How do you know that a piece of your marketing campaign is
performing at its best?
The truth is that until you start testing various elements of your marketing
campaigns – from ads to landing pages to email subject lines – you’ll never
know what resonates with your audience the most.
A well-planned and executed A/B testing can take your marketing pieces and make
them exponentially more profitable.
Read on to learn more…
Planning an A/B Test
Before you start testing, it’s important to choose an area
to focus on. Taking A/B testing slowly will ensure you’re not changing too many
variables at once, eliminating any way of telling what is working and what
isn’t.
You can test virtually anything in your marketing materials: headlines, calls
to action, body copy, images, etc. If you can change it, you can test it. Though
it’s best to focus on the things that are most likely to have a big impact.
On your website, this likely includes:
- Graphics
Used for Sales Efforts
For ads, this could include:
These are only two examples of marketing materials that can be A/B tested.
Remember that almost anything can be
tested and improved upon.
Even Small Changes Can Have Big Effects
One example for an A/B test on a text ad comes from Brad Shorr, Director of
Content and Social for Straight North. He was testing PPC text ads and found
out how even small changes can have huge effects.
Here was his A/B test:
A. Get $10 off the first purchase. Book online now!
B. Get an additional $10 off. Book online now.
The CTR doubled with option B. This outcome
was shocking, even to him.
This example goes to show that until you test, it’s hard to know for sure what
will work with your audience. A/B testing results can vary even within the same
industry.
Here’s another example of A/B testing for call to action
(CTA) buttons, this one from Francis Shovlin, from SEER Interactive:
They wanted to test the effectiveness of their CTA. They split the traffic to
two different button designs.
After running the test for just over seven weeks, they were
able to increase their form conversion rate by 11%. That was the only thing
that changed on the page and it made a significant difference in their
conversion rate.
How to Start A/B
Testing
In this article, we only touched on a few of the ways you
can utilize A/B testing for your marketing materials. If you are interested in
learning more about how A/B testing could be beneficial in growing your
business, give us a call at (407) 682-2222 or use the contact form below.