Have you ever stopped to think about why companies ask you to fill out forms when you request a service? Or in today’s app-driven world, why so many platforms encourage you to log in using Facebook, Google, or Twitter rather than just a simple email? At first glance, this seems like an extra cost for businesses—after all, they have to support multiple login methods. Yet, companies actively push for these options. Why?
The answer is simple: data. Logging in through social media provides businesses with rich personal information that even your family might not know about you. Your Facebook profile, for example, can reveal your city of residence, hobbies, favorite sports teams, social habits, and purchase interests. All of this becomes the foundation for building what marketers call a buyer persona—a semi-fictional profile of an ideal customer that helps businesses tailor their products, services, and marketing strategies.
Take an investment firm as an example. When you sign up, your relationship manager evaluates your profile—age, income, risk appetite, and goals—before recommending products. Similarly, apps like Tinder rely on Facebook login data to craft personalized profiles and suggest matches that align with your interests and behaviors. This level of customization improves user experience and, ultimately, customer satisfaction.
The bigger question is: why go to all this effort? The success of platforms like Tinder answers it for us. Buyer personas allow companies to better understand their audience, predict their needs, and deliver more relevant offerings. If you know your target customer is a 22-year-old sports enthusiast, recommending sports-themed movies instead of random titles dramatically increases the likelihood of purchase. Personas don’t just boost sales; they also reduce wasted time, effort, and ad spend.
According to Kissmetrics:
In short, a persona is a composite sketch of your target customer, built using attributes that help companies strategize more effectively.
To create meaningful buyer personas, you need data. Lots of it. The following attributes usually form the backbone of a persona:
So, where do companies collect this data? Sources vary widely and may include:
By aggregating these inputs, businesses can craft personas that accurately reflect their customers.
Let’s look at a quick example:
Persona Snapshot
From this persona, it’s clear the customer would be more receptive to ads for Apple products, coding resources, and football merchandise than for unrelated items like cooking utensils. This illustrates the power of buyer personas in guiding marketing strategies.
Personas are especially critical for e-commerce businesses, where there is no face-to-face interaction. Online, your understanding of the customer is limited to the data you can collect and analyze. This is where A/B testing comes in.
A/B testing, also known as split testing, is a method of comparing two versions of a webpage, email, or ad to see which performs better. As defined by Wikipedia:
“A/B testing is a controlled experiment with two variants, A and B. In online settings, the goal is to identify changes that increase or maximize an outcome of interest, such as click-through rate or conversion.”
Here’s how it works: suppose you want to know whether your website toolbar should be blue or green. You randomly divide visitors into two groups:
All other elements remain identical. By tracking metrics such as time spent on the site, clicks, or purchases, you can determine which version resonates better. Beyond design tweaks, A/B testing can validate assumptions about your customers—helping you refine and validate buyer personas with real-world data.
Let’s consider a sports bike manufacturer. The company wants to know if customers are drawn to their bikes for the “coolness factor” or the thrill of speed.
The group with higher engagement or purchase intent reveals the true motivator. Armed with this insight, the company can position its future campaigns accordingly.
There are many free and paid tools available to run A/B tests, including:
Each platform offers unique features—some focus on design testing, others on email campaigns, and some on advanced personalization. Choosing the right one depends on your business objectives and budget.
Lucidchart – The online diagramming platform ran A/B tests to see how users interacted with different versions of their homepage and product tour pages. By refining their layouts based on test results, they saw a 30% lift in conversions.
Manillo – This Danish e-commerce company assumed their top customers were young moms in their 30s. A/B testing proved otherwise: their most valuable buyers were women over 60, who placed frequent high-value orders. This insight led to a 50% increase in ROI on Facebook ads, simply by targeting the right audience.
These examples show how A/B testing not only validates assumptions but can also uncover unexpected truths about your customer base.
To make A/B testing effective for persona building, keep these guidelines in mind:
At the beginning of this article, we asked why companies push for social media logins or customer forms. The answer now becomes clear: they’re building buyer personas. And with tools like A/B testing, these personas can be refined, validated, and enhanced with precision.
By combining demographic data, customer behaviors, and controlled experiments, companies can craft personas that not only improve targeting but also save time, reduce ad spend, and increase conversions.
In an era where customer-centricity drives success, A/B testing isn’t just a tool for better web design—it’s a powerful engine for building accurate, data-driven buyer personas.
This article was originally published on Perceptive Analytics.
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