How to Increase Growth with A/B Testing

One of the key elements of a successful marketing plan is being able to adjust. You need to be able to figure out what works for your target market.

Part of adjusting is A/B testing your website, your content, and your advertisements. The end result of A/B testing is being able to increase your conversions.

So, what are the strategies to improving conversions with A/B testing? What do you need to do on your website and in your content?

Here’s a guide that walks you through what to A/B test, how to A/B test, and more.

 

What is A/B Testing?

A/B testing is when you are testing changes to a part of your business in order to improve performance.

You are seeing what converts the best when it comes to different page designs, different website headlines, and different forms of content. For example, if you control what sets the standard for testing, you want to have a challenger that tries to take its place.

You want to try and come up with better copy, better pictures, and better images that can enhance more conversions. You want to see what performs the best.

If you had a landing page, you would want to see what changes you need to make that can help you improve performance. You might need two different kinds of videos on your landing page, a different headline, or something else to see if it performs better than the original landing page.

The overall goal of A/B testing is evaluating what is going to perform the best in your business. With any marketing strategy, rarely does something work right off the bat.

It takes time to evaluate and see how strategies can be more effective. This is why it’s a good idea to have an arsenal of strategies ready to implement. You can continue testing in order to get the best results from a specific marketing campaign.

What Do You Need to Do Before You A/B Test?

Now that you have an idea of what A/B testing is, it’s important to figure out what you need before you implement any strategies. It’s important to consider what you are trying to aim for in your tests.

If you’re unsure of where to start before your A/B test, here are two rules of thumb that can give you some insight.

Have Goals

The first is to set realistic goals.

What are you trying to achieve in your A/B test? How many leads or conversions do you want? What test are you going to do first?

These questions help you figure out what your goal is when you are A/B testing. You don’t want to have unrealistic expectations when you are A/B testing because it really depends on who you are targeting and what the industry standard is.

You want to set measurable goals that can be met and see if you can make minor improvements over a long span of time.

One of the goals you should have is increasing conversions. This means you are nurturing your leads more and you are driving more traffic to your website.

In order to reach that goal, you need more clicks. You need something on your website that is going to want your target market to take action.

You should consider A/B testing lead magnet ideas and see what gets the most traction. When you have an idea of what works and what your goals are, you have an idea of what kind of strategies you need when your A/B testing.

Do a Marketing Analysis

Something else you need to do before you A/B test is to do a marketing analysis. This means you are evaluating the effectiveness of your website, your email marketing, your social media strategies, and other marketing strategies before you A/B test.

You are seeing what is the most effective and least effective in a marketing campaign. If you discover that your website is producing lots of traffic, but also a poor bounce rate, it could be that you need to work on areas of your website.

A marketing analysis is helpful because it shows you metrics that can help when your A/B testing.

Metrics can show what blog post gets the most reads, what emails get the most opens, and what parts of your website get the most clicks.

After you evaluate your marketing analysis, you take parts of your online business that are not performing well and try to make them like parts of your website that are working well.

What Should You Be A/B Testing?

Now that you know what you should be doing before A/B testing, it’s important to consider what you can A/B test.

You should know what’s available to you. You should only try to A/B test one part of your business at a time. It helps you stay focused and you aren’t trying to do much.

Here are some things you can A/B test in your business that can help improve your conversions.

Website Testing

A website can always be A/B tested. This means you can A/B test the headline and see if people stay longer on your website with a different home page headline.

You can also A/B test the website content, the description around your products, and how people find your products on your website. When you A/B test your website, you are seeing what keeps people on your website the longest.

You are also evaluating what’s getting clicked on the most, especially if you are figuring out what page has the most views.

Email Copy Testing

Something else you can A/B test is your emails.

Through segmentation, you can send variations of your emails to your email list. You can send the same email but with a slightly different subject line to a different segment to your email list.

You can also test the call-to-action (CTA) to see what wording causes someone to click on your CTA at the end of your email.

Email gives you a lot of opportunities to test and see what works because you can segment your audience. You can try different ideas to different audiences and see what works.

Social Media Testing

If you are advertising on social media, you’ll also have the opportunity to A/B test.

Similar to email marketing, you can split up your audience on social media when you are advertising. You can send one variation of your ad to an audience and another variation to another audience.

This gives you an idea of what performs better. When you see what works better, you can devote more of your budget to that specific ad campaign in order to produce more leads and more conversions.

SEO Testing

SEO content on your website also offers an opportunity to test content. You want to see what kind of content is performing the best on your website in order to make content similar to that.

SEO testing typically involves testing for different image placement, you are also trying different headlines, fonts, and colors of your content.

When you are able to A/B test your SEO, you have an idea of what you need to do every time to get better results.

What Are Some A/B Testing Tips & Strategies?

While you may know what to test, you still need to know the best A/B testing strategies. You need to know what kind of marketing strategies can help you produce the best results.

Here are some expert strategies that can help you implement the best A/B tests.

Knowing Your Target Market

Knowing your target market may sound basic, but it’s really a lot of work and research to know everything about your target market and their behavior.

If you want to achieve high A/B test results, you should consider creating a buyer persona. This is everything you know about your target market from demographics to behavior.

You have an idea of what they are looking for on your website and other parts of your business. This gives you some creative ways to think about different headlines and what appeals to them.

Choose What to Test

Another strategy to consider when A/B testing is knowing what to test at a specific time.

You want to only test one thing at a time in your business. You don’t want to overdo and become confused about what you are testing. Don’t test your website, your email, and your landing page at the same time.

When you only test the website, you might realize that you can dramatically improve conversions without having to modify your emails or other parts of your online presence.

Follow Copywriting Strategies

It’s important that a lot of your strategies follow copywriting principles. You don’t want to assume you know what your target market wants in your content, website, or emails.

This is why you should follow copywriting principles. These principles involve featuring pain points and then benefits. This is just one copywriting strategy that you can implement into your business.

When you are A/B testing, considering highlighting the benefits of your product to your ideal market. You want to show them what they are missing and how it can fill a gap in their life.

Another copywriting strategy to consider in parts of your business is storytelling. People are captivated by stories. They are captivated by the emotion of a story; they want to know what happens to the characters.

Another copywriting strategy to consider is urgency. When you A/B test, you can make one of the tests sound more urgent, and then see if it performs better. When you make it urgent, and even add scarcity to your copy, it makes people want it more before it runs out.

Figure Out What Your End Goal Is

The final tip or strategy to consider is figuring out your end goal. You don’t want to test for the sake of testing. You want to have an end goal.

You need to figure out if your end goal is more clicks, website traffic, more leads, or simply more conversions.

Creating an end goal that is realistic is the best tip when it comes to A/B testing.

What Are the Benefits of A/B Testing?

Now that you know the strategies involved in A/B testing, you also should know about the benefits that come with implementing these strategies.

One of the best benefits of A/B testing is that you are improving user engagement in your business. If your target market is not engaging with your website, it will lead to fewer leads and conversions.

When you have more engaging content, your bounce rate will lower, and people will stay on your website longer.

The biggest benefit is that you will improve the value of your conversions. This means that you won’t be paying as much to convert your leads. Your leads will be ready to buy at a faster rate.

Now You’re Ready to Improve Your Conversions

A/B testing can help your business in a variety of ways, but you don’t want to assume that any changes you make in your business will help improve your conversions. You have to consider what you want to change and the strategies that you need that can give you the best success rate.

This guide gives you all the information you need to improve your conversion rate with A/B testing. The most important thing to remember is that you can always test and improve your online business.

If you want a free digital marketing review, you can access it here on our website.