A/B Testing Helps With More Than Web Design

Digital Marketers

Working in the winter wonderland… 

Inspired by the book A/BTesting: The Most Powerful Way to Turn Clicks Into Customers, here is a link to a great article - 71Things to A/B Test.  Both are from Optimizely, a company that specializes in providing tools for digital marketers to enable A/B testing of digital products and campaigns. 

 

I was working with a client recently who asked me how often I would change the creative for an online campaign.  The beauty of living in today’s digital age is that you don’t have to “change creative”.  Ad servers give you the option of launching multiple creatives across a single campaign at the same time.  Then let the consumers tell you which one resonates best with them. 

 

So you are buying 500,000 impressions for your client.  Why not start out with four different creative ideas and allocate 125,000 impressions per creative?  Within a fairly short period of time – say two weeks – you will be able to see which ad is driving the desired consumer behavior.  You then optimize your campaign by moving the impressions from the underperforming creative over to the creative(s) that are working best.

 

The beauty of the digital universe is that it is designed for change.  Almost instantaneous results are at our fingertips.  And “It doesn’t do any good to sit up and take notice if all you do is keep on sitting.”  

Some of my favorite ideas in this article:

·       Test multiple Calls To Action on a landing page against a page with one CTA.

·       Test different headline text. Try variations that are straightforward against ones that are abstract, goofy, or creative.

·       Test different types of images on your landing page. People versus product is a good place to start.

·       Test the order of menu items in your site navigation.

·       Everybody loves free stuff. Try a special offer, discount, or promotion to increase sign-ups

·       Test the headlines on your paid campaigns to see which ones get the most clicks.

·       Change the size and placement of social icons to see what compels users to share more often.

·       Test length and copy of your email subject lines.

There are a lot of great ideas in this article.  There are even more in the book.  If you would like a copy of A/BTesting: The Most Powerful Way to Turn Clicks Into Customers, send me an email I will send you a copy.

Enjoy!