A/B testing is a fantastic method to calculate the best online promotional and marketing strategies for your business. It can be used to test everything from website copy to sales emails. This allows you to find the best-performing version of your campaign before spending your entire budget on marketing materials that don’t work.
WallMonkeys Increased Conversion Rates by Replacing a Slider With a Search Bar
By swapping out featured images and moving the search bar to the middle of the page (based on heatmap data), they were able to increase their conversion rate by 550 percent
How to Plan an A/B Test
Figure out what you want to test
- On-site or off-site
- Think of all sales-related elements of your website and split test them
- Off-site test an ad or a sales email
- Test the location the exact text used the button color or surrounding space
Free A/B Testing Significance Calculator
Enter your visitor and conversion numbers, and the calculator works out if a variation increased your sales, and by how much
Best A/B Testing Tools to Try
The tool you use will depend on the features you want to test.
- Several cheap or free tools that can test website elements and help you understand which variant is most effective
- E.g. MailChimp, Constant Contact, Facebook ads
A/B Testing Checklist
What feature you want to test
- Create two versions of the same ad, landing page, app, etc.
- Decide how long your test will run
- Choose a testing tool
- Launch the test and take a look at the results to see which version won
Practical A/B Testing Examples to Inspire Your Next Campaign
Here are a few examples that will help highlight the power of A/BB testing and what you could be missing if you aren’t using them
A/B Testing
A marketing strategy that pits two different versions of a website, advert, email, popup, or landing page against each other to see which is most effective
- This provides key insights on where and how to invest your marketing budget and gives you the courage to take potentially risky moves
Conclusion
A/B testing is a marketer’s best friend
- Allows you to see what ads drive the most conversions, what offers your audience responds to, and what blog headlines drive traffic
- There are a variety of tools to get started
- Google Optimize
- Optimizely
Why Is A/B Testing Important?
They help you understand your target audience
- Higher conversion rates
- Knowing what works and what doesn’t gives you actionable data that can help you streamline the conversion process
- Stay on top of changing trends
- Test to find the type of content and marketing materials your users like
Unbounce Tested a Tweet vs. Email Opt-in
The email version had a 24 percent higher conversion rate than the tweet version.
- Users preferred to give an email address over a tweet for the same product, which was surprising since most people are used to a tweet being sent first.
How Much Time Does A/B Testing Take?
Depending on the amount of traffic you get, you might want to run tests for anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks depending on how many visitors you get
- Only run one test at a time for the most accurate results
- When in doubt, run the test again
GRENE Tested Horizontal Layout on Category Pages
A/B test to find a way to make it easier for users to find the products they are looking for
- Reduced white space and allowed users to view several products and easily scroll through the available options
- Results: By changing the layout of category pages, GRENE saw an increase in product box clicks, a 16 percent increase in conversions, and a 10% increase in visits to the thank you page
Top Elements to Test Using A/B Testing
Focus on changes most likely to have a big impact on traffic and conversions.
- On your website, this likely includes the headline, your CTA, the graphic you use in direct correlation to your sales efforts, the sales copy or product descriptions, the featured image, and the button size and placement.
Can I Test More than One Thing at a Time?
There are two approaches to this question
- One A/B test at a time is just fine
- Multivariate testing puts a lot more on your plate at once
- If you have the right procedures in place to handle the extra work load, then go ahead
Analyzing A/B Testing Data
Make sure you have enough data
- Ensure you have around two weeks of data (at least 30 conversions).
- Use an A /B testing significance calculator
- Look beyond the obvious metrics
- Not all metrics are created equal.
How Does A/B Testing Work?
Randomly show two versions of the same asset (ad, website, pop-up, offer, etc.) to different users
- One version is the “control” group, or the version already in use
- The second version changes a single element
- You can change multiple elements, but this makes it harder to tell the difference
