Is A/B Testing an Effective Tool in Digital Marketing?
Marketers are always trying to optimize their campaign strategies to increase conversions and ROI. A/B testing allows marketers to test two variants of a web page, email, or even a headline against each other and measure the results.
The two different versions are presented to the visitors and based on certain metrics like conversion rate, time on page, the test helps indicate the most popular one. It throws out the guesswork and brings scientific methodology like data-based decisions. A/B testing pinpoints areas on your website that can help or stop the sales.
Testing Without Developers
Marketers have to depend on developers to get the different variants which ends up consuming a lot of your time. A/B testing tools assist marketers in putting the web pages together, getting them live or creating ad campaigns real quick. Their drag and drop interface and easy tools help in customizing different variants in the least amount of time.
The Important Aspects of A/B Testing
Changing a word in the whole of your content wouldn’t make much of a difference. For testing purposes, it would be good to pay attention to elements that give you the most impact.
(i) Headlines and Content
The first thing that catches the visitor’s attention is the headlines. Make sure to create memorable headlines that will increase user experience. Various sites give you ideas on how to create funky new headlines or convert the existing ones.
Pay attention to the text used on the CTA button or the anchor text for the link. Try testing different versions of the content, the lengths of paragraphs, and tones in content.
(ii) Your Call-to-Actions
The Call-to-actions on your website should entice your users to take the action you want them to. A simple change in a word can bring about a great impact on the performance including changing the font color, button color, size shapes or contrast. When testing, try to change each quality one by one rather than all of them at once, otherwise, it might be too hard to detect which quality brought about the change.
(iii) Subject Lines
A/B testing the subject lines increases the chances of clicks. Email subject lines affect open rates ie if they are attractive enough your emails have a chance of being clicked. According to statistics, you need to be above average to have subscribers to open your emails. Use questions or statements, power words, etc and see which performs better.
(iv) Content
You need to know what your audience prefers if it is just a basic overview of a topic or in-depth knowledge that has-it-all kind of content. This will require two types of content, a short and a long one, which should also allow you to test the SEO metrics like conversion rate and time on page. This applies to both the blog pages and the landing pages as well
(v) Product Descriptions
For product descriptions, the shorter the content, the better. Simple highlights of the product are what consumers are looking for. Here too, create short and long versions of product descriptions for testing and see which converts better. The other elements to test would be the design, paragraph versus bullet points, etc.
A/B testing is a powerful way of collecting data on consumer behavior and preferences. Create a plan or goal, set a period, collect and analyze data and make changes. All this ensures a better user experience for customers that will increase your conversion rates. Call us to know more.