Now that you have taken steps to start your inbound marketing yourself, what’s next? Optimizing your marketing efforts to ensure that you are delivering the right message to the right people at the right time with a little something marketers like to call A/B testing. In this article, I will explain the basics of A/B testing and give you a couple of expert tips to get you started.
What is A/B Testing? And why is it important?
Sometimes referred to as ‘split testing’ — A/B testing is essentially an experiment that collects the data between a controlled variable (A) and a variation of that variable (B) that a marketer can then use to make data-driven decisions to positively impact a business’s bottom line.
If you’re thinking to yourself — what does that mean??? Let’s break it down. In its simplest form — you test one thing against another to see which gives you better results. That’s the benefit of A/B testing — better ROI, better engagement, better optimization, better content, and better results. Essentially, A/B testing allows marketers to know definitively which version of whatever is being tested resonates better with their target audience without having to guess.
What can be A/B Tested?
In short, everything, the possibilities are endless. I like to recommend that you start with the areas of your business that have a heavy influence on your target audience. This could be email nurtures, forms, or landing pages — every business is different, so pick the areas most important to your business. Let’s look at a few examples of areas of focus.
Headlines
David Ogilvy, an Advertising Great, once said, “Five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy.” While the numbers may look different today, headlines are still very important when it comes to creating engaging and compelling content. Try using numbers or language that appeals to different buyer personas.
Subject lines
When it comes to emails specifically, there are a lot of factors that can affect your open rate — subject lines are arguably the most important of those factors. Nowadays, the subject also determines which section of an inbox your email will be delivered to, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be in the spam folder. Try personalization and emojis — if you dare.
Design & layout
Design is subjective and maybe the hardest thing to agree on in a corporate setting. Take the discussion and decision-making out of the hands of your team and instead give it to the consumers you’re trying to reach. Base your layout and design on function, and always remember everything important belongs above the fold.
CTA buttons
A/B testing CTA buttons may be the fastest way to increase your conversion rate. Try contrasting colors with bold fonts, try using different language, and play with the placement of your CTA buttons. Anything you can do to make it stand out more will likely increase your click-through rates.
Paid advertising
Typically A/B testing is built into many advertising platforms already — Google will ask you for several variations of the headline and description text, as will Meta and HubSpot. All you have to do here is make sure you are offering enough variation and keep a close eye on the data.
Armed with this new analytics tool, I bet you already have ideas on everything you want to A/B test, but here are a few tips to help you along the way.
Pro Tip 1: Test one element at a time
The most important tip I can give you — only test one element at a time. The biggest problem some of our client organizations have with A/B testing is that they test too many elements at once, and then it becomes impossible to tell which element made the biggest difference.
Think about it. If you set out to build the world’s best burger with a basic hamburger as your controlled variable — you add cheese, you opt for Waygu beef, add the best bacon and make all the condiments from scratch — which change had the biggest impact on customers' purchases? You could guess, but with so many changes at once, it's hard to say which changes should stay and which changes go. This is the same concept when it comes to marketing.
Pro Tip 2: Listen to the data
And I do mean ALL the data. If you just take a look at the data collected on the surface, you may miss vital information about what it is your customers actually want. Separate the data by audience segments, customer journey touchpoints, and basic demographics — the more information you have, the more clear your bigger picture becomes.
For more in-depth information on A/B testing and a free A/B testing kit, check out HubSpots Guide on how to do A/B Testing.
