What is A/B Testing?
A/B testing is the process of comparing two versions of an email, a web page, or other marketing assets and measuring the difference in performance. It is the practice of showing the two versions of the same web page to different segments of visitors at the same time and comparing which variant drives more conversions. Typically, the one that gives higher conversions is the winning variant.
Applying the better version can help you optimize your site for better results. Well-planned A/B testing can make a big difference in the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Narrowing down the most effective elements of a promotion, and then combining them, can obviously make your marketing efforts much more profitable and successful.
A/B testing process:
Following the right procedure is very important if you want accurate results. Here is a process/framework you can follow to start running your tests:
1) Collect data:
Analyzing your website will often provide insight into where you can begin optimizing. You should first begin analyzing the high traffic areas of your site or app. That will allow you to gather data faster. You should look for pages with low conversion rates or high drop-off rates that can be improved.
2) Identify Goals:
Your goals can be anything from clicking a button or link to e-mail signups and product purchases. The metrics that you are using to determine whether or not the variation is more successful than the original version is your conversion goals.
3) Generate Hypothesis:
You can begin generating A/B testing ideas and hypotheses for why you think they will be better than the current version after you’ve identified a goal. Once you have a list of ideas, you need to prioritize them in terms of expected impact and difficulty of implementation.
4) Create Variations:
After choosing the A/B testing software, you can start making the desired changes to any element of your website or mobile app. It could be anything, from changing the color of a button to swapping the order of elements on the page or something entirely custom. Most of the leading A/B testing tools have a visual editor that will make these changes easy. Make sure to QA your experiment to ensure that it works as expected.
5) Run Experiment:
Run your experiment and wait for your visitors to participate. At this point, visitors to your site or app will be randomly assigned to either the control or variation of your experience. Their interaction with each experience is measured, counted, and compared. Therefore you can determine how each performs.
6) Analyze Results:
As soon as your experiment is complete, it’s time to analyze the results. Your A/B testing software will present the data from the experiment and show you the difference between how the two versions of your page performed. You will also get to know if there is a statistically significant difference between the variations.
What should you be A/B testing?
Some elements of a marketing asset contribute to conversions more than others. Since you have limited time, you should devote your energy to the most impactful elements on your web page or other marketing assets.
1) Headlines:
A lot of headlines do not convey a strong value proposition to customers. So headlines are a good place to begin your testing. They’re an important part of any page as it is the first thing that visitors see on your page. The headline is your first impression in a visitor’s eyes. And the first impression is usually what determines if the visitor will go further down your conversion funnel. You will get immediate feedback on your headline variations and learn right away which version performs better than the others.
2) Body:
The body of your website should clearly state what the visitor has in store for them. A well-written headline and body can increase the chances of turning your website into a conversion magnet. While writing content for your page’s body, keep in mind two parameters which are formatting and your writing style.
3) Call-To-Action buttons
Your call to action button tells readers what you want them to do next. It should entice the visitor to act on your offer because it offers too much value to resist. Changing even one word in your CTA can influence conversion rates. You should not change multiple qualities during one A/B test only. With A/B testing, you can test different copies, placement, colors and sizes for your CTA till you find the winning variation.
4) Design and Layout:
Most of the times businesses struggle with finding only the most essential elements to keep on their website. This problem can be solved once and for all with A/B testing. Your product page must be at its most optimized form in terms of design and layout. Along with the copy, the design and layout of a page include images and videos.
5) Social proof:
70 percent of consumers rely on opinions they read in online reviews or on social media to make purchase decisions. These proofs validate the claims made by your website. Displaying social proof on your landing pages, product pages, and other marketing assets can increase conversions. These conversions will happen only if you present the reviews in an appealing way.
6) Email marketing:
A/B testing your marketing emails is very easy. All you need to do is, send version A to 50 percent of your subscribers and version B to the rest. Even the simplest changes to your email signup form, landing page, or other marketing assets can impact conversions by extraordinary numbers. If you run an A/B test and version A outperforms version B then, you know you’ve found an element that impacts conversions.
Conclusion:
Well-planned A/B testing can make a big difference in the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. At Quantazone we will help you take your business to the next level with our marketing techniques.