What is A/B Testing?
A/B testing is one of the most powerful marketing techniques to test and figure out which strategy or promotion works best for you. You can test anything from your search ads copy, banner design, website layout, add to cart button colour, to almost everything imaginable! At the end of the test, the one that offers the most number of conversions or the best conversion rate gets the crown.
For example:
The image above illustrates 2 websites that were tested to determine which one has the best conversion rate. Each website gets a fair amount of divided traffic (50%). At the end of the test Variation A gets a higher conversion rate than B. This makes A the clear winner to be use in the long term.
Attributes to Test
Before you start testing, there are a lot of tests that you can try out, such as tests related to call-to-action, headlines, copies, images, button colour, and many more. While almost every variable factor is testable, it doesn’t mean you have to test every single thing. The best approach is to concentrate only on the elements that will give you the biggest impact.
For instance, you can test:
- Call to action
- Title / headline
- Graphics
- Sales copy
- Service / Product descriptions
- Button Colour
- Testimonials
To spice things up a little, you can match sales copy X with landing page X, and sales copy Z with landing page Z. After collecting the data, you can try testing sales copy X with landing page Z and vice versa. This will help you to get more solid results to make the final justifications.
Determining Your Objectives
At the start of your A/B tests, you need to be clear with what conversion rates you want to increase. It could be anything from amount of visitors/traffic, the number of filled out online forms, completed purchases, app installations, and even button clicks.
A/B Test With Google AdWords
Google Ads is the ultimate tool for conducting A/B testing. It is possible to produce, multiply any number of ad text variations, and finally evaluate which of these variations are more successful by using just Google Analytics. For instance, if your industry is doing HR systems, you can test a few different headlines, such as:
- HR System for SME
- HR System Free Trial
- Best HR System Solution
You can also consider using different landing page titles on your website to link to different ad headlines to find out the different results. This will test how strong the two affect each other.
Dedicate Time to Testing
A campaign needs to run for at least 7 days to gather sufficient data for A/B testing. Because A/B testing is not an overnight project, the best timeframe for data collection is a couple of weeks. For the most precise result, you’ll only want to run one test at a time.
Make sure you outline a timeframe for your testing and set a minimum amount of responses needed to make the results of this test meaningful. Try not to end it too soon or too late, or the results from testing would be less accurate and helpful in helping to make the best decisions.
Remember Not to be distracted by your emotions and instincts, and let them overrule the test results because the end result might surprise you sometimes!
Cheers!
