If you want to increase your earnings you have two options:
-Increase your traffic -Increase your conversation rate
Increasing your traffic may not always be possible so it is important to optimize your campaign for maximum return on investment. This is what A/B testing is all about.
A/B testing is a model that consists of dividing your audience into two sections, with on section acting as the control group and the other acting as a variable. You then test to see which section performs better.
Very simple, but it can get confusing when you’re just starting out and don’t want to spend a fortune on email tracking software. If that sounds like you, this guide will take you step by step through the process of creating and performing your very own A/B test.
1. Choose what content you will test and set the control and variable
Color, copy, layout etc. These are all examples of elements that you could potentially test in your emails. You’ll be hard pressed to run out of things to test, but if you ever do you can be sure that your ROI will be through the roof.
The main thing to bear in mind when choosing what element of content you would like to test is to only ever test one element at a time. For instance, if you decide to test the main header text of your page, you should not test the font color at the same time. Rather, you would test each element separately, one at a time. The control will be Version A, or the regular version of whatever element you are testing. So if you are testing the header text, the control element would be the version containing the original text, with no modifications. The variable will be version B, or the version with the new header text, the new element that you wish to test.
2. Create your test
Once you have identified what content you will be testing, and have a control and a variable, it is time to actually put together your test. First things first, its time to design or put together the elements that you would like to test. For instant, if you are planning on testing some new title text, it’s time to draft the new text that you will be using.
3. Promote your test
If you are testing an email, now is the time to blast your email out to your subscribers. Remember to have your tracking software ready beforehand, to monitor and tabulate your test results.
Again, the general idea is to send half of your emails as a control, containing only the original content, whilst sending the other half containing the variable you would like to test. By monitoring how each half performs you’ll be able to determine which email was more effective.
4. Determine your next course of action
Once your test is complete, and you have your results, it is time to determine what those results mean, and how to implement them into your overall strategy. For instance, if you find that a new title text increases your CTA by 25%, it would be wise to bin the old text and replace it with the higher performing one. It is important to remember that no matter how well your campaign is performing, there is always room for improvement. Unless you are getting 100% CTA and 100% buy rate, there will always be more tests to perform!