I test con­stantly in an effort to boost my response rates. So it’s no won­der why some peo­ple have asked me about mul­ti­vari­ate test­ing. Specif­i­cally, they want to know what is it, how does it work, and what’s “Taguchi.”

First of all, Taguchi is just one form of mul­ti­vari­ate test­ing. I’m not a math­e­mati­cian. And Dr. Genichi Taguchi and his work specif­i­cally relate to the man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­try, which was later proven ben­e­fi­cial in the car industry.

Not direct mar­ket­ing. (At least, not at first.)

Dr. Taguchi’s for­mula was only recently extrap­o­lated to the areas of direct mar­ket­ing, adver­tis­ing, and now Inter­net mar­ket­ing, and has become the basis behind mul­ti­vari­ate test­ing and the pop­u­lar­iza­tion of mul­ti­vari­ate test­ing as a whole.

More often than not, the name “Taguchi” is a buzz­word often bandied about, even by peo­ple who’s mul­ti­vari­ate tests do not use Taguchi’s method specif­i­cally. The for­mula is rather com­plex, and I’ll leave it to those more capa­ble than me to explain it to you.

But in this arti­cle, let me explain the basics of mul­ti­vari­ate test­ing, using layman’s terms and as best as I can. I hope not to lose you along the way. Fin­gers crossed.

What mul­ti­vari­ate test­ing is, is this…

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