A/B testing is one of the best ways to get meaningful feedback you can’t get anywhere else. However, running these tests without strategic direction can often lead to insignificant or incorrect results.
In this blog, our CRO Strategist, Justin Kevalaitis, will explain what A/B testing is, why it matters, and how to run them successfully to get insights that will improve your messaging and increase conversions.
What We’ll Cover:
- What is A/B Testing?
- Benefits of A/B Testing
- 5 A/B Test Examples
- Top A/B Testing Tools and Resources
- Frequently Asked Questions About A/B Testing
My Expert Opinion on A/B Testing
One of the best ways to improve conversion rates is through A/B testing. Giving your audience a chance to tell you what resonates with them the most, gives you invaluable insight into their thought process. Using that insight, you can then craft copy, messaging, and images that are sure to increase conversions.
However, you can’t just run tests willy-nilly. Get to know your audience and craft a strategy behind your A/B tests. The more work you put in before your content rolls out, the higher the quality of your results will be.
Action Item: Take your most recent marketing campaign and run an A/B test using it as the control. Make a few changes to your graphics, copy, or header to produce your variation. Once your test is run, analyze your results. Which campaign performed better? Your control or your variable?
What is A/B Testing?
A/B testing is a randomized experiment that allows you to compare marketing assets side-by-side and see which one performs better.
A/B testing involves creating multiple versions of your marketing assets, such as your website, social media posts, email marketing, video content, or paid ads, and sending the control version to one part of your list and the variable version to the other part.
When it comes to A/B testing, it isn’t just the copy you can test. You can also test other things such as:
- Headings
- Subheadings
- Call-to-action buttons, both copy, design, and location
- Page copy
- Page structure
- Images
- Graphics
- Page navigation
- Subject line length
- Emoji v. no emoji
- Tone
- Image heavy vs. Text heavy
- Videos
- Personalization
- Time of send
A/B testing can be applied to any aspect or asset that may affect a consumer’s decision-making.
It’s never enough to settle for one A/B test. Doing so will give you limited data to work with and the elements you’re testing. The more you test, the more you’ll be able to learn about your target audience and uncover new ways to convert more visitors into leads, and more leads into loyal customers.
Benefits of A/B Testing
In addition to proving how A/B testing can impact your strategy in the short term, it can also help you prioritize how to proceed in the future.
According to Kyle Rush, VP of Engineering at Casper, “With A/B testing, you have so much more knowledge for what to roll out 3-to-4 years out.”
Here’s a high-level overview of some of the benefits you can expect with testing:
- Improved user experience
- Higher conversion rates
- Lower bounce rates
- Reduced risks
- Increased revenue
- Actionable results
10 A/B Test Examples
Before you run off to start your own A/B test, let’s take a look at some real-life case examples. Here are some of our favorite A/B test examples:
1. Simplifying Site Navigation
Our client had a huge banner across the top of their website with the call-to-action “Call Now,” but it wasn’t converting very well.
To understand why it wasn’t converting well, we put ourselves in the customer’s shoes and mapped their journey. This service is for people who are sick, and the last thing you want to do when you’re sick is get on the phone.
For this A/B test, we removed the banner, improving site navigation and overall user experience. This small test resulted in an increased conversion rate of 25% and $30,000 in additional monthly revenue, without any extra ad spend.
2. Classic vs Conversational Popup
The market for sunglasses is highly oversaturated. And for brands like Christopher Cloos, in competitive markets, it’s hard to become profitable.
After deep diving, the brand found the customer segment made up of new homepage visitors needed some attention.
Noting that new customers often feel overwhelmed the first time they visit a website, the team addressed their messaging.
By switching from a classic welcome popup, they created a conversational one, offering users the same deal, while inquiring about what products they may be in search of.
After a month of testing, the conversational popup converted at a 15.38% higher rate!
3. Addition of a Countdown Timer
Although Obvi saw pretty immediate success upon the launch of their product – a supplement line launched in 2019 – they saw an opportunity to turn more visitors into loyal customers.
After diving into their analytics and taking a closer look at customer behavior, the team noticed many customers adding items to their cart, but then exiting without purchasing.
So what did they do?
They offered a unique cart abandonment popup with:
- A 10% off coupon
- An automatically generated coupon code as opposed to a fixed code
- A timer to create a sense of urgency and fear of missing out (FOMO)
- An auto-redeem feature to automatically apply the coupon at checkout
At the end of the A/B test, the popup generated a 25.17% conversion rate.
4. Including An Incentive
NuFACE is an anti-aging skin company that was seeking to enhance its online presence and ultimately boost sales. Although many of their potential customers expressed interest in their products, they weren’t taking the final step and completing their purchase.
They came up with the best A/B test for their business, offering a free shipping incentive to all orders exceeding $75.
This incentive ended up increasing orders by 90% and the average order value by 7.32%.
Offering potential customers an incentive to buy increases the likelihood of them buying now.
It’s estimated that the average ecommerce store loses more than 75% of its sales because of cart abandonment.
5. Color Variations
Workzone is a portal that provides entrepreneurs with team management solutions. Users can see which projects are on track, who’s responsible, and access all related materials in one place.
The company noticed a decrease in the number of demos for their solution and decided to run an a/b test to try to increase leads.
Their hypothesis was that the colorful logos that were next to contact forms we’re pulling the readers attention away from the intended action – to get them to sign up.
The team created two variants, one with colored logos and the second with black and white logos.
The results the team saw were clear – their hypothesis was correct. The black and white variant achieved 34% more conversions than the original on the website.
6. New Dynamic Booking Screens
Hospitality.net was experiencing some issues with their mobile booking. Rather than revamp the whole thing for everyone, they decided to perform an A/B test.
In this test, some users were directed to a simple screen on their mobile device, while others experienced a more dynamic and interactive screen.
- The simplified booking screen had a limited number of dates on the screen and only showed promotions and offers when guests selected dates that met the specific criteria.
- The dynamic model displayed way more dates and the best daily rate per day, while the promotions and offers were shown on a different page, regardless of whether the booked dates met the criteria.
The company noted that, over 34 days, the dynamic experience improved their conversion rate by 33%.
7. Replacing Old Homepage Elements
Groove is a Salesforce object agnostic that brings sales leaders and their team together to execute strategies in a smart, adaptive way.
To try to increase conversions, the team rewrote the homepage copy, added real-life video testimonials, and included several new CTAs throughout the page.
Some findings of the test:
- Audience resonated with real-life videos more than stock images
- Liked new web copy more
- Increased CTAs offered more options to convert
8. Personalized Ad Copy
Sony, the tech-giant wanted to increase their ad conversions, so naturally they ran a test. In this A/B testing example, they started with banner ads.
The original banner ad a generic promotional ad, which was compared to another ad that was simplier, but had personalized copy.
The version with personalized copy resulted in a 6% increase in click conversions and a 21.3% increase to “add-to-cart” clicks.
9. Email Subject Lines
MailerLite, the email marketing company, decided to play with their subject lines. They ran quite a few A/B tests to see what their customers reacted best to.
One element they were curious about were emojis. As a B2B company, emojis don’t always fit the company voice, but over the years they’ve grown increasingly popular.
After running an A/B test, the team noted that the version with emojis had a higher open rate, concluding that B2B brands can see success with emojis.
10. Switching Button Colors
When you see the color green what do think of? What about the color red?
We often associate green with the idea of “go” or with terms like nature and environment. Red is eye-catching and used to communicate excitement, blood, and warning.
Knowing this, marketing automation company, Performable, decided to experiment with the button color on their website.
The switch from green to red resulted in an impressive 21% increase in conversions.
Top A/B Testing Tools and Resources
Not everyone who runs a company has a computer engineering or programming background, but the good news is you don’t need either to conduct an A/B test.
Here are a few tools and resources to help you get started:
Google Analytics
From redirect tests to server-side experiments, Google Analytics offers plenty of data collecting and A/B testing solutions for free.
Optimizely
Optimizely is a leading conversion rate optimization platform, offering a comprehensive suite of tools, ranging from multi-page testing, advanced targeting and segmentation, and a visual editor that makes it easy to build variations code-free.
VWO
While similar to Optimizely, VWO is far more budget-friendly. Another feature that VWO brings to the table is behavioral segmentation, which enables users to target audiences in a way that many of the expensive tools do not.
Convert
Convert, another A/B testing tool offers full stack experimentation. With server side implementation, you won’t need to worry about third-party data issues either, making them GDPR compliant.
Dynamic Yield
Dynamic Yield has a “What You See Is What You Get” page editor, so you don’t need to know how to code to build experiments. And don’t worry about page latency either – advanced implementation techniques will reduce flickering and improve the customer experience.
Frequently Asked Questions About A/B Testing
1. What is A/B testing?
A/B testing is the process of comparing multiple versions of one marketing asset to see which one resonates more with your audience.
2. Why is A/B testing important?
A/B testing is important because it can give you insights into your audiences’ likes and dislikes that other types of market research cannot. This information can lead to improved user experience, higher conversion rates, lower bounce rates, reduced marketing risks, increased revenue, actionable results, and a higher return on investment.
3. What types of marketing materials or assets can be tested?
An A/B test can be run on any type of marketing material, such as websites, email marketing, social media, paid ads, and more.
4. What can be changed on the variable asset of an A/B test?
Almost anything can be changed on a variable asset of an A/B test! Feel free to adjust anything, including copy, banners, images, graphics, buttons, button locations, colors, and more. You never know what little change will inspire your audience to convert!
Get Started A/B Testing With Ignite Visibility
In today’s world of digital marketing, you can never have too much data on your preferred audience. Whether you need help running A/B testing on your website, email marketing, or paid media, Ignite Visibility has you covered!
Our team of conversion rate optimization experts can help you run A/B testing on:
- Your website’s copy
- Your email marketing’s subject lines
- Your paid media’s CTA button placement
- Your social media’s graphics
- And more!
Are you ready to find out what your audience really wants? Reach out and let’s discuss!
