If you want to improve your conversions in 2017, prepare to become best friends with A/B testing. By being systematic when testing different variables in your campaigns, you will increasingly optimize your results and, in turn, improve your conversion and return on investment. In this article, we will look at what exactly an A/B email marketing test is, what not to do, and how to use them to optimize your campaigns.
Running an A/B test in an email marketing campaign is based on a very simple process: sending out two version of the same email, which differ in one single variable, in order to see which of the two people are more inclined to open and click on.
There are several variables that can be tested, such as the subject, the body text, the Call To Action copy, the color of the CTA button, the images, the offers or even when you send the email. What you are looking to do is make small, identifiable changes that improve the result you are focusing on in each situation: the number of people who open your email, the number of clicks on a certain link or the conversion to sales, for example.
Know that we know exactly what an A/B test is, let’s take a look at the mistakes we must avoid for it to work:
Just like in any general email marketing campaign, you need to know beforehand exactly how you are going to measure the results of your A/B tests. What exactly are you trying to get out of it? Improve your opening ratio, increase your sales via email, get users to click on a specific link?
This step is crucial to guarantee the success of your test. As we have already seen, you need to have a large enough group of people to be able to reach and conclusions, and they need to be similar to each other. On the other hand, however, the goal of your test is to know which version works best, so it does not make sense to use your whole database.
To successfully run an A/B test with the best possible results, choose a percentage of your database (like 20 or 30% for example), and send one version of your email to one half and another version to the other half.
It goes without saying that for your tests to work you will need to have a large, high quality database of user emails.
Got your results? Great! Now, all you need to do is send the winning version to the rest of your database. Be sure to keep note of your conclusion to use in your future email marketing campaigns.