A/B testing is one of the most effective ways of finding out what resonates with your audience. A/B testing is all about testing changes to your content, products or service offerings. Have you ever wanted to know if your audience responded better to red or blue, to text or video, to this or that?
The theory is that by making small incremental changes and testing them against the original, you can find what works with your audience and what doesn’t. It is a simple idea, but one that has been used by many of the biggest companies in the world.
This blog will look at what A/B testing is and how you can use it.
What is A/B Testing?
A/B testing is a staple of digital marketing. The process is simple. It involves taking two (or more) versions of a webpage and showing the one that performs better to the general public.
The goal is to determine which version of the webpage elicits the best responses.
Are visitors more likely to click on a particular link? Do they prefer a specific word or phrase? Is there an image that should be moved, removed, or replaced?
A/B testing answers questions about consumer reception to various features and design elements on a webpage and is used to help determine which features to keep and which ones to eliminate in future redesigns.
Why and How You Should Use It?
The heart of marketing is about figuring out what works best. There are no real definitive answers, but A/B testing lets you know what is best for your marketing and lets you better understand your customers. You can use this to run split tests of your own or use a company that helps set these up for you. To run a successful test, you need to choose a couple terms to test. This can be option A and B and then develop a way to accurately measure the results.
You’ve probably noticed companies testing colors and headlines on their websites, or ads, to see which get the best response. You might be wondering how A/B Testing can help you and your business grow.
There are a lot of ways to use A/B testing for your business. One way is to use it for landing pages. Landing pages are the first page a user sees before being directed deeper into your website. You want this page to make a user want to continue to explore your website.
Another great way to use A/B testing is for email subjects. When sending emails with subject lines that are enticing, it will draw in more customers or clients. By using A/B testing, you will be able to determine the best version of your subject line.
Types of A/B Testing
There are four main types of A/B testing.
The first type is between subject testing. This is when you test variation A against variation B in one of your samples, such as 0.1% of your visitors.
The second type is within subject testing, where you create a control group and an experimental group. The control group is your original site and the experimental group is showing how variation B does against the control group.
The third type is replication testing. This is where you test out variation A on another segment of your visitors, whether it be 0.1% again or 10% of your visitors if you are after more accurate results.
The fourth type is multi-variant testing. This is where you test out a set of variations, such as C, D, and E, against each other.
These tests may sound scary, but in reality they really aren’t. Most times, simple tests that focus on one thing at a time are best, as they are easy to hear and implement. One of the easiest tests we have run is with the call to action button on our homepage: we have a version that says “Learn More” and one that says “Register Now.” We have found that the latter increases signups by 13%. While it’s not huge, every little bit helps.
Another place you can use this testing is landing pages. These are the most important place on your site for conversions. You can test two different versions of a page to see which one works better. Split Testing is when you either have a control group or split the traffic between the groups.
If you have a control group, you’re measuring the performance over time of the control group vs. the variation. You can create a control group manually by not showing the test variation to some defined percentage of visitors.
Measuring Your Results
As you continue experimenting, you might ask yourself questions like What worked? Why did this variation perform better than others? And what if we tried something else? With tracking data from each version of your test, you can use the results to make informed decisions about what changes to try next.
This process will allow you to experiment with ideas until you come up with the right combination of elements – like the information architecture, colors, headlines, and more – that help drive your performance forward.
Key Takeaways
For us A/B testing is an important element of our digital marketing efforts. It helps us make sure that we’re building a website that’s easy to use and meets the needs of our customers. We hope you found this blog post helpful and we hope that you can use this knowledge in your future endeavors!
