AB Testing in Digital Marketing; What You Need To Know

After acquiring the best marketing tools and strategies and identifying the most effective techniques to boost revenue, about 50% of companies will stop here without knowing they can still do one more thing to optimize their marketing efforts and boost revenue.

One major advantage of Digital Marketing is its measurability. The value of digital techniques and tools is that data drives them. There is a vast amount of data available for you from every decision you take, and being able to interpret this data allows you to identify your campaign’s strengths and weaknesses and do something about them. This is where AB Testing comes into play.

Now that your attention has been grabbed, read until the end to learn all about AB Testing.

What is AB Testing?

AB Testing, also known as Split Testing, is the act of testing two variables of any given element in marketing material. It compares two versions of a webpage, an email, an app, or any other marketing assets against each other to gauge which performs better and applies the one with the most successful result in your marketing campaign. Even though you can use it with any content, it is most popular when launching email campaigns and landing pages.

When used with landing pages, it involves taking two versions of a webpage (version A and version B) to display to two different audiences with an equal number at the same time. The results are then observed to know which one works better in customer interaction with the landing page. When used for landing pages, it measures which version of an ad copy, a design, or any other content catches the customer’s attention and boosts revenue. This way, you can be positive that the changes you make to your web pages are as positive as possible.

You can run AB Tests independently or use platforms equipped with tools like Hubspot, Google Analytics, and Google Optimize.

What Elements Can You AB Test?

1. Headlines:

Headlines are very important on a webpage because they are the first thing anyone who clicks on your page sees. They have a huge role in creating conversions, so you must ensure your headlines are the best you can always use. If your headlines are not up to the bar, you will not persuade customers to click on your assets or stay on your website.

2. Call To Action (CTA):

Call to action are phrases or sentences in your copy that will prompt your customers to take up what you are offering them quickly. It urges them to take immediate action. Your CTA must be the best to optimize your marketing campaign. Changing the tone or even one word can do tons to the conversion rate of your marketing campaign.

3. Landing Pages:

Your landing page should be designed to be welcoming and catchy. It should be one of the first things you test, like which specific color or design would attract a customer more.

4. Content Size:

The size of your ad copy matters. Sometimes a long copy would attract more conversions, and sometimes a short copy will. Testing your content and copy depth is also important.

5. Audio, Video, and Images:

These have a very important impact on any marketing campaign. They are an important aspect of a marketing campaign and should be tested.

6. Product Description:

For e-commerce companies, testing product descriptions is important. For example, you might want to choose between essay written style, bulleted points, or a combination.

What is the AB Testing Process?

1. Set Your Objectives:

It is important to set your objectives in order before attempting AB Testing. Decide what you want to achieve with the test; to boost sales or increase traffic. Doing this will help point you in the right direction and help you make the right steps.

1. Decide on Which Variable You Want to Test:

On your landing page, you might discover that you have more than one variable to test, e.g., CTA, headline, images, and design. However, it is best to pick one variable at a time (per test) so that analyzing the result of the test will be easier. This way, it will be easy to determine what needs to be changed or adjusted.

Always start with the most important and ensure that the variable you are testing is relevant to whatever metric you want to measure. Look at the elements of your marketing resources and other possible alternatives for their design, layout, and wording. Little changes like changing the image of your email or replacing a word on your CTA can cause big improvements.

3. Create Your Control and Challenger:

‘control’ is the unaltered version of what you are creating. For example, if it’s a landing page, your control scenario is the landing page design and ad copy that you use normally. Meanwhile, your ‘challenger’ is the altered version of what you are creating, where changes have been added.

4. Divide Your Sample Audience Equally and Randomly:

If this test involves an audience you have more control over, like emails, you should test with an equally divided audience to get more accurate results. Also, determine their size; determining the size of your sample audience depends on the AB Testing tool you are using and the type of test you are running.

5. Test the Two Variations at the Same Time:

To get the best conclusive results, it is best to test both variations simultaneously to avoid second-guessing. The only exception is if you are testing timing, for example finding out the best time to send emails for email marketing.

6. Run the Test for Enough Time to Gather and Produce Useful Data:

How long to run your test depends on your company and how you execute the AB Test. Therefore, getting statistically significant results might take a while, depending on how much traffic you get in your business. The bottom line is that you must make sure you run your test long enough to get a substantial sample size, or else it will be hard to determine a statistically significant difference between the two variations.

7. Take Decisions and Actions Based on Your Results:

From your statistics, after concluding the test, the next course of action and decision-making should be clear to you. If one variant is better than the other, you should stick with it and disable the loser variant in your AB Testing tool. And if neither of the variants is better, you should either stick with the original variant (control scenario) or adopt another variant entirely and run another test.

In conclusion, no knowledge is wasted. You can apply the lessons learned from each test and inculcate them into future efforts. It can help you discover new ways to make your marketing campaign more effective. You can even conduct an AB Test on another element of the same marketing material you just did a test run.

Benefits Of AB Testing

1. More Customer Insight: AB Testing lets you know what your customers want and their preferences. It gives you valuable information to understand them better and pull them closer, thereby increasing customer trust.
2. Builds Customer Loyalty to Your Brand: you can implement results and information from running AB Tests into your customer loyalty strategy. You optimize your marketing to the fullest this way, making your customers stay for long.
3. Boosts Revenue: AB Testing is one of the easiest ways to increase your ROI in a short period. Through these tests, you understand what works for you to increase your conversion.
4. Helps You Get the Perfect Copy: copywriting is not always predictable. AB Testing helps you get the perfect copy by testing out which variant works best for you. Variants like the length of texts, the tone of your copy, storytelling techniques, title or email subject, and sales arguments can be tested and improved.
5. Helps You Identify Small Details That Matter: Sometimes, what you need to make twice as many conversions is changing little details like the color of your CTA button, adding an exclamation mark to your headline to make it catchier, or even the size of an image. AB Testing can help you get this right and make your sales grow.

To Round it Off

AB Testing is a necessary step to take and is worth it. From the information provided above, you now know that it helps you optimize your website and marketing campaigns and also helps you determine the best copy to attract the right audience for your business. It helps you focus on things that work best for your business and gives you more opportunities to increase sales and revenue.

Contact us at the Dik3n team to help you answer any questions and offer our help and services to your business.