Every business wants to make sure that its marketing efforts produce sufficient results. No matter you are advertising on digital media or through traditional means, your goal must be to find the most effective ways to interact with your potential customers. A/B testing is one such tool that helps you analyze the effectiveness of two or more than two marketing methods. This testing, if done regularly, can help you improve the results of your marketing strategies and consequently increase conversions and profits.
A/B testing gives you an accurate comparison between two different marketing approaches. This allows you to make data-driven decisions about things like website design, landing page layout, interface, etc.
A/B testing is not effective in all cases. There are some rules that you need to follow before getting into the testing phase. Let’s take a quick look at these rules so that you do not waste your time and resources.
You can follow these testing rules to save time:
- If the sample size is too small, you will not be able to extract any useful information from the testing. So, always make sure the sample size is according to the recommended amount.
- If you do not have enough budget to thoroughly conduct the testing, it is better to not do it at all. Since with fewer resources you will not be able to accurately collect, arrange, and interpret the data.
- Make sure all the stakeholders are aligned on things like KPIs and success standards of the A/B testing.
- You cannot get reliable test results without accurately monitoring and measuring the data. So, make sure you take care of this important aspect while performing A/B testing.
It is not easy to find the optimal mix of designs and styles for things like landing pages, banner ads, posters, etc. You need to find something that resonates better with the customers and encourages more sales.
This means you will have to understand the recent trends and personal preferences of your audience. A/B testing allows you to figure out the best designs that you can easily scale, test, and iterate.
This way, you get to make the most of your marketing efforts with the help of well-organized and accurate data. A/B testing is therefore an effective tool, and you need to learn as much about it as possible so that you too can employ it to your advantage.
What is A/B testing?
A/B testing also referred to as split testing is an effective tool that helps you compare the performance of two versions of the same digital marketing asset. This helps you figure out which version delivers better results using cold, hard data.
You can learn things like which landing page delivers more traffic, increases sales, etc. which types of ads people are more drawn to, and much more with the help of A/B testing.
Why is A/B testing in designs important?
While designing things like your landing pages, websites, and social media ads, you need to make sure you use the most effective ones. To find the most profitable and useful designs, you need to test different designs and gather accurate data before launching these to the world.
A/B testing can help you accomplish this important task. You take the suggested designs and measure their performance for two different groups. The design that generates more conversions and website traffic and has less bounce rate is the one that you can go with for better results.
Here are the three main reasons why we believe testing variations of the designs is so impart
- A/B testing gives you the most accurate results that you can share with the designers so that they can make the necessary changes to improve the user experience.
- The testing gives you accurate data that is extracted from user behavior and preferences. This data gives rise to new and more creative ideas that you can use to further hypothesize, test, launch, and iterate the ad or website designs.
- It is an important tactic that involves the designers and gives them the right feedback so that they can make the necessary modifications to the design.
A/B testing allows designers to figure out the strengths and shortcomings of certain designs. This makes them more creative and strategic. They become more than just task-takers and that allows them to channel all of their creativity the right way.
Main Benefits of A/B Testing
Here are some of the major benefits of A/B testing that make it worth your time
1. Produces Better Content Engagement
Not every type of content is great for marketing. Content must be relevant, informative, and interesting for it to be of any effect. A/B testing allows you to analyze different types of content and get useful data.
You can test different variants of the content and see how much engagement takes place for each variant. After that, you can post content that more people find interesting. This way you can make sure the efforts that went into content creation do not go to waste and deliver the desired results.
2. Boost Conversion Rates
Every business that is using digital advertisement means wants to improve the clickthrough rate, decrease the bounce rate, and boost conversions. All of these things are made possible if you employ A/B testing before using a certain strategy for marketing.
By testing different designs, you can easily determine the ones that will give you more sales and profits. This way by improving conversions, A/B testing allows your business to grow much faster.
3. Convenient Analysis
A/B testing takes you out of the guessing game and allows you to make the most educated decisions about which designs to choose. You get real, accurate, and factual results from this testing which gives you the confidence to make the right changes in design.
A/B testing allows you to compare many metrics like time spent, conversion rate, clickthrough rate, bounce rate, etc. All these metrics allow you to find designs that work best for your business in terms of profits.
4. Minimizes Risks
A/B testing can help you save time and resources by minimizing risks. You can accurately examine the performance of your designs before you go ahead and launch these.
If you do this without testing, the design might not work and all your money, time, and effort can go to waste. This is why, to minimize the risks and thus, guarantee the success of your marketing approach, A/B testing is strongly recommended.
How Can You A/B Test Designs at Scale?
1. Streamline Internal Processes
This involves improving the communication between the testing team and the designers. Make sure the designing team gets access to all the latest test results.
Keeping the designers involved will allow you to make quick changes in your designs. They can more quickly and creatively find solutions if they are involved in the testing phase.
Pros
- The designers stay committed to developing the iterations
- It allows you to align the success standards and goals
- It helps you better evaluate and allocate your cash flow which leads to improved return on ads spend or ROAS.
Cons
- You need a lot of human power, money, and other resources for A/B testing
- It can distract the designers from other higher-priority tasks
2. Review External Sources
If you do not possess the resources to produce creative tests and iterations for your designs at scale, you can use the services of outside freelancers and agencies as well. Taking help from external sources saves time and ensures the most accurate test results.
Pros
- You get an opportunity to work with expert, talented, and creative designers without having to pay them as you do to a regular employee.
- It gives you a cost-effective way to improve user experience and sales
- You get a very fast delivery time and quick output
- Hiring external sources is easy and more reliable
Cons
- Not every external source is adept in all designing types and marketing approaches. These limited capabilities often create the need for hiring more than one party to do the designs and other tasks which increases costs.
3. Using the Right Combination of Tools
You need to invest in tools that make A/B testing easier, faster, and more accurate. There are a number of such tools available, and you can go with the ones that have more positive reviews to minimize risks.
Here are some useful tools that you can check out
- Google Optimize
This A/B testing tool is very effective for website optimization and increasing conversion rates. It is simple to use and the data it produces contains minimum errors.
- Trello
This free design management tool allows you to come up with the best designs by helping you analyze different designs. All the stakeholders can easily comment on designs and stay posted about things like feedback, filesharing, and much more using this tool.
Best Practices For A/B Testing Designs
Here are some of the most effective practices for conducting efficient and reliable A/B testing
1. Clearly Define the Metrics You Want to Test
You need to define what variables you will be testing. You can either test one variable at a time or more than one if possible. Consider different KPIs and variables like conversion rate, graphics, layout, bounce rate, etc.
By clearly knowing your variables, you can easily analyze the results and come up with the necessary changes. This saves your time and makes sure the A/B testing results are used in a much better way.
2. Create Better Hypothesis
A strong hypothesis is always user-centered, and it keeps you focused on all the relevant metrics. By creating a better hypothesis, you will be able to quickly interpret the results.
Let’s say you hypothesize that you can increase conversions by tweaking your landing page layout in some way. Now according to this hypothesis, the landing page that delivers increased conversions is more effective.
If you compare your new landing page to the old one using A/B testing, you will soon figure out whether the layout of the page has anything to do with conversion rate or not.
3. Failed Tests are Also Valuable
While doing an A/B test, sometimes you notice that the results are not according to your expectation. In such cases, both versions can generate similar results.
You can run the test for a long time to make sure the test succeeds. If a test still fails and your hypothesis is proved wrong, that just means you need to make your next design iteration better in some way.
4. Take Your Time with A/B Testing
You need to make sure the A/B test goes on for a sufficient amount of time. To get strong and concrete results, you need to make sure the testing time, number of participants, and design iterations are all-sufficient.
If you take fewer participants or conduct the test for a short amount of time, you will not get reliable data to make the necessary changes in design.
5. Conduct Regular A/B testing
A/B testing ensures that you get the most up-to-date data on your designs. Consistent iterations and optimization are the only ways you can ensure better design performance and greater conversion rates.
You need to make sure the approach you use in your designs is according to recent trends and customer preferences. A/B testing helps you acquire this knowledge using the most sophisticated methods and tools.
Final Thoughts
So, now you know what A/B testing is and how you can use it to make sure your designs perform well. You can go with in-house testing teams and designers, or you can hire someone from the outside to do this job for you.
No matter which way you go just make sure that you make it a regular part of your marketing and designing strategy. We really hope you find this information of some help and we wish you all the best in using A/B testing effectively in your marketing efforts.