How to Use A/B Testing to Increase Conversions
Every brand wants to get the most out of their marketing efforts. They want to drive the best results possible from every campaign they launch. That is why it’s essential for marketers to use A/B testing.
What Is A/B Testing?
A/B testing is the process of launching two marketing or advertising campaigns to see which version performs best. The two versions are very similar and include only a small difference. By running the A/B test, you can see which version is more effective and the better investment for your marketing budget.
A/B testing can be used for most marketing campaigns and materials. It is often used to test:
- Website copy and landing pages
- Paid ads
- Email content and subject lines
- Text marketing content
- Geofencing ads
Related: See How This Effective Marketing Campaign Turned $725 into $5,625
Why Use A/B Testing?
If you are running ads or marketing campaigns, you should be utilizing A/B testing. There are multiple benefits to testing different versions of your marketing campaigns.
Through A/B testing, you can:
- Increase Conversions: Even if a marketing campaign is performing well, it could be performing better. A/B testing allows you to test changes that could increase conversions.
- Gain Insights: Running A/B tests allow you to learn more about your offers and your audience. Each test allows you to gain insights into who your customers are, what they want, and how they act.
- Continuously Improve: As you learn through A/B testing, you gain insights that help you continue to increase conversions for existing campaigns and learn what to do for future campaigns.
- Get More Out of Your Budget: As you improve your marketing campaigns, you will get more results out of less money, giving your marketing team more and more budget to work with.
Related: Set Your Marketing Budget By Asking These 6 Questions
What Should You A/B Test?
If you are running marketing initiatives, you likely already have things you could be A/B testing.
Here are a few options for what you can test.
- Copy: Adjust headlines, subheadings, or blocks of text.
- Graphics: Use different images, screenshots, icons, or photos.
- Social Proof: Provide different testimonials, trust badges, or stats and graphics that show results.
- Offers: Change your promotion or offer to a different deal or discount.
- Messaging: Adjust the positioning of your message or showcase a different unique selling proposition.
- Audience Targeting: Target a different audience based on demographics, psychographics, interests, or customer segment.
- Platforms: Try running your campaign on different social platforms.
- Delivery Times: Run your ads or campaign on a different day or at a different time.
- Call to Action: Change the directions you give to the audience.
- Button: Adjust the size, color, or message on the buttons.
- Form Options: Change the design of your form or adjust the formatting to include different fields.
- User Experience (UX): Adjust the layout of your website, shopping cart, navigation, or other elements of user experience.
Related: The 7 Essential Marketing KPIs Every Brand Needs to Know and Monitor
Tips for Running A/B Tests
Now that you know what to test, here are a few tips for running an A/B test.
Decide how to run your A/B test. You have different options for running your A/B test. You can promote two different versions of your campaign, or you could use A/B testing tools. Consider what you want to test and then research your options to find the best way to test.
Assign a control and challenger. The control is the version that is the baseline for your A/B testing. The challenger is the new version that includes the changes.
Create a hypothesis. Before your A/B test, consider what you think will lead to different results. Come up with a hypothesis of how the changes might impact the results. For example, your hypothesis might be to change a button color to drive more clicks.
Don’t test more than one thing. The key to A/B testing is being able to determine what led to different results. If you change too many things on the challenger version, you won’t be able to attribute the higher results to any one change. Assign one major change to each A/B test.
Use the same sample size. To get the most accurate results, you need to show the control and challenger version to the same amount of people. A different sample size can alter your results and not provide an accurate conclusion.
Give it enough time. As you run A/B tests, make sure you give enough time for results to show. Don’t base results on too short of a time period.
Analyze the results. A/B testing is only as good as your review of your experiment. Take time to study your results, compare your findings with the hypothesis, and document what you learned from the test -- so you can use what you learned to run even more A/B tests.
Related: How to Create a Marketing Calendar to Manage Upcoming Content & Promotions
Need Help Getting More Out of Your Marketing Efforts?
Without A/B testing you will never know if your ads and marketing campaigns are working the best they can.
Use these tips to start running A/B tests and ensuring that you get the most out of every dollar your brand spends on reaching and converting customers.
If you need help getting more out of your marketing efforts, let’s talk. MyArea Network has a team of local marketing experts ready to help you boost the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
Talk to our team today about how they can help you drive more leads and sales for your local business.
