Category: Highlights

Chunk it up: How content chunking enhances digital experiences

Post author By Laura Isaacs
Post date August 11, 2025

We know it hurts to hear this, and we’ll hold your hand as we say it, but your users probably aren’t hanging on to your every word. They’re scanning your website or app for the information they need right now. And smart content chunking helps them find it.

Content chunking is a proven technique in content strategy and UX design that breaks information into smaller, digestible pieces to reduce cognitive load and increase engagement. It’s a smart, user-first approach that supports everything from better search visibility to stronger conversion rates, and it’s essential for teams looking to elevate their digital experiences.

Let’s dig into how content chunking works, why it matters, and how to apply it effectively across channels.

What is content chunking?

Content chunking is the practice of organizing information into meaningful chunks to make it easier for people to process, understand, and remember. The concept has roots in instructional design and cognitive psychology, and was popularized in digital UX circles thanks to the work of the Nielsen Norman Group.

When content is presented in smaller units, with clear hierarchy, white space, and consistent formatting, it instantly becomes easier for users to navigate, especially on mobile or when multitasking. You might think about how textbooks use headers, sidebars, and summary boxes. Or how mobile apps break onboarding into step-by-step flows. The same principles apply to websites, landing pages, and emails.

Why content chunking matters

Effective content chunking isn’t just a formatting choice: it’s a strategic lever that improves the overall user experience and drives better outcomes.

Here’s how:

It reduces cognitive load: Your users don’t want to think harder than they have to. Chunking content into smaller pieces helps them absorb information quickly without getting overwhelmed. (More on this in our blog on cognitive load in UX.)
It boosts engagement: Users are more likely to interact with content that feels approachable and easy to skim. That means longer time on page, lower bounce rates, and higher conversion potential.
It supports skimmability and scannability: Especially important for mobile and time-pressed users, chunked content helps users get the gist fast, whether they’re scrolling on their phone or voice-searching on the go.

When to chunk it up: Where content chunking works best

Spoiler alert: Content chunking works nearly everywhere. Chunking applies across a wide range of digital experiences and content types:

Web pages: Use headings, bullets, short paragraphs, and consistent visual hierarchy to make dense information easy to navigate.
Apps and digital products: Break down onboarding, tutorials, or feature flows into manageable steps with visual cues and supportive microcopy.
Marketing copy: From blog posts to email campaigns to social posts, chunking helps ensure messages are easy to digest, especially on mobile or when users are multitasking.
Search-optimized content and SXO: Chunking isn’t just good for humans and our flawed brains; it’s also great for machines and algorithms. Structured content helps Google surface answers in featured snippets and is increasingly favored by generative AI tools and large language models (LLMs) like Gemini and ChatGPT. Clear chunks = better discoverability.

Content chunking supports accessibility, too

Beyond engagement and SEO, content chunking is also a key practice in making digital experiences more inclusive.

Learn more about Tallwave’s approach to accessible app design.

For users with ADHD (like me, hi), dyslexia, or other cognitive and neurological differences, large blocks of text can be overwhelming or even inaccessible. Chunking content into smaller, well-labeled sections gives these users the ability to process information at their own pace, reducing fatigue and frustration.

For screen reader users, clear structure and chunked formatting (including headings, lists, and well-placed alt text) improve navigability and comprehension. When paired with semantic HTML and accessibility best practices, chunking helps ensure that content is not just easy to scan visually, but also easier to consume in non-visual formats.

Good UX isn’t just about delight. It’s about reducing barriers. And chunking is one of the simplest ways to do just that.

Putting it in practice: Content chunking best practices

Like most strategic UX practices, content chunking works best when it’s intentional, consistent, and collaborative.

Here’s how to get it right:

Start with the user’s intent: Understand what the user wants to accomplish and structure content to support that journey.
Use visual cues: Headers, spacing, icons, and section breaks help guide the eye and reinforce information hierarchy.
Stay consistent: Whether it’s across blog posts, product pages, or onboarding flows, consistency builds familiarity and trust.
Work across teams: The best chunked experiences happen when content strategists, designers, and UX pros collaborate. That’s why at Tallwave, we bring an integrated POV to digital experiences, because user-centered design isn’t just about writing or visuals. It’s about how everything works together.

Want to see an example of content chunking in action? You’re looking at it. This blog’s use of headers, brief (but meaningful) content sections, and bulleted lists is content chunking at work.

The Tallwave approach: Turning chunks into conversions

We’ve seen firsthand how smart content chunking improves UX and business performance. Whether we’re designing product onboarding flows or restructuring a services page, we use chunking as a foundational principle, and the results speak for themselves.

Want to make your content work harder?

Let’s talk about how Tallwave can help you reduce friction, improve discoverability, and design digital experiences that actually convert. Let’s chat.

Customer Engagement Digital Marketing Highlights SEO

AI reshaped how customers choose. Is your 2026 plan ready?

Post author By Jeff Pruitt
Post date July 8, 2025

2026 might feel far off, but your window to adapt is closing fast.

The way customers discover products and services, and decide which brands will earn their dollars, has changed more in two years than in the previous twenty. Generative AI, shifting social platforms, and emerging search behaviors are rewriting the rules, often before brands even notice. Planning cycles haven’t caught up. But the brands that do? They’re already gaining ground.

Growth strategy planning for 2026 in a shifting reality

It’s that time again: spreadsheets, strategy decks, offsites. The strategic planning treadmill is moving fast. Everyone is planning for 2026 right now. But most are planning like it’s still 2022. The world outside your org chart has changed dramatically, and the impact of that change is having an outsized impact on marketing strategies.

The usual suspects—channel plans, departmental OKRs, quarterly lead targets—feel familiar. But they’re colliding with a much bigger disruption: AI is reshaping how customers discover, compare, and decide.

Brand discovery today happens through opaque, shifting systems, and shaped more by algorithms than intention. Discovery now spans AI summaries, social platform algorithms, voice assistants, zero-click content experiences, and aggregated reviews. If you’re not influencing these surfaces, you’re invisible, even before the search begins.

Your customers no longer follow your funnel, they follow their curiosity. And increasingly, that curiosity is shaped by algorithms you don’t control.

Search is the next frontier in the AI evolution

Search still matters, and curiosity still flows. But it’s no longer a simple typed query in a clean Google bar.

It’s an increasingly complex web of competing influences with varying degrees of veracity, including things like:

A confident, final-sounding LLM answer from ChatGPT, one of the 1.8 billion AI-generated responses users consume daily.
A TikTok with no link and no context, yet 51% of Gen Z say they use it as a search engine.
A Reddit thread resurfacing in Perplexity, summarizing your competitor’s edge, often with 100k+ views.
A YouTube video, created by a third party with no affiliation to you, that outranks your homepage in search results.
Hours lost rewriting prompts, scrolling low-quality results, and bouncing between platforms until your customer gives up.

Decisions are made before your brand even enters the conversation. Brands are losing visibility in once-winnable moments of potential brand discovery because they’re still optimizing for a search behavior that no longer exists.

Discovery is fragmented, AI-mediated, and happening at an increasing distance from brand-owned environments. You’re not losing the click and the consideration before it even begins.

From channels to journeys to discovery systems

The most urgent mindset shift for 2026:

Stop planning by channel.
Stop organizing by function.
Start building for how real people discover and evaluate your brand.

Tallwave calls this: Journey-Driven Discovery.

It starts by asking:

How are people encountering your brand in 2025?
What do they see, hear, or compare before they ever reach your site?
How does AI shape their perception before your first impression?
How is the discovery journey likely to continue evolving in 2026 and beyond?

This is no longer theoretical. Social platforms optimize for discovery behavior. Search engines reward experience depth and intent clarity. AI assistants shortcut straight to the “best” answer, sometimes skipping your brand entirely.

Your content is now being used to influence people before they even know your name.

The brands that understand and embrace this shift win before others even know the game has changed.

Learn more about how Tallwave’s discovery process fuels growth.

Forward-looking brands are adapting their approach to growth planning

This isn’t about “trying SEO 2.0.” It’s about rethinking your digital visibility from the ground up. The best brands are already:

Mapping real-world discovery journeys across AI, social, and other search platforms
Implementing content strategies structured for AI summarization, not just crawlability
Investing in digital experience where brand, search, and UX converge
Using simulation tools and generative queries to evaluate how AI surfaces, summarizes, and positions their brand today
Defining and tracking findability through real-world discovery signals, not just keyword rankings or reach metrics

These aren’t thought experiments. They’re live initiatives we’re driving with clients right now to reclaim attention in an AI-first world. This means we’re structuring content and implementing strategies ripe for AI summarization: clear headings, concise value statements, first-party expertise, and schema that reinforces context.

If you’re leading growth strategy, this is the moment to make real change:

Rewire your understanding of “search” think AI interaction, not just query typing
Align content, performance, and experience into one unified growth strategy
Budget for presence, not just paid reach
Be prepared to answer the critical question: What happens when my customer doesn’t come to me, but asks an AI about me?

Call to action: How Tallwave can help you get there

If you’re serious about owning your discovery moment in 2026, here are three ways we can help you prepare to deploy a journey-driven discovery strategy today:

1. AI discovery baseline and competitor benchmark

A 3-week deep dive into how your brand shows up across AI platforms, search engines, and social discovery surfaces compared to your top competitors.

Outcome: Visibility gaps, competitive deltas, and where you’re winning or losing attention that inform discovery-driving strategies tailored for an evolving and increasingly AI-mediated discovery journey.

2. Discovery journey mapping + readiness assessment

We map your real-world customer discovery journeys across AI and LLMs, search, social, and digital touchpoints, and assess how your brand performs at each stage. Using this kind of signal mapping and digital intelligence, we identify where and how your brand is showing up, what’s being surfaced, and how we can build a plan to improve.

Outcome: A discovery journey model highlighting signal strengths, visibility gaps, and prioritized activation paths to improve discoverability.

3. Go-to-market playbook for the discovery economy

Not just insights. A full GTM strategy that connects your content, UX, and AI discoverability into one cohesive roadmap.

Outcome: An actionable playbook to help you compete where your customers are, not where they used to be.

As you’re planning your growth strategies for 2026, let’s make sure you’re planning for the world that’s coming, not the one that’s fading. Let’s map your path, and build the systems that will make you findable, memorable, and chosen. We’re ready when you are.

Tags customer experience, SEO

Customer Engagement Data Strategy Digital Marketing Highlights

A/B Testing 101: How to optimize your marketing with data-driven decisions

Post author By Stevie LoBosco
Post date March 3, 2025

In the world of digital marketing, making data-driven decisions is key to optimizing performance and improving user experiences. A/B testing is one of the most effective methods for understanding what resonates with your audience, helping businesses refine their strategies and increase conversions. This blog post will explore what A/B testing is, how it compares to similar testing methodologies, why it’s important, and best practices for running successful experiments. Whether you’re testing landing pages, ad creatives, or email subject lines, this guide will equip you with the knowledge to run effective A/B tests and drive meaningful results.

What is A/B testing?

A/B testing is an experimentation method that compares two versions of a digital asset—such as a landing page, advertisement, or email—to determine which one performs better. In an A/B test, traffic is randomly split between version A (the control) and version B (the variant), with performance metrics such as clicks, conversions, or engagement being measured.

A/B testing is widely used across various mediums, including:

Websites and landing pages: Testing headlines, layouts, and CTAs to improve conversion rates
Email marketing: Optimizing subject lines, copy, and send times to increase open and click-through rates
Paid advertising: Experimenting with different ad creatives, headlines, and bidding strategies to maximize ROI
E-commerce and pricing strategies: Adjusting pricing models, discount strategies, and product descriptions to drive sales

How A/B testing differs from A/A testing, A/B split testing, and t-tests

While A/B testing is a widely recognized methodology, it’s often confused with similar testing approaches. Here’s how it differs:

A/A testing: This method compares two identical versions of a webpage or asset to ensure the testing tool is working correctly and that no external factors (such as random chance) influence the results.
A/B split testing: A/B split testing involves testing completely different variations of a digital asset rather than just changing one element at a time. This approach is useful for radical design or messaging changes.
T-tests: T-tests are a statistical tool used to determine whether the observed differences between two groups are significant or due to random chance. A null hypothesis is either rejected or accepted, signaling whether or not there are statistically significant differences.

Why A/B testing is important

A/B testing is essential for businesses looking to refine their marketing strategies and optimize user experiences. Here’s why it matters:

Data-driven decision making: Eliminates guesswork and allows marketers to base decisions on data-backed user behavior
Increased conversions: Helps identify which variations lead to more sign-ups, purchases, or other key actions
Enhanced user experience: Testing different elements ensures that content is engaging and user-friendly
Cost efficiency: Optimizing existing assets can yield better results without additional ad spend or resource investment

But first: A strong analytics foundation

Before conducting A/B testing, it’s essential to have a strong measurement and analytics foundation in place to ensure accurate, actionable insights. Without reliable tracking, you risk basing decisions on incomplete or misleading data, which can lead to ineffective optimizations. A robust analytics setup helps define clear success metrics, segment audiences appropriately, and detect external factors that may influence results. Additionally, proper data collection ensures statistical significance, reducing the chances of making decisions based on random fluctuations rather than meaningful patterns. By establishing a solid measurement framework, you can maximize the impact of A/B testing and drive continuous improvements with confidence.

How A/B testing works

Conducting an A/B test involves several key steps:

Set clear goals: Define what you’re testing and what success looks like. For example, an e-commerce company may set a goal to increase purchase rates.
Develop a hypothesis: Identify what change you believe will impact performance and why. In our example, the hypothesis might be: “A green “buy now” button (currently blue) will stand out more and encourage more users to complete a purchase.”
Create variants: Design an alternative version (B) while keeping all other variables constant. In this case, version A (the control) has a blue button while version B (variant) has a green button.
Split traffic randomly: Use an A/B testing tool, like AB Tasty or VWO, to randomly assign users to either version A or B. Our tool will show half the visitors to the product page with a blue button, while the other half will see the green button.
Measure performance: Track metrics like engagement, conversions, or revenue to determine which version performs better. We might track the percentage of users who click the button and proceed to checkout.
Analyze and implement results: Validate the statistical significance and apply insights to future tests. If the green button significantly outperforms the blue button, we will implement this change permanently and move on to testing other elements.

Common testing elements

A/B testing can be applied to various aspects of digital marketing, including:

Copy and messaging: Testing headlines, email subject lines, or ad copy
Calls-to-action (CTAs): Experimenting with different button colors, placements, or wording
Page design and layout: Adjusting the structure, navigation, or design elements
Images and visuals: Comparing different product images, videos, or graphics
Pricing and offers: Testing discount strategies, free shipping options, or subscription models

Best Practices for A/B Testing

To maximize the effectiveness of A/B testing, follow these best practices:

Test one variable at a time: Isolating a single change ensures clear insights into what drives performance
Ensure a large enough sample size: Running tests with too few users can lead to unreliable results
Run tests for an adequate duration: Ending a test too early may lead to misleading conclusions
Use statistical significance: Ensure that results are not due to random chance before making decisions
Avoid bias and external influences: Factors like seasonality, device type, or audience segmentation can impact results
Continuously iterate and optimize: A/B testing should be an ongoing process, not a one-time effort

See how Tallwave helped an e-commerce company double its revenue in just three months through iterative marketing experimentation.

Test, iterate, succeed

A/B testing is a fundamental practice for marketers and businesses looking to optimize digital experiences and maximize performance. By understanding the methodology, differentiating it from similar tests, and following best practices, you can make data-driven decisions that drive measurable results. Whether you’re improving website conversions, refining ad campaigns, or optimizing email marketing, A/B testing provides valuable insights that lead to continuous improvement. Ready to start testing? Let’s talk!