Have you ever heard a marketer talk about how you should be A/B testing?
I thought it would be good to break down what A/B testing is and why it could be beneficial when it comes to different marketing activity.
Firstly what is A/B testing:
It’s essentially where you put two campaigns alongside each other and see which one performs better. Both the campaigns are for the same outcome, but both will feature different messaging/imagery or a different call to action to see what performs the best.
Ideally in an A/B test you will only change one element as to not confuse what was the deciding factor which made one campaign more successful than the other.
Then, you can either choose to run the A or the B, depending on which one performs better. Or, if they’ve both performed incredibly well, you may choose to keep both running.
Why should I try A/B testing for my next campaign?
The idea behind A/B testing is to ensure that you’re not just burning through a lot of budget without actually looking at the metrics and seeing how your customers are responding to each test.
A/B testing allows you to sample your market and understand what it is that makes them convert, what they want to click on and get the result you want, or kill the campaign completely and go back to scratch.
I think you need to be that flexible with your marketing as well.
What sorts of marketing can I trial A/B testing on?
A/B testing works well on all different kinds of marketing channels.
In Email Marketing you can A/B test:
- Subject line
- Preview text
- Call to action
- Email body content
- Imagery
- The time of day or the day the email is sent
In AdWords or social media campaigns you can A/B test:
- Call to action
- Imagery
- Copy
- Colour palette
If you still do flyers or other printed media you can also test call to action, copy, imagery and all of the items above.
A/B testing is a great way to understand your potential customers and their buying behaviour better.
In digital marketing it provides a quick way to sample the market and ensure you spend budget wisely and on ads which you have tested are more likely to convert.
Marketing always requires some trial and error.
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