What is your business doing to maximize your A/B testing efforts? In a previous post, we explained the importance of A/B testing. As a quick refresher, A/B testing is the practice of running two versions of a promotion to test a singular variable, such as what the call to action will look like, e.g. the color of a button or the wording of a phrase such as ‘Join Now’ vs. ‘Register Here’. You should perform an A/B test if you notice a promotion your company is running is not yielding the results you were hoping to receive. Now the Spot Digital Marketing research team is back to give you the 3 best practices of A/B testing!
1. Test the appropriate key performance indicator and promotional element
Before you run an A/B test, you should determine what key performance indicator (KPI) you want to measure. Popular key performance indicators include conversion rate, cart abandonment rate for retailers, email capture rate, and average order value. There are six elements of promotion to consider testing for and it is important to choose the correct one to improve your campaign. Call to action, taglines, offer copy, the value of the offer, image, and the number of steps are all measurable KPIs that play important roles when customers view your promotional content. If one of the elements is off, it may be the cause of your promotion’s low performance.
2. Write down your hypothesis
If you are not jotting your hypothesis down for yourself, at least document it for those who come after you or anyone who asks to see a report. The hypothesis does not need to be elaborate, it just needs to state specific action and outcomes of what you think changing the KPI and the promotional element will do for your bottom line. For example, “We predict changing the tagline in the subject line of our emails to something witty will resonate with our younger audience and increase the open rate.”
3. Watch your timing
Be sure to send out your promotional emails at peak times for your audience. Sending out an email when your audience is online may sound like a no-brainer, but it never hurts to be reminded. Studies have shown that promotional emails perform well on Fridays, however, you should look at your own email data to find the time your open rate, click-through-rate, conversion rate are highest.
Running an A/B test can be very time consuming if you are a small business juggling many tasks. Luckily, you can hire a digital marketing agency such as Spot Digital Marketing to manage this process for you. We have 17 years of experience in supervising paid-per-click campaigns, monitoring SEO rankings, developing successful text message advertisements, and much more.
Receive your business’ complimentary SEO audit by visiting our website or contacting us directly with any questions you have about A/B testing.
