Matched Market Testing

Maybe you want to test whether a series of digital strategies work in retail stores. Have you considered matched market testing?

I realize this is an old-school topic. Oooooooooollllllldddd school. But valuable.

Here's the concept. You don't want a customer who received "Strategy A" to stagger into a store where "Strategy B" is being executed, ruining your carefully designed test. So you execute tests within a market ... you test "Strategy A" in Kansas City ... you test "Strategy B" in St. Louis.

Match markets based on a combination of demographic attributes, population density estimates, and merchandising preferences. There are all sorts of markets that naturally pair up with each other:

• Seattle / Portland.
• San Francisco / Los Angeles.
• San Diego / Phoenix.
• Dallas / Houston.
• Pittsburgh / Cleveland.
• Minneapolis / Chicago.
• Des Moines / Omaha.
• Baltimore / Washington DC.
• Charlotte / Atlanta.
• Tampa / Miami.

Now, things don't always end up that way ... you'll have surprises ... Minneapolis / Austin or Jacksonville / Louisville or Boise / Tucson. Regardless, your target customer and your merchandise assortment, when clustered properly, will yield an appropriate matched market strategy.

Show of hands ... how many of you are executing matched market testing?