AB testing

AB testing-

-       Create if you can afford to do this

-       Can be time consuming

-       And expensive

AB testing is essentially an experiment where two or more variants of a page are shown to users at random, and statistical analysis is used to determine which variation performs better for a given conversion goal.

AB testing has lots of benefits fro a marketing team, depending on what it is you decide to test. However, they are most valuable to a business because they’re low cost but high in reward. 

There are many types of split tests you can run to make the experiment worth it in the end. Here are some common goals marketers have for their business when A/B testing:

-       Increased Website Traffic: Testing different blog post or webpage titles can change the number of people who click on that hyperlinked title to get to your website. This can increase website traffic as a result.

-       Higher Conversion Rate: Testing different locations, colors, or even anchor text on your CTAs can change the number of people who click these CTAs to get to a landing page. This can increase the number of people who fill out forms on your website, submit their contact info to you, and "convert" into a lead.

-       Lower Bounce Rate: If your website visitors leave (or "bounce") quickly after visiting your website, testing different blog post introductions, fonts, or feature images can reduce this bounce rate and retain more visitors.

-       Lower Cart Abandonment: Ecommerce businesses see 40% – 75% of customers leave their website with items in their shopping cart, according to Mighty Call. This is known as "shopping cart abandonment." Testing different product photos, check-out page designs, and even where shipping costs are displayed can lower this abandonment rate.

How to run an AB test:

-       Before beginning, pick one variable to test. To be able to evaluate how effective a change is, you’ll want to isolate one ‘Independent variable’ and measure its performance, otherwise, you can’t be sure which one is responsible for changes in performance. 

-       Identify your goal. 

-       Create a ‘control’ and a ‘challenger’. You now have your independent variable, your dependent variable, and your desired outcome. Use this information to set up the unaltered version of whatever you're testing as your "control." If you're testing a web page, this is the unaltered web page as it exists already. If you're testing a landing page, this would be the landing page design and copy you would normally use. From there, build a variation, or a "challenger" -- the website, landing page, or email you’ll test against your control. For example, if you're wondering whether including a testimonial on a landing page would make a difference, set up your control page with no testimonials. Then, create your variation with a testimonial.

-       Split your sample groups equally and randomly.

-       Determine your sample size

-       Decide how significant your results need to be

-       Make sure you’re only running one teat at a time on any campaign

-       During the AB test, Use an AB testing tool- such as HubSpot, Google Analytics, etc.

-       Test both variations simultaneously

-       Give the AB test enough time to produce useful data

-       Ask for feedback from real users

-       After the test, Focus on your goal metric

-       Measure the significance of your results using our AB testing calculator

-       Take action based on your results

-       Plan your next AB test