way to go. The true goal of surveys is understanding “what” consumers think of a certain product or experience. Some great surveys may even consider the “why” they get to their conclusion as well. Surveys can offer an understanding of customer satisfaction or consumer interest in a new product or feature.
On the other hand, a marketing experiment will show you how certain marketing decisions or adjustments will affect your outcome. The point is to find out how various factors influence your marketing objectives, and then make informed decisions according to the findings. Marketing experiments are based on cause and effect. A common example of marketing experimentation is A/B Testing. In this controlled experiment, one aspect of an ad is manipulated and both versions are sent randomly to consumers. From there, they can check how this affected sales or click-through rates. This allows companies to determine which type of ad is more effective and ultimately make a decision to run the better-received ad.