Know How A/B Testing in Digital Marketing can Improve Your Conversions

Not doing A/B testing? You are leaving all the money on the table! 

We are not being harsh, but just to let you know that you are not making the most of your carefully created strategy. Simply because you are not playing with the options in your inputs. 

To make it simple, let us assume a situation. You have to sell dark chocolate to the audience which is a mix of people who like and dislike the chocolate. You create a headline for your ad saying "the best dark chocolate with nuts". This headline will appeal only the ones who want to eat or like to eat dark chocolate. But if you use this headline “this chocolate can be a healthy snack option”. This trial will entice most of the people who would like to try the chocolate. So, it is always beneficial to apply and check which option works better in favour of your profit. This is what A/B Testing is all about.

A/B Testing helps you evaluate your conversion funnel and understand how your audience reacts to different elements on your website. So let us get started with all the details of A/B testing:

1. Why do you need to do A/B Testing?

The first step of any campaign is ideation and the second step is creation. Ideation can be infinite, in fact, the more ideas, the better the end result. But you don’t just rush into creating to bring every idea into reality. That is foolish. Out of the wide lot of ideas that you get, you have to choose two best options according to you that you think will convince your audience to make conversions. 

Which one is better, out of the two best ideas that you choose, must not be decided by you again. You must let the audience make the decision. With A/B Testing you get to know what words, phrases, headlines, and other elements will work better and drive conversions.

Take a look at this test that shows how red CTA button got more clicks than the Green one.

Even in case of SEO, you must perform A/B Testing on various pages in your website, especially the landing page, to make changes on them so as to reduce the load time. If the site loads faster, the chances of conversion hike by 7% or more. Also, the site loading time affects the ranking on Google as well. 

Therefore, doing efforts in trying and testing different mock-ups through A/B testing is rewarding.

2. What are the other types of testing?

There are two types of testing: “split testing” and “A/B Testing”. Wherein, A/B Testing involves comparing 2 versions of your marketing subject, in which anyone element is changed, for example, the headline, the image or CTA button. 

While Split testing is the process of testing two completely varying designs. Generally, people prefer A/B testing because that helps you realize better about what elements need to be changed and whatnot.

Do you know what are Champion, Challenger and Variation?

These are the three terms that are used in this testing, wherein, Champion is the asset or the option A, that can be your headline, landing page, CTA button or email. This is the option that you feel will perform well. You challenge it with Option B, which is called the Challenger. This is the variation of option A. 

Variation is the change that you opt to make better conversions, after performing the A/B Testing.

3. What are the elements of A/B Testing?

Some elements help in making conversions better than all the others. Change in one word can lead to an immense increase in CTR. So, following are those elements upon which A/B Testing must be done:

i) Headline

This is the first thing any visitor sees when they appear on your page. So, it makes a reason strong enough, to make it very catchy and attention-grabbing. You can even refer to our blog on how to write catchy headlines. We have even dropped 128 headlines ideas that work. 

ii) CTA Button

CTA gives that necessary push to your clients, to make the conversion. So, it should be very catchy and influential, so much so that it can entice the reader. CTA text plays an influential role in convincing the audience and take up the offer. Characteristics like button colour, size, text and shape also make a difference. 

iii) Images, Audio, Video

Create podcasts, videos and Info-graphics, because these are the versions of content that people love these days. A/B test between a video and a written content to check what brings you conversions.  Check whether small infographics are preferred by your audience or longer ones. 

iv) Email subject

Email subject lines have a direct impact on opening rates of the mail leading to higher chances of conversion. If the subscriber does not find the email subject lien attractive enough, he might not open the mail. So, A/B testing the subject lines can increase your chances of getting people to click. Try questions versus statements, test power words against one another, and consider using subject lines with and without emojis.

v) Product description

Short product descriptions work the best. Because consumers love to read simple and easy-to-believe content that raises their query as well. You must do A/B Testing on this as well, to check what descriptions are more elaborate and simple-to-understand for your users, aiding them into making a conversion.

vi) Landing pages

You must read out how to make an effective landing page from our previous write-up. Landing page plays a crucial role in converting users for whatever you offer them with. A heat map can show you where people click on your landing page, on the basis of which you know what elements on that page are working good and what isn’t. 

4. How to implement A/B testing?

This testing depends on what you are testing. In the case of Emails, most email service providers have built-in testing tools. In case of landing pages, you can use various online tools to a/b test it. Analyze you’re A/B statistics to decide who is better the challenger or the champion. 

5. For how long should an A/B Test run?

For most of the A/B test, it is important to take care of the duration for which these run. If you run the test for say 6 months and only 5 people visit the page, then you can’t conclude what to keep and what to discard. However, if the test runs for a longer duration, a large number of results come up and that makes it easier to analyze what is working and what is not.

A/B testing for a longer duration will give you better results if you have a good range of traffic. 

Conclusion

If you follow the right procedure to get accurate results regarding what elements are going to grab the attention of your potential customers, then nothing hinders the unlimited conversion rate that follows.