Machine Learning Engineer / Data Scientist with around 2 years of experience in the industry and 3 years of experience doing research in the academia. Strong theoretical background and ability to put state-of-the-art methods into practice. Also contributing to open-source projects and mentoring people to help them improve their programming skills.
A Georgia fifth-grade public school teacher is attempting to save her job in a termination hearing that concluded Friday after she was fired earlier this year for reading her students a book on gender identity the district says is prohibited in class instruction under state law.
Due West ElementaryteacherKatie Rinderle, who has been on leave for more than a month after teaching for 10 years, was fired in March for reading the book “My Shadow Is Purple,” which features a nonbinary character and challenges the concept that there are only two genders.
“When I saw the book, at the book fair, I read it. I thought it was a wonderful book,” Rinderle said on the stand during the two-day hearing. Rinderle said her students chose the book out of several options she gave them.
Rinderle said the book was “about inclusivity, balance, acceptance and being true to yourself.”
The hearing was initiated under a state law that protects teachers from unjustified firing. A panel of three retired school principals will make a recommendation on whether Rinderle should keep her job and submit it to the school board, which will decide to either accept or change the recommendation. The panel has five to make their recommendation, which the board plans to vote on at their next meeting.
Rinderle could appeal her firing to the state Board of Education and into court.
The case comes as parents and Republican lawmakers across the country attempt to remove books about LGBTQ+ subjects from school curriculum and libraries.
“This termination is unrelated to education,” Rinderle’s lawyer Craig Goodmark argued during the hearing. “It exists to create political scapegoats for the elected leadership of this district. Reading a children’s book to children is not against the law.”
The Cobb County School District says Rinderle broke the school district’s rules and Georgia’s new Divisive Concepts Law, both of which prohibit teachers from using controversial topics in their instruction. Parents complained about the book after learning the book was read to their children and Rinderle was terminated.
“Introducing the topic of gender identity and gender fluidity into a class of elementary grade students was inappropriate and violated the school district policies,” Sherry Culves, a lawyer for the school district, said.
Rinderle testified that she believed the book “to be appropriate” and not a “sensitive topic.” She claimed that the book carries a broader message for gifted students and touches on “their many interests and feeling that they should be able to choose any of their interests and explore all of their interests.”
The district’s rule barring instruction on controversial subjects was adopted last year after state lawmakers passed the Divisive Concepts Law and created a parents’ bill of rights to give parents more say in their children’s education and “the right to direct the upbringing and the moral or religious training of his or her minor child.”
“The Cobb County School District is very serious about the classroom being a neutral place for students to learn,” Culves said. “One-sided instruction on political, religious or social beliefs does not belong in our classrooms.”
Goodmark argued that banning “controversial issues” is too vague, so teachers may be unsure of what is permitted.
The district said it wants to fire Rinderle, in part, because administrators found her “uncoachable.”
“The school district has lost confidence in her, and part of that is her refusal to understand and acknowledge what she’s done,” Culves said, citing Rinderle’s failure to take responsibility for her actions and to apologize to parents and the school principal as additional reasons the district has lost confidence.
Rinderle repeatedly told Culves she did not know what parents’ beliefs were or what content might be considered offensive.
“Can you understand why a family might want the chance to discuss the topic of gender identity, gender fluidity or gender beyond binary with their children at home first, before it is introduced by a public school teacher?” Culves asked in her questioning.
Culves argued that district policies meant Rinderle should have asked the principal to approve the book in advance and give parents the opportunity to opt their children out of the reading. Rinderle said it was not common practice to receive approval for picture books.
“This is not part of the curriculum, it’s not part of what we teach in fifth grade,” Due West Elementary Principal Cissi Kale said.
District officials said Rinderle should have known books were a sensitive area after parents previously complained when she read “Stacey’s Extraordinary Words,” a picture book about a spelling bee by then-gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who was running as a Democrat.
But Rinderle pushed back by saying her principal read Abrams’ book, told her there was nothing wrong with it and that she would handle complaints.
Today, users interact with brands on multiple devices and separate platforms—often simultaneously. Even in-person and online shopping, which used to be distinct events, are no longer completely separate due to the rise of trends like buy-online-pick-up-in-person.
Consumer expectations are shifting as well.
Today’s customers expect to receive the same service and brand experience whether they’re scrolling Facebook, reading their email, or shopping in a store.
How do you give your customers what they want and deliver a better experience? With omnichannel marketing.
What Is Omnichannel Marketing?
Omnichannel marketing provides users with a seamless marketing experience across all platforms, channels, and devices throughout the marketing funnel. The core goal of omnichannel marketing is to place the customer at the center of all marketing strategies and provide a consistent, seamless experience.
Omnichannel marketing is growing in popularity, with 67 percent of e-commerce companies saying omnichannel is “very” or “quite” important to their business.
While implementation of an omnichannel strategy can vary between businesses, it can be identified by key goals, including:
personalized content and ads informed by past interactions with specific users
consistent branding, tone, and vision across all platforms
allowing users to continue their purchase path seamlessly, even if they switch platforms or devices
Benefits of Omnichannel Marketing
When implemented correctly, omnichannel marketing offers a host of benefits for both brands and their customers. According to Invesp, companies using omnichannel strategies retain 89 percent of their customers, while brands that don’t keep just 33 percent of their customers.
Several other benefits include:
Improved user experience: Omnichannel marketing centers the customer experience, providing a better experience for customers no matter where they interact with your brand.
Better brand awareness: Creating a consistent experience across platforms (including in-store) makes it easier for customers to recognize your brand.
Improved business data: Omnichannel tracks interactions across platforms, channels, and even in-person sales. This highlights which campaigns (and channels) are most effective at driving leads and sales.
Increased sales and revenue: Marketers that use three or more channels in one campaign see a 287 percent higher purchase rate. Omnichannel campaigns also have a higher order rate.
Examples of Omnichannel Marketing
Today, most brands realize customers engage with them on multiple channels. However, implementing an omnichannel strategy can feel overwhelming. Let’s look at a few brands that are getting it right.
Starbucks
Starbucks is more than just an in-person coffee shop and remote working haven.
They also offer online ordering through their mobile rewards app. Customers can upload money to the app, place curb-side orders, and even claim rewards.
How do they improve omnichannel with their app?
First, Starbucks offers rewards to app users, which encourages them to use the app. The app regularly pushes special rewards, such as earning extra points for ordering in the next two days or trying a new drink.
When customers use the app, it allows Starbucks to track in-store behavior—data they wouldn’t have access to otherwise. The app then offers recommendations and promotes seasonal drinks to drive sales.
Disney
Disney is a pioneer in omnichannel marketing. The brand has expertly navigated combining in-person, online, and television marketing for decades.
The brand’s omnichannel marketing really stands out in its My Disney Experience platform for visiting their park. Users can access the tool via app or browser and buy tickets, book hotels, reserve restaurants, schedule activities, coordinate with other users, and even store photos they take at the park.
Once users arrive at the park, the built-in GPS helps them find locations in the park, see real-time wait times at rides, and access the Disney MagicPass, a contactless version of the MagicBand. The app also promotes discounts, like 25 percent off hotel stays for Disney+ subscribers.
Providing a seamless experience from online to in-person helps make customers’ Disney adventure even more magical.
Warby Parker
Warby Parker, a well-known eye-glass company, was originally only available online. In recent years, they began to leverage omnichannel marketing. In addition to allowing customers to order up to five pairs of glasses to try on at home (one of their most popular offers,) they now have many brick-and-mortar stores.
However, they didn’t just create stores to sell more glasses—they’re committed to combining data from in-person interactions and online interactions. Warby Parker co-founder Dave Gilboa shared:
“We really focused on providing a great online experience but an offline as well. We have 70 stores and we’ll have 90 by the end of the year. We can see a clear path to several hundred stores in addition to a thriving ecommerce business.”
How does it work? Customers can favorite frames on the app, which in-store associates can then access to help them complete the purchase in person.
Shoppers can also try on glasses in the store and take a photo, which is converted into a link and sent to their email to complete the purchase online.
Omnichannel Marketing Strategies
Omnichannel marketing allows businesses to deliver the right message to the right customer at the right moment, driving sales, increasing customer loyalty, and providing a better customer experience.
Getting it right is no easy task. Here are five steps to building a better omnichannel strategy.
Map the Customer Journey
Omnichannel marketing creates a seamless customer journey. To do that, you need to understand the path your customers take when making a purchase.
Creating a customer journey map helps you better understand where customers interact with your brand, provides insights into their pain points, and makes it easier to create an effective omnichannel marketing strategy.
Here’s how to create your map:
Identify your customers: Identity who your customers are, where they live, and other demographic information. Look in your CRM or use a current buyer persona.
Understand their pain points: What drives your customers to make a purchase? What challenges do they want to solve?
Find out where they hang out: What platforms do your customers use during the purchase process?
Track the path of conversion: How do most of your customers convert? Keep in mind their path is unlikely to be straight. They might visit your in-store and then convert online, or view your Instagram reels and then visit your store. Aim to define the most common paths.
Once you’ve created your customer journey map, look at your conversion tracking data to find areas where customers are dropping off. Depending on how you track, this might be in Google Analytics or your sales platform. Customer satisfaction surveys may also provide insights.
Create a Consistent Brand Presence
Creating a consistent brand presence is a small part of omnichannel marketing, but it is crucial. Make sure all platforms use similar branding, tone, colors, and marketing messages.
Next, look at customer surveys (or create one!) and reviews to find out where customers aren’t happy. For example, you might find your website is too hard to use or your app is glitchy. Users might open every email you send but never engage on social media.
Once you see where your message doesn’t resonate, make plans to improve it. Does your audience prefer a different format, or more helpful content?
Remember, the goal is to be consistent, not identical. For example, your website might offer live chat—that doesn’t mean your social media channels need it, too. Instead, make sure the information, including things like what is in stock, is consistent where it is available. You don’t want a customer to see something is in-stock online and then show up to the store to find it is sold out.
Use Omnichannel to Increase Personalization
A report by Segment found that 71 percent of consumers feel frustrated when their shopping experience is impersonal. Even more striking, 91 percent of customers are more likely to shop with brands that deliver personally relevant offers and recommendations.
You can’t ignore personalization—it’s increasingly popular and customers expect it. Luckily, omnichannel marketing can help you leverage the strategy more effectively.
Personalization is the key to a successful omnichannel strategy, but it’s about a lot more than using the name tag in your email marketing. Rather, omnichannel marketing leverages data about customers to deliver ultra-relevant marketing messages at just the right time.
What does omnichannel personalization look like? While it can vary by brand and industry, here are a few examples:
A customer adds an item to their cart, but they don’t check out. Later, you send an email with a link to their cart, a discount, and a reminder to complete their purchase.
Using segmentation, you email different product recommendations to customers who purchase children’s clothing versus adult workout clothing.
A customer tells an e-commerce chatbot what types of cleaning products they are interested in. Later, a customized popup promotes a special on the products that the customer is interested in.
Omnichannel personalization takes personalization to the next level by delivering relevant messages across platforms.
Leverage Technology to Automation Omnichannel
Omnichannel marketing requires gathering and leveraging data—and developing different funnel paths for different types of customers. The problem is most marketing teams don’t have the time to manage this process manually.
Omnichannel marketing tools make it easier to gather and leverage data to build a better user experience. Your stack will vary by channel, industry, and the size of your company, but there are a few key platforms to consider.
Data collection: Omnichannel marketing uses data to understand customers’ paths and deliver a better experience. If you don’t have Google Analytics 4 set up, now is the time. Consider using a BI tool like Power BI or Google Data Studio to analyze data and create reports.
Marketing automation: Whether you want to engage more on social media, send scheduled emails, or move users through the conversion process, you need marketing automation tools to build an effective omnichannel marketing strategy. Many tools you already use, like email marketing, CRMs, and social media management, have built-in automation features. I also recommend a tool like Zapier to build custom triggers.
Chatbot automation: Want to be there for your customers even in the middle of the night? A well-designed chatbot script can answer questions, deliver resources, and qualify leads while you sleep.
Segmentation platform: One of the key benefits of omnichannel marketing is the ability to offer a more personalized experience. To do that, you have to segment your audience. Depending on your industry, this might mean using dynamic landing pages or a tool like Omnisend to send more personalized emails, pop-ups, and even push notifications.
Test and Optimize Your Omnichannel Campaigns
Building an omnichannel strategy isn’t a one-time endeavor. To be effective, you must constantly test, retest, and tweak your strategy. Over time consumer behaviors change, and you need to be ready.
The segmentation tools I mentioned in the previous section often offer testing features, or you can use Google’s Optimize or Optimizely to test audiences, content, landing pages, and even button color changes.
If you’re new to testing, this guide to A/B testing will get you started. It can feel overwhelming at first, but I think you’ll uncover really interesting data if you stick with it. Testing and optimizing drive ROI, so you’ll build a better campaign.
Omnichannel Marketing Frequently Asked Questions
What are the benefits of an omnichannel marketing strategy?
Omnichannel marketing provides a better user experience, increases retention rates, improves data collection, and makes connecting online and offline experiences easier. Together, all those benefits drive sales and ROI.
What is the difference between multichannel marketing and omnichannel marketing?
The biggest difference is that omnichannel marketing focuses on improving the customer experience, while multichannel marketing focuses on increasing customer engagement. Omnichannel also recognizes that customers may use multiple channels simultaneously.
What are the best omnichannel marketing tools?
The main tools you’ll need to implement omnichannel marketing are tools for all the channels your users engage on, like email, SMS, or social media. Automation tools, including chatbots, are also highly effective for omnichannel marketing. Finally, you need a robust analytics program, like Google Analytics 4, to track user interactions on both the web and apps.
What is an example of omnichannel marketing?
One of the best examples of omnichannel marketing is Starbucks’ reward app, which allows them to track in-person interactions, send personalized recommendations, and increase customer engagement.
Omnichannel Marketing Conclusion
The future of marketing is connected. Unlike multichannel marketing, which seeks to push out similar messages on multiple channels, omnichannel marketing focuses on bringing experiences together into a seamless experience that customers love.
Before you get started, make sure you understand who your customers are and look for marketing automation tools that will help you build a stronger omnichannel campaign.
Are you using omnichannel marketing? What challenges are you facing?
The only actual means to attain economic liberty is to discover just how to make sensible monetary choices such as leaving financial obligation as well as discovering numerous financial investment methods. A terrific method to obtain all the info you require done in one location is by going to an economic liberty workshop.
When you remain in a great deal of financial obligation, and even simply can not appear to remain in advance of the expenses, than it is an immensely demanding scenario to be in. Leaving it will really bring you tranquility as well as a far more loosened up life. That would not desire that?
A lot of these workshops are placed on by banks which can be great because they will certainly be a great resource of info, simply see to it that it isn’t simply a very finely camouflaged sales pitch. There is absolutely nothing incorrect with them motivating you to acquire their items however they need to use some info that truly will profit you.
One economic flexibility workshop can be rather various from one more. There are several facets of your financial resources that can be covered. Frequently the topics that are covered in a monetary workshop are:
Exactly how to live within your ways and also obtain out of financial obligation. There are some extremely straightforward methods to obtain out of financial debt yet one of the largest parts is self-control.
It’s essential to your lengthy term economic wellness that you remain out of financial debt as well as that you find out exactly how to spend some of that non reusable earnings. Spending will certainly be a considerable component of the majority of monetary preparation workshops.
One more really essential facet of monetary flexibility is intending for university and also retired life. These concerns will generally be resolved in many workshops.
Maintaining your properties secured is an additional part to great economic health and wellness. It will not do you any type of excellent to obtain out of financial obligation and also conserve for your youngsters university just to shed it all if there is a financial slump.
5. Make certain that you obtain excellent details for different kinds of investing. Do not succumb to several of the sales pitches that lots of people are attempting to offer as component of their ‘economic workshop’.
You need to keep in mind, however, that despite exactly how fantastic a workshop is or exactly how great the info you are obtaining, it will certainly not function if you do not adhere to the instructions. To live financial debt totally free is your duty as well as you need to want to have the self-control it requires to make it all collaborated.
If you desire even more control in your life as well as you are weary and also unwell of owing money and also remaining one action in advance of the financial debt enthusiasts, than you ought to locate a great
monetary flexibility workshop in your location. Choose an open mind as well as be prepared to make some challenging adjustments in your life.
One monetary flexibility workshop can be fairly various from an additional. Usually the topics that are covered in a monetary workshop are:
It’s essential to your lengthy term economic wellness that you remain out of financial debt as well as that you discover exactly how to spend some of that non reusable earnings. Spending will certainly be a substantial component of the majority of economic preparation workshops.
Do not drop for some of the sales pitches that lots of individuals are attempting to offer as component of their ‘economic workshop’.
Ultimately, if you want users to stay on your site and purchase your products, you need to make sure your site is fast.
How to Prevent A/B Testing from Slowing Down Your Site
To prevent A/B testing from slowing down your site, it’s important to take extra steps to ensure your user experience is not impacted by these tests.
According to Backlinko, the average page load benchmark is 10.3 seconds on desktop and 27.3 seconds on mobile.
If you’re not hitting these markers, you may have a problem.
Whether you’re using Google Optimize or another A/B testing tool, there are a few ways to prevent your site from slowing down.
1. Implement Scripts in the Top of the Head Tag
When you add A/B testing scripts to your site, make sure they are at the top of your head tag and not a tag manager.
This is important because if you make changes to your site, the scripts will be overwritten.
A tag manager is an external script that loads in place of others which can overwrite them without warning and prevent scripts from functioning properly when you make changes to your website.
If you are using the synchronous version of the script, then make sure it is placed after your site’s scripts.
This will prevent any problems with delays caused by third-party resources on your page, such as ad networks.
The synchronous versions prevent any content from rendering until it has been fully loaded. This can prevent your A/B tests from loading in a reasonable time.
The asynchronous versions prevent any content from rendering until it is ready, but this does not prevent the other scripts on the page from being executed immediately.
The asynchronous version is recommended for most users. It loads in a separate thread from the rest of the website, so it does not prevent other critical tasks from being executed prior to its execution.
The async version will prevent certain animations from slowing down your test experiences while still allowing for other elements on the page to play.
If you use a tag manager like Google Tag Manager (GTM), or another JavaScript management system, it’s important these are implemented asynchronously and not using the standard version of the Optimize snippet.
There should be no delays in page load time when Google Optimize is running on your website. The async version can prevent this by adding asynchronous to each script call so they don’t block rendering.
This is particularly important if you don’t run any tests or if they are played in a non-interruptive manner across all pages.
3. Incorporate Animations to Improve UX
If you are using Google Optimize, then you can also use animations to prevent test experiences that may load slowly and be too disruptive to the user experience.
Animations can be used to prevent A/B testing from slowing down your site by giving users something fun to focus on while they wait for content delivery.
For example, you can use animations to keep users engaged before a site fully loads, like this.
This will tell users their content is being loaded and prevent them from leaving the page.
Remember to always center your animations in a place where your user will be focused.
A loading page is a good example of this or a page where the user will be focused on a specific part of the design.
Remember to prevent animations from interrupting other tests and make sure they are implemented correctly across all pages.
GTM will allow you to shorten the snippet or include the snippet only on specific pages.
Keep in mind that using a tag manager is not necessary for Google Optimize if you just want to add it once across all of your page’s head tags.
If you prefer to embed the script into each page directly then make sure they are implemented at the top of the head tag.
5. Test on the Server-Side
When conducting A/B tests on different server sides, the delay is often much less noticeable.
For example, you might be using PHP instead of JavaScript on your client-side to prevent content from loading slowly and interrupting users who are trying out their new site design.
Using different server sides works because the async version will prevent browsers from blocking on a callback function, which would prevent all other content from loading while it’s waiting for code to finish running.
The benefit of doing this is the server-side tests prevent users with slow connections or high latency from seeing delays when loading content.
If you can’t do this, it’s recommended to use Google Tag Manager to load these scripts asynchronously so they run after page rendering is complete and don’t affect performance.
Also keep in mind that when testing on different server sides, it might be more difficult to prevent a slower loading experience from interrupting users since there is no way of calling asynchronous JavaScript into service.
6. Consolidate and Optimize Variation Code
Consolidating and optimizing variation codes can help prevent A/B testing from slowing down your site.
Variation codes are the code that is used by Optimize for each variation.
The more complicated your website, the more variations you need to create and the more often these tests run — which results in slower site speed.
If too many changes are applied at once on a page it can prevent other scripts from running properly or even prevent the page from loading at all.
This is detrimental to your user experience and can prevent testing from allowing you to continue optimizing your website.
For example, if a user has JavaScript turned off or does not have it enabled they will never reach the variation that contains optimized content for them and this can set back optimizations by several weeks!
This is why it’s so important to consolidate all of your Optimize codes and scripts directly into the head tag of your site.
7. Keep All Data in a Single File
Your website is full of data and assets that need to load before the page is shown to a user.
When you run an A/B test these assets and data need to be shared between the two experiences, but can also cause a lot of issues if they aren’t carefully managed.
For example, say your old site used Font Awesome for all its icons and your new website uses Google Fonts as it is more web-friendly. If your site is running an A/B test, your old site will need to use the same Google Fonts as your new one.
If you don’t manage this correctly it can cause a considerable delay in how fast the page loads for users because of all these extra assets that are loaded on top of each other.
To prevent A/B testing from slowing down your site, keep all data in a single file. This means you prevent the page from having to make multiple requests for information.
All experiments should be stored in a single place that is easily accessible by everyone on your team. This can prevent a lot of issues from occurring, as well as making it much easier to track the progress and performance of each test you are running.
Frequently Asked Questions About Preventing A/B Testing from Slowing Down Your Site
Does Google Optimize slow down your site?
Google Optimize does not have a big effect on page load times. What’s more important is the time it takes your page to load, latency, and visitor connection speeds.
What should you do after an A/B test?
After you complete your A/B testing you should measure your results and take action based on your findings. It’s also recommended to strategize a new A/B test so you can continue learning.
How do I increase my Google page speed?
Page speed comes down to many factors, but optimizing your A/B tests can help prevent testing from slowing down your site.
When should you not use an A/B test?
If you lack meaningful traffic, don’t have the time or resources to dedicate to testing, don’t have a hypothesis to test, or don’t need more traffic, you should not use an A/B test.
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How to Prevent A/B Testing from Slowing Down Your Site: Conclusion
A/B testing can be a great tool for driving conversions and it’s something every website owner should take advantage of.
Sites that use A/B testing effectively will see both an increase in traffic and greater audience insights.
How have you used A/B testing to improve site performance?
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