Making the Most of A/B Testing for Better Results on Your Digital Campaigns

  • Marketing

Written by: Action Digital

It’s no big secret: A/B testing (also known as split testing) can make a huge difference to your online marketing campaign. It should make your efforts more profitable and you won’t spend your time making pointless assumptions. And the reason is simple, you’ll get to see what elements work best in a given campaign and what generates the most conversions. Fundamentally, it’s all about comparing two different versions of an ad, call to action (CTA), landing page design or webpage layout against each other to see which performs better and which one customers actually prefer. When it’s done well, you’ll figure out which marketing strategies work, and which ones don’t. Done consistently, it can improve your bottom line, as you figure out which variation of a given campaign draws more attention. When you take the guess work out of the equation, you’ll be putting together more effective marketing materials from the start. So you’re experimenting with two variants at the same time, but how can you do it in the best way possible? Here are some key points to remember:

 

1. Think hard about your online goals

This may seem easy, but the point is, you really have to think about how you define the success of your marketing campaigns- are you looking for clicks, sales, sign ups, downloads? Define your priorities and business goals before you even begin A/B testing.

 

2. Focus on testing the things that will have the greatest impact

Test your call to actions, you headlines, important pages that directly relate to your marketing efforts, as well as various promotional offers. And it’s also a good idea to look at pages or ads that may not be performing well as split testing gives you the chance to see what might work better! Using different variations in split testing is very important. For example, you may want to test one ad with landing page A, then another ad with landing page B and then switch them around, so you’ve seen all combinations to be sure of what works best.

 

3. Patience is a virtue!

You certainly won’t find the answers you need in a day! It might take a few days or weeks to really be able to evaluate real results. If you rush things, you won’t get a large enough group of visitors in order to be statistically accurate.

 

4. Only test one thing at a time

Yes, that’s right. Just two variables (version A and version B) at a time for more accurate results, especially if it’s a call to action or a headline! If you vary a few things at the same time, then it will be hard to know what made the difference. And it’s important to do the trials simultaneously, under the exact same circumstances and voila- you’ll know which is best for use!

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