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A/B Testing offers an answer to the question all email marketers have asked.
“Why aren’t my campaigns achieving the things I want them to achieve?”
Sigh.
If only there was a way to make sure that my marketing campaign was the best version of itself”.
Plot twist: there is!
It’s called A/B Testing.
Sometimes referred to as Split Testing, it can help you understand your audience, improve email open rates, and follow email marketing best practices that suit your business.
Generally, A/B Testing means running two slightly different versions of the same campaign, side-by-side. This could be two different versions of your landing page. It could be two versions of an advert – one skippable version and one unskippable.
Whatever it is, the closeness of the two, mirrored versions allows you to compare results to see which version works better.
A/B testing for emails is a process of reflective audience segmentation. To test your email campaigns, send different versions of an email to different segments of your mailing list.
Optimal email campaigns have high click-through and impressive conversion rates. When you A/B Test, focus on finding out which version of your campaign yields these results; that’s going to tell you lots about what your audience wants to see.
You should also keep an eye on how many customers opt-in vs how many customers opt-out as a result of each email. Opt-outs might be annoying, but they’re also a very helpful reflection of what isn’t working. Another reflection is if your emails end up in spam all the time.
You have to look at the negative as well as the positive to optimise those emails, because, let’s face it: we’ve all got opinions about how email marketing should be done.
We all receive frequent promotional emails. As customers, we know, without even thinking about it, what annoys us and what inspires us.
But it can be hard to understand that when you’re on the other side of a campaign. A hard and fast rule is that email marketing is strongest when emails reflect the recipients’ specific interests.
Think about the promo emails you receive on a daily basis. There are lots, right?
Which ones stand out to you?
We expect that it’s the ones that seem relevant. Those emails which demonstrate that the company has done their research and used it to tailor their messaging.
No one wants to receive random promotional emails. They might, however, be more tempted by an email that reaches out to them by name and uses the features that make them tick.
A/B Testing can help your email marketing by supporting the ways in which you understand your audience.
This awareness of their actions, needs, and desires helps you optimise your campaigns to efficiently target them. This improves engagement. A responsive audience is crucial to a business’ success.
Once you know where you stand, you’ll notice that you spend more efficiently and can focus your budget and time on ads that are more likely to work.
You’ll also avoid unsubscribers and opt-outs, improving your email deliverability overall.
Lastly, your customer relationships will go from strength-to-strength. In the same way that, if you make an effort to understand what your friends like, they’re more likely to stick around, a good A/B test can support long term customer retention.
Across the emails you send in an A/B Test, you should include variables such as:
The subject line is, in many ways, the most important bit of an email.
Miss the mark, and your open rates will decrease. Incite curiosity, and you’re onto a winner.
But it all depends on your audience. Are those guys more likely to open an email with a short, witty subject line? Maybe they prefer something more serious, like a brief Call-to-Action.
Do they like personalisation? What difference does that make if you write their name in the subject line?
These questions can all be answered by an effective A/B Test.
Most of your marketing emails should include a Call-To-Action.
But the shape that this Call-to-Action takes is up to your viewers. Optimisation happens when the Call-to-Action is as simple to answer as possible.
So, what do your people prefer? A big colourful button might catch the eye. Or maybe they’re more of a ‘follow-the-link’ crowd.
Once you know the answer to that question, you can edit your campaigns to be the best they can be.
This refers to the portion of an email you see from your inbox – the opening lines that help you decide whether to read on.
For this one, you might try popping in a rhetorical question to spark curiosity. Or you might dive straight in with the important information.
See what works best. Remember, no two audiences have exactly the same preferences.
How do you write your emails? Are you a chatty type? Or do you represent Business Casual, in word form?
Both options are viable for email marketing. But you might wish to consider what matches your brand’s tone of voice and whether people respond well to this.
If you add in a few jokes and some text speak, do your customers respond better? Or are they a serious crowd? Is brevity key? If so HOW brief should you be?
What is it that makes your customers take action?
Try a direct Call-to-Action: ‘Check out X today!’
Also try things like, ‘We’ve got X in store’, which is less direct and instructional, but still draws attention to the item you want to advertise.
Why not use this as an opportunity to give your emails a makeover?
Some customers love to read and aren’t put off by a long scrolling session. Others want quick, eye-catching graphics.
It all depends on your tone as a brand. A/B Tests will help you to determine this.
Other things you might consider include photographs and images. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a good old stock photo, but people connect better with a photo you’ve taken yourself. There’s something about the realness of it that just ticks for the human mind.
Also think about where you’re putting images, links, and graphics. Certain positions increase cohesiveness, which can make reading (and conversion) easier.
This refers to whether your audience responds better to a person’s name (e.g. Rob X, Founder) or the brand’s name .
Referring to a person’s name can make your business feel more approachable. It creates a personal connection between customer and brand. It can even make your brand seem more trustworthy.
Then again, lots of customers also like to see exactly which company the email is from.
How often do you send emails?
You don’t want to bombard customers—that just increases opt-out rates. Similarly, you don’t want to undersell your business.
It’s a fine line. But A/B Testing helps you to understand where that line is.
It’s helpful to keep a close eye on these aspects, with your business in mind.
All audiences respond to them differently.
It might be easier for them to click a Call-to-Action button than it is to use a hyperlink.
They might be more intrigued by certain turns of phrase in your subject line than they are by others.
Knowing this can only make you stronger!
Whatever your variable is, make sure you’re looking for:
What do you want to find out? You should phrase this as a prediction. For example:
“I hypothesise that a shorter subject line will lead to more conversions”
Or,
“A Call-to-Action embedded into an image will improve my click-through rates”.
Based on your goal, think about what you should change across the emails you send. Use the list above to help you.
It should be simple, measurable, and noticeable for maximum effects.
Got your variable in mind? Great. Keep those front and centre as you think about crafting your emails.
It’s best not to run too many versions at once, and make sure you keep note of what the different varieties are, ready for you to take notes later.
Segmentation is an important part of your A/B Test.
Usually, you segment audiences based on demographics.
But for A/B Testing, it’s best to randomly divide your mailing list into two or more equal-sized groups.
Select one segment of your mailing list to receive Version A of your campaign. The other segment(s) will receive Version B, and so on.
This stage can be a bit overwhelming for new marketers.
Helpfully, most marketing tools make it fairly simple, offering metrics that break it all down for you.
Take it slow, and make sure that you’re focusing on the goal you set out right at the start.
A/B Testing is a valuable tool for seeing what your audience responds well to.
A good example of this is a test run by Zap for one of our clients.
Worried about the length of their copy, combined with a 30-second video, we decided to streamline their storytelling through A/B Testing variations of their copy.
This included shortening the body of text to incorporate the basics:
Our goal was to see if these changes would increase engagement with this brand. We noticed that many audiences aren’t willing to engage with so much information for a company they don’t know yet.
We ran A/B Tests to see which version worked better.
The verdict? The client ultimately saw a nearly 100% increase in click-through rates, video view time, and post interactions. This helped us to remarket for our client and sustain their success.
But A/B Testing isn’t always about a big overhaul of your copy or voice.
When it comes to A/B Testing, little changes can make a big difference.
In the past, we’ve explored the use of emojis in headlines, to see if placement makes a difference to interaction, or if using different themes changes the way people relate to headlines.
For example, we’ve run various tests on headlines where emojis frame the text (like ‘🔥THIS🔥’), and found that this simple change can improve engagement metrics by 50%.
For one client, specialising in the fishing industry, we experimented with emojis such as ‘🐟🎣🍃’, as opposed to ‘🔥🎉🏆’.
Our findings were that while emojis such as‘🔥🎉🏆’ drive urgency and engagement overall, focusing on the particular niche of the brand with emojis specific to their target audience improves revenue figures like Return On Ad Spend.
This small change, validated by our A/B Test, helped us to seek out higher-quality audiences for this client.
Tools like MailChimp and Klaviyo can help you optimise your emails. They put all those metrics into easy-to-understand visuals, so you can be sure of the results you measure in a test.
Over at Zap, we can offer you the support you need to understand those numbers.
We have a Knowledge Base that’s packed with articles about the how-to’s and the why’s of all kinds of marketing. If you’re analysing A/B Metrics for the first time, and you’re confused, a quick look at these articles should get you off the ground.
If you want to access our Knowledge Base, and our expert Team’s fabulous insights, contact us today.
Let’s get those emails moving, shall we?
