Hello, I’m Justin Fraction for TechnologyAdvice.
Did you ever have the feelin’ that you wanted to A?
But still, you had the feelin’ that you wanted to B?
Start to A, change to B? Start to A again but change back to B again?
AB testing (also known as split testing) is simply the concept of creating two versions
of the same thing and then asking a group of people which works best for them.
And sometimes you don’t ask them as much as you bother to collect data on it and review it.
You’d use some kind of a CRM (customer relationship
management) software package for that.
When, A/B testing, you may be testing different versions of an email, a website,
a headline, or a thumbnail in this case. The differences might be minor or broad.
They could involve lettering or coloring. Or even positioning of a title. It varies.
When people think of A/B testing they’re usually focusing on something involving
business-to-business marketing but this works for any kind of testing at all.
Let’s dive into it. Here’s how to run an A/B test.
One. Create two variants of the same thing. For instance, it might be two
versions of a call to action. Two. Launch each of these
two things at the same time. Three. Track conversion data for each
variant and see which ones perform the best. If there is a hard part, that part is just
figuring out how to test various things. Testing thumbnails is easier
than testing a website. Testing the position of something on
a website like the position button is probably more difficult than testing a color change.
I mean you have to have the person click on the button to gather data in the first place.
Next up: “How to Structure Your Test” There are two kinds of A/B testing.
One-Factor and multivariate. One-Factor tests only test one factor or
one thing about whatever it is you’re testing. For instance, you might be testing the headline
or body of a sales page. Maybe you’ll be using different types of images on the page. Maybe
even different object positions. Multivariate tests, on the other hand,
look at multiple things at once. So you wouldn’t just be looking at the wording
of a CTA (call to action). Maybe you’d be looking at the entire design of the site.
Multivariate tests require more data and analysis but they produce better results.
If you’re going to do a multivariate test, you may start with a one-factor
test first to narrow things down. You should also consider the different
factors when deciding on an A/B test structure including:
The length of time it takes to run each version of a landing page, call to action, etc.
How many potential customers you are reaching with each version of a sales page?
How much revenue will each version create? Like most experiments you had to do in school,
you should go into A/B testing with a hypothesis and a goal.
That will help you execute the tests clearly by tailoring the test to focus on that hypothesis.
Let’s talk a little bit about Growth Hacking. Growth hacking, which is also called Growth
Marketing, focuses on generating growth for you and your company.
When Growth Hacking, you’d use A/B testing to optimize your messaging so you can better
tailor your offerings to your audience. So maybe based on what you’ve come across
from your one-factor or multivariate testing you’d generate content like a blog post,
e-book, or guide that teaches your audience something new.
We do that here which you can check out in the comments section.
You can even build out an email drip campaign that
sends users updates about your product or service.
So if you’re running an email campaign you may want to test different subject lines
for each email. Then you’d use your CRM program of choice to check open rates.
That kind of A/B testing gives growth marketers insight into what works best
when trying out new strategies. Running an A/B test is one of the
most important things you can do when operating your business.
Instead of guessing what may be working for your audience, A/B testing will allow you to generate
hard data to allow you to make great choices for your content direction moving forward.
If you’d like more information on CRM (customer relationship management) systems, newsletters or
A/B testing then feel free to subscribe to our channel, check out this playlist, or visit our
website at technologyadvice.com. See you next Friday.