Case Study: Upworthy achieves 28% increase in social shares with Optimizely

Upworthy Tests Recommended Content Module

Upworthy, an online media company built around shareable videos and graphics, leaned on founder Peter Koechley’s data-driven A/B testing culture to solve a discovery problem: as audience engagement grew, visitors had trouble finding additional content after landing on a piece, and the team worried that adding a recommended-content module would distract users and reduce social shares.

Using Optimizely, Upworthy ran a two-phase experiment testing seven placements and multiple design variations, then refined image sizes, fonts and spacing; they adopted a minimal right‑sidebar module showing three recommended items. The change lifted sitewide engagement and increased social shares by 28%.

Upworthy

Peter Koechley

Co-Founder, Upworthy