The 10 Most-Read Articles of 2018

As we wrap up 2018, we went back through everything we’ve published this year to find the 10 most-read articles.

Here’s the list:

10. How to Get Started with Machine Learning and AI for Marketing

Artificial Intelligence is powerful and will open doors we don’t even know exist. But there are some steps you can take today to ensure that you’re making the most of this new capability and won’t be left behind.

9. There is Nothing Magical About 95% Statistical Significance

You’re probably ending your A/B tests either too early or too late.

The standard best practice is to wait until a representative sample is obtained and the winner of the test can be declared with 95% certainty or greater. But there is an opportunity cost to waiting for greater certainty.

8. How to Develop a Successful Marketing Automation Strategy

Marketers know automation is important and plan to spend more money on it, but they don’t know how to create a strategy around it. If this sounds familiar, don’t panic. Developing an automation strategy isn’t easy, but it is worthwhile.

7. Mixpanel vs. Google Analytics: The 2018 Guide

This post is not a dry feature-by-feature comparison, nor does it include a winner-take-all verdict.

Instead, it compares Mixpanel and Google Analytics in the terms that drive business growth—identifying the core use cases for each tool and the business problems they solve.

6. The Role of SEO in Growth

You’re likely familiar with different growth frameworks, like AARRR (Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue). It all starts with Acquisition, and one of the biggest acquisition channels is organic search.

5. How People Read Short Articles [Original Research]

When people read short articles and blog posts online, what percentage of the content actually gets read? Do people read image captions? How many readers finish an entire article?

4. How to Run Marketing Experiments the Right Way

You need to run experiments: The one who runs the most experiments wins. But most marketing experiments are done wrong. What’s missing is hypothesis-driven testing across all inter-business disciplines.

3. Top 20 A/B Ecommerce Test Ideas

There’s nothing that always works and very little that never works. Websites are contextual.

That said, there are tests that tend to have a high win rate. These are the test ideas that, while they don’t work 100% of the time, work more often than not.

2. The Best Programming Languages for Digital Marketers

In the world of data-driven marketing, more and more tasks require a bit of coding.

Knowing one or two data languages—even at a beginner level—is a great help for an online professional’s daily job and, consequently, a huge advantage over your competition.

1. 5 Critical Factors for Optimizing Luxury Ecommerce Sites

The techniques that work for mass-market products don’t work for luxury goods or services. These five critical factors can make or break the conversion rate of a high-end ecommerce store.

Conclusion

Happy reading, happy New Year, and see you in 2019!