Most Important Things You Need to Know About A/B Testing

ab testing

A/B testing is also known as split testing, and today we will talk about this technique. A/B testing is used to study how small differences in a marketing campaign might affect customer behavior. You can grow your business and maximize your success by the precise use of this technique. However, right now it is less frequently used than other marketing campaign tools, but in the past, a tech giant Google has used A/B testing to determine the ideal number of search results to show on its listings pages. By keeping it simple, we will discuss in detail about every aspect of A/B testing.

 

What is A/B testing?

A/B testing is the way of looking at least two variants of a similar website page to figure out which one performs better. There should be a minimum of two pages, but the analysis can be achieved with as many numbers of pages as wanted.

Let us suppose that you have built a landing page of a website and we need to test its performance concerning conversion, but for conducting this performance test, we need to prepare two different variants of the same landing page. Refer one landing page as A, and the other landing page is B. While running A/B testing with 2-page variants, you can either split the traffic by 50/50 or 60/40. In our case, we will show version A to 50% of the visitor’s and version B to the rest of the 50% visitors.

A/B Test

Upon completion of the test, a winner will be the one who has yielded the highest conversion rate. By testing with live visitors on your website, you can learn desired experience from real users.

 

Planning of A/B test

When you are planning to conduct an A/B test, you need to consider every aspect of your business by defining the scope of your marketing campaigns. In this technique, you can test every part of your website that is related to the behavior of visitors and conversion possibilities.

Before conducting the test, it is essential to create a list of all the variables you will test. The contents of a webpage include many things like testimonials, awards and badges, call to actions and social media links. Whichever variables you have selected for testing on your website, you can create variants of the pages by changing the location, text, or color of contents of the page. Most users’ struggles with their first test because they do not know the tools and methods used to conduct the test.

A/B Test

Ensure that before you begin testing, you have a particular thought of the outcomes you are searching for in the test. You should know the pattern of results you will be getting. Test choice A and B against each other to find the better one. You can utilize A as your control and afterward use something new for B.

 

Benefits of A/B testing

Precise A/B tests can remarkably improve the results and offer positive outcomes. By using meticulous tests and gathering realistic data, you can comprehend precisely which marketing strategies will work best for your company and your website. Now let us have a look at benefits of A/B testing as follows:

 

1. Improved conversion rates

A/B testing is the least demanding and most promising way to increase conversions for your website. By comparing two different versions of your website page, it is aesthetically simple to finalize the better one. You can inspire your visitors to stay for a longer duration and even come back later by creating an attractive and user-friendly layout with the help of this technique.

A/B Test

 

2. Lesser bounce rates

The major problem experienced by website owners is the increased bounce rate of visitors when they do not spend much time on your website. Notably, it can be more discouraging when you have spent many resources in creating your website. To get out of this pathetic situation, you need to optimize your website by using this simple A/B testing technique. You need to keep experimenting by creating different variations of a page until you get the most attractive one. Your ultimate goal is to retain your visitors for a long time by using different tactics.

 

3. Simple & speedy analysis

A/B testing provides easy and fast analysis. It has adapted to perform statistical analysis for users of all levels. Now, there are many advanced tools available in the market to measure the performance of your website pages by testing with many variables simultaneously. Data collection is possible in real time. Therefore, you can quickly analyze it and make reasonable adjustments right away.

A/B Test

 

4. Lesser risks

It is the topmost priority of everyone to minimize the risks involved in the business. A/B testing gives more control over the possible risks involved in making meaningful choices like evaluation and methodology. Getting aware of the visitor’s interests and responses before settling on choices, improves the chances of progress. A/B testing enables organizations to focus on the proper and smarter utilization of available resources for more significant outcomes.

 

5. Valued content

It is one of the prominent business rules that when you provide valuable content to your customers, it increases the worth of your brand in the minds of customers. The procedure of A/B testing prompts better site content since you are always talking about which content is significant and why. As you produce the factors to be tried, you make a rundown of potential substance changes. This constant improvement process leads your website to perfection.

A/B Test

What can you test?

You can test many parts of your landing page. Here are some ideas:

  • Headline: Try out different headlines to see what appeals your visitors most. Is it just a testimonial of one of your customers? Or a question?
  • CTA text: Test the label on your CTA (Call-To-Action). What do your website visitors like most? “Download your free guide now!” or “Learn how to cook”?
  • A number of form fields: I understand! It would be good for your email series if you have the first name of your lead to personalize your emails. But what if this additional field will lower your conversion rate? Test it!

There are plenty of excellent resources out there. For instance, check out this ultimate guide from SmashingMagazine.

And HubSpot has a great Academy that offers you these great guidelines for A/B Testing.

Or have a look at these surprising results of their A/B tests.

 

Add customer testimonials with ratings!

Finally, I suggest trying out something new: what about testing your landing page with the help of social proof? Wouldn’t it be great if your website visitors can see how many people have already taken your course, or downloaded your free guide and got amazing results? Will this information boost the conversion rate of your landing page?

Testimonial widget type 1

You can test Trust, the testimonial and rating platform, 14 days for free. Enhance the variant A by text reviews or video testimonials with star ratings and compare the results to your variant B running without showing customer feedback. We’d like to hear about your results!

 

Conclusion

Finally, A/B testing for sites gives you a chance to see which adaptations of elements make your intended audience to behave in a certain way. It is definite that you want every visitor to become a regular audience of your website. You can run through a variety of layouts to achieve the desired results. Rather than attempting to anticipate what guests may need or do, you must test your speculations.

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