In the digital marketing realm, success is when users engage with your brand and complete the desired goal. An effective digital marketing strategy or website design is one where a website visitor or an ad viewer sticks around until the end and completes the purchase or spends a significant amount of time on your website, clicking and scanning through the web of pages. Now, the million dollar question – how do we get them to actually buy what we are selling?
Converting traffic into loyal customers through effective conversion rate optimization is a challenging task. Today, low quality leads are knocking on B2B businesses’ doors, while E-commerce brands are facing a high cart abandonment rate. It’s a must for brands to analyse consumer behaviour in order to encourage their existing audience to take action, while also welcoming new traffic. Here is where A/B Testing presents itself as a strategic solution.
When it comes to picking between two potential choices, fools go for a coin toss or make assumptions, but the wise ones conduct tests and trials to turn theories into facts. The concept of A/B testing in marketing is, more or less, the same.
The process involves putting two could-work digital campaigns/web pages to test by presenting both to relevant users, while the purpose is to identify which one performs better in terms of driving more conversions. A/B testing enables you to study consumer behaviour like no other, helping you best optimise your digital campaign/website.
Making assumptions is fun and makes for quick decision-making. But, A/B testing tools enable you to make data-based decisions. Creating a website or a marketing campaign is just the first step. You’ll also have to measure its performance in order to determine what’s appealing to the audience and what’s not. A/B testing lets you know which CTAs, words, images, videos or testimonials are motivating users to convert. Even the simplest changes can impact conversion rate, and the smallest hike in your conversion rate can bring you more revenue.
The more optimised your campaign/website is, the higher are your chances of getting a visitor to take action and convert into a customer. A/B testing makes this optimization possible to bring you high ROI. To give you a glimpse of just how much A/B testing can spice things up, here’s a fitting example:
One test showed that a red CTA button outperformed a green one by 21% based on 2,000 page visits. This proves that every minor change counts and adds to your conversion rates.
-Better UX design as a result of user testing can increase a company’s conversion rate by 400 percent. (Entrepreneur)
-60 percent of companies believe A/B testing is highly valuable for conversion rate optimization. (Invesp)
-63 percent of companies believe it is not difficult to implement A/B testing. (Invesp)
-77 percent of companies perform A/B tests on their websites. (Invesp)
-60 percent of companies perform A/B tests on a landing page. (Invesp)
-59 percent of companies perform A/B tests on emails. (Invesp)
-58 percent of companies perform A/B tests on paid search campaigns. (Invesp)
-Google ran its first A/B test in the year 2000 to determine the optimum number of search results per page. (Marketing Mag, 2018)
-In 2011, Google ran more than 7,000 A/B tests on its search algorithm. (Wired, 2012)
-A single ad display change resulting from an A/B test increased Microsoft Bing’s revenue by 12 percent in 2012. (Harvard Business Review, 2017)
-The Obama campaign raised an estimated additional $75 million due to marketing decisions resulting from A/B testing. (Wired, 2012)
-A/B testing during the Obama campaign increased donation conversions by 79 percent. (BrightEdge)
-Amazon, Booking.com, Google and Facebook each conduct more than 10,000 online controlled experiments per year. (Harvard Business Review, 2017)
Now that the importance of A/B testing is loud and clear, let’s acknowledge and appreciate the tools that make it all happen. Here are some of the best A/B testing tools to help you increase your conversion rates in the coming year-
Google Analytics and Google Optimize are two of the most popular tools that brands and agencies benefit from. They are efficient with data collecting and providing reliable A/B testing solutions. Best part? It’s free! The free versions of these ever-popular tools come with multiple features, putting them on the top of this list.
Key Features:
-A/B testing
-A/B/n testing for multiple versions of a page
-Multivariate testing for multiple elements on the same page
-Redirect tests
-Server-side experiments
-Personalisation
Optimizely is one of the industry’s leading CRO platforms with a comprehensive suite of CRO tools that you can always count on.
Key Features:
-A/B testing
-Multi-page testing
-Visual editor for building variations without any code
-Advanced targeting & segmentation
-Full Stack for optimising mobile apps and digital products
Much like Optimizely, VWO provides a full suite of CRO tools. The key difference is that it is budget-friendly. It gives you access to A/B testing tools, multivariate and split URL experiments; a visual editor for building variations without any code and advanced targeting and segmentation options.
Key Features:
-A/B testing
-Multivariate testing
-Split URL testing
-Visual editor for building variations without any code
-Widgets for testing/adding popups, banners and other prompts to generate leads
-Behavioural segmentation
-Asynchronous code reduces loading times while tests run
If you are an agency or a CRO expert responsible for optimising clients’ websites and digital products, then Convert is your go-to testing platform. The features of the platform speak for the fact that it is designed for professionals.
Key Features:
A/B testing
Split testing
Multivariate testing
Multipage experiments
WYSIWYG editor for building code-free experiments
Unlimited tests & variations
Extensive integrations
Kameleoon is an easy-to-use A/B testing and personalisation platform that leverages the intelligence of AI to help you optimise brands’ digital experiences. You can tailor unique experiences based on each visitor’s conversion probability, which is calculated in real-time, based on user actions.
Key Features:
-A/B testing
-Multivariate testing
-AI personalisation
-Visual editor
-Advanced targeting & segmentation
-Client-side for web and mobile sites
-Full-stack for testing web, mobile apps and digital products
On Facebook, you can conduct split testing in multiple ways. You can either do it through the Ads Manager Toolbar, duplicate a campaign or ad set, or use the Experiments tool. When A/B testing for Facebook Ads you have to be mindful of two things – stick to one variable and choose your target audience for better results.
Google Analytics and Google Optimize are two of the most popular tools that brands and agencies benefit from. They are efficient with data collecting and providing reliable A/B testing solutions. The free versions of these ever-popular tools come with multiple features, putting them on the top of this list.
Key Features:
-A/B testing
-A/B/n testing for multiple versions of a page
-Multivariate testing for multiple elements on the same page
-Redirect tests
-Server-side experiments
-Personalisation
Here what you have to keep in mind when it comes to A/B testing a landing page:
1. Make sure that your reason for split testing is data-driven. Don’t test just for the sake of it.
2. Understand the gaps where improvements are required.
3. Make the necessary changes – be it the copy, the images, or other elements.
4. Eliminate confounding variables.
5. Examine everything before your test goes live.
6. Make sure the traffic is coming from the same place, unless you’re split-testing your traffic sources or ads.
7. Keep a close watch – analyze the results and optimize.
It’s not highly recommended to end a split test until you’ve received enough visitors and conversions for each of your variations. Another way is to declare a winning variation. When you declare a winner, it will become the default variation, and your split test will be marked as ended. Visitors to your split test URL will be directed to the winning version.
For conclusive results, you have to run your test for a minimum of one to two week. This way, you would have covered all the different days which visitors interact with your website. You can run the test for a maximum period of four weeks, depending on your analysis. That being said, the duration isnt set in stone and may vary from industry to industry.
Let the A/B testing begin – make room for better conversion rates with BrightBrain Marketing Technologies LLC, a
Digital Marketing & Advertising Agency that is home to A/B testing best practices.
We build digital solutions for Branding and Increased Sales efficiency. Our expertise includes Digital Advertising Campaigns, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Web Development and Online Branding. Our Google Partnership brings a unique opportunity to work with the internal team at Google, adding even more value to our team and clients.
Suhail Bajaj is the CEO of BrightBrain Marketing Technologies LLP that has now grown into a full-fledged digital marketing agency with 55+ employees and clients from 7+ countries – all under his supervision. Graduated with an MBA from the esteemed Cass Business School, he brilliantly puts his learnings into practice, helping brands meet their business goals and succeed in a digital-first world.
