Monday, July 14, 2008

Multivariate Analysis - Part II

Offermatica seems to be the industry leader in landing page multivariate analysis but I just found out about another tool called "Memetrics". This is a tool owned by Accenture and uses their Choice Modeling methodology.

They claim that Taguchi, which is a linear alogorithm is not the best way to predict human behaviour. Choice Modeling takes into account trade offs and preferences. Taguchi in a linear design and is a fractional factorial science which does not understand content interactions. While using Taguchi, enough sample for 16 versions of the page are required. Memetrics and choice modeling requires only enough sample for the number of attributes that will be tested and can then run a full factorial test in less time with less sample at a higher degree of confidence than Taguchi or Optimal Design (by Optimost) can.

Memetrics is the only tool which can easily optimize multiple outcomes, weighted outcomes and even offline outcomes. Memetrics is the only solution that is not a black box but rather a fully exposed, open analytical framework.

I personaly have not used Memetrics but it seems like a new technology that can be used for Multivariate testing.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

From my knowledge, Offermatica does not rely on a strict adherence to Taguchi. From my discussion with the chief scientist at my company, Taguchi has a lot of good ideas, which can be used for testing, but much of it is unfit for web page optimization. The fractional factorial methodology in general, however, is very powerful and should be a requirement of any optimization platform. There's a big misconception that interactions are very important and that they can not be detected by fractional factorial methods. This is simply false.

There are , which only the last level can not be detected by fractional factorial methods.

I blog about
multivariate testing if you're interested in learning more or you can contact me directly. I work for the technology marketing firm Widemile and do test design for MVT projects everyday.