How A/B testing drives innovation at GoDaddy

(Editor’s note: This post is the third in a four-part series discussing experiments at GoDaddy. You can read part one here and part two here.)

Innovation does not come from a single stroke of genius. It is built up, test by test, insight by insight, until something remarkable takes shape.

In part one, we shared how GoDaddy moved from opinion to proof. In part two, we showed how experimentation became a unifying force between teams. Now, in part three, we explore how A/B testing drives innovation, helps us make bolder bets, and turns sparks into products that stick.

Innovative challenges

Before experimentation became a habit, innovation at GoDaddy often encountered familiar obstacles:

These barriers slowed the exploration of new ideas and distracted from failed assumptions. To address this, our organization uses the Zone to win model, which divides operations into four separate zones, each with its own management priorities.

The following diagram illustrates how the zones align with different types of innovation and performance:

For example, the Incubation Zone nurtures emerging opportunities and experiments, making it great for A/B testing and testing new ideas (large swings). For us, Airo® was that example. It was developed through experiments that turned a simple domain into an instant online presence.

The Productivity Zone, on the other hand, emphasizes efficiency and scalability. Once Airo gained traction, experimentation shifted to optimizing task speed and adoption (incremental improvements) that ensured reliability at scale. The same A/B testing framework applied, but the strategic outcome was different.

Cultural shift

A culture of experimentation reframes these challenges. Instead of treating innovation as one big gamble, A/B testing breaks down bold ideas into a set of learnable practices:

Convert unexpected outcomes into insights that stimulate innovation
Use fast, iterative A/B testing to replace slow, high-stakes launches
Make every test a safe environment to explore

This shift gave GoDaddy teams the freedom to think bigger while reducing the risks that once held them back.

Innovation through iteration

Bold products rarely arrive fully formed. They are shaped by many small tests that add clarity, remove friction, and reveal what really resonates.

From prompt to presence at Airo

Airo helps entrepreneurs go from idea to online in minutes, by suggesting domains, generating logos and starter websites, creating social posts and ads, and even helping US clients register an LLC. Companies using GoDaddy AI tools have reported 28% more revenue.

For our teams, Airo has also served as a rapid learning sandbox throughout the customer journey, helping them validate business ideas, find the perfect domain name, build full-stack websites/apps, guide marketing and growth initiatives, communicate with their customers, and solve problems.

For example, one of our A/B experiments found that identifying customers with a preference for WordPress during Airo onboarding and offering a WordPress site delivered a 35% increase in managed WordPress conversions for that user segment. This drives innovation by demonstrating how data-driven onboarding can uncover new opportunities, better align solutions with customer intent, and drive continuous improvements throughout the product journey.

LLM powered domain discovery

Choosing the right name is both emotional and complex. From GoDaddy Genative AI Domain Search integrates LLMs with a massive vector database of hundreds of millions of names, balancing relevance and diversity so customers see options that are both available and inspiring.

“Generative AI puts the human touch on our domain search, like chatting with an expert who gets what you want right away. We’ve long known that customers who talk to our agents are more likely to find names they love. Now with AI, we can instantly deliver the same experience for everyone.”
— Jyothi Prakash Trishuleshwar, Product Director, GoDaddy

The Venture Forward 2024 research shows this 44% of micro businesses believe GenAI helps them compete with larger companies. For our teams, this opens the door to experimentation with ranking strategies, adoption cues, and query handling that measure not only click-through rate but also the quality of customer choices.

For example, another A/B experiment found that personalized generative AI increases relevance and improves the customer journey, driving ~17.8% more domain purchases compared to the basic user segment. This shows how AI-powered personalization makes our customers’ choices more relevant and helps them achieve success faster.

Convert a domain into a cash register

Affordable domains give a new look at what a domain can do by allowing customers to accept payments via a ‘payment’ link almost immediately after purchase, without the need for a website. Entrepreneurs can share paid domains via SMS, QR code or social media.

For example, another A/B experiment found that adding live previews to Payable Domains delivered a 5% increase in activation. This illustrates how small but thoughtful product innovations, such as giving customers direct insight into what they create, can remove friction and accelerate adoption.

Amplifying bold ideas

Not only does A/B testing help us refine existing products, it also encourages us to pursue ideas that may once have seemed out of reach.

Safety breeds courage

By mitigating risk, experiments give teams the freedom to try. Instead of debating in the abstract, we change ‘too risky’ to ‘let’s test it’. This simple reframing unlocks creativity that might otherwise remain locked away.

For example, rolling out changes as a controlled experiment allows the team to reduce risk while using guardrails to monitor conversion, revenue, and other customer success metrics. If you succeed, the payoff is big; if not, we gain valuable insights into why.

The role of leadership

Leaders at GoDaddy choose curiosity over certainty. We’ve invested not only in tools, but also in habits that normalize learning and make experimentation the expected path to progress.

“We don’t debate the future, we experiment our way into it. Evidence trumps opinion, every time.”
– Travis Muhlestein, Product and AI CTO, GoDaddy

Leaders emphasize that results are not about wins and losses, but about insights. This mentality, reinforced from the top down, creates psychological safety within teams and makes bold thinking a natural part of our culture.

Learning from unexpected outcomes

There are no “failed” experiments, just answers to questions we needed to ask. Sometimes the lesson overshadows the original purpose. This mentality views every outcome as a data point, not a judgment. Teams are eager to ask “why,” and that curiosity is fertile ground for innovation.

Systems that support innovation

Innovation at scale is not just about brave ideas, but also about reliable systems that make creativity easy to explore.

Tools and templates

From GoDaddy the internal experimentation platform Hivemind standardizes configuration, randomization and analysis so teams can focus on learning, not logistics. For example, the Hivemind platform requires researchers to categorize scorecard metrics into three different groups before launching an A/B/n experiment:

Decision metrics	Guardrail statistics	Informative statistics
Instantly measure success or business value	Ensures that the experiment does not harm the company	Provides additional insights, but is not critical to decision-making

Platform features are intentionally designed to influence culture, guide good habits, and discourage weak testing – proof that tooling can influence behavior for the better.