A/B testing is not new. Creating two “things” that have the same goal to see which is best is a no-brainer for any industry. For marketing purposes, it is a must and in recent years with the explosion of available instant data, testing your marketing ideas not only saves you time, it saves you money.
A/B Test Your Content
I’m going to start with A/B content testing, something a lot of businesses don’t consider doing. A lot of times, people have their content written, approve it, get it up on the website and that’s about it. But, if you aren’t bothering to use analytics to see how long folks are staying on the pages or where they are dropping off, you are missing out on chances to create better content.
Testing A/B content for your website is easier than you think. If you can change an element on your website, you can A/B Test.
You should consider:
- Headline changes
- Graphic changes
- Call to action placement changes
- Colors of the call to action button.
If one page is seeing longer “on page” times than another, you know which is best.
A/B Test Your Email Marketing
For years, I ignored A/B testing for email marketing campaigns I ran. Not only was it time-consuming, but I didn’t think it mattered. I know, I know…I was wrong. A/B Testing in emails is extremely important to help with open rates and click rates to get people to your site for more information or purchases.
It’s actually quite easy to A/B test for emails.
- Make two emails with the same copy and same call to actions, but change the “look” and “feel” of the email.
- Consider the graphics and placement of the copy.
- Consider the headlines of the email itself as well as the headlines for each segment. Consider your audience.
If you haven’t segmented your audiences yet, A/B testing is a great way to do that based on opens and clicks.
A/B Testing Advertising
This is the no-brainer since advertising budgets can be very large and you don’t want to be throwing money away in AdWords and Social Advertising. It’s also simple to duplicate ads and make minor changes to each ad and then monitor which is drawing more leads.
- Change the ad headline
- Change the photos used
- Change the call to action
- Change the audience and size of that audience
In the end, you will know fairly quickly which ad is drawing attention and which ad you can turn off…sometimes within 3 days of getting the ad going.
As with “all things marketing”, A/B testing is about time. If you don’t have it, it’s time to hire someone who does and knows how to get you the leads you need!
SynRG Marketing 