benefits of a/b testing

benefits of a/b testingA/B testing is a key component of conversion rate optimization because it’s a useful, reliable, and informative tool that businesses can use to improve customer interactions with websites, emails, apps, blogs, and other media. Moreover, A/B testing isn’t just restricted to ads, and can be used to test a variety of marketing materials, including:

  • Webpage copy
  • Images
  • Calls to action
  • Sales emails

Another thing you can examine with A/B testing is how your webpage headlines perform. While many people may not think about this, there are a number of reasons why it’s beneficial to test your headlines in this way, including determining what keeps customers on your site, what changes produce positive effects, and what your customers are looking for from your site.

You See Proven Results with A/B Split Testing

Also called split testing, the process of A/B testing a headline—or any other marketing material—involves presenting half your web traffic with the current version of your headline and the other half of your traffic with a modified or redesigned version of that same headline.

Because you’re testing two versions of the same material at once, you can measure how certain changes affect conversion rates, click-through rates, time spent on your site, and other important factors, and can thereby make data-driven choices about your web pages content that will yield positive results.

A Performance Analysis for Your Site’s First Point of Contact

If you’re wondering why you’d bother A/B testing a headline, think about the first thing that potential customers might see when they come to your homepage—the headline. On every page on your site, for that matter, the headline is the main textual element that’s featured prominently, and it has the power to determine whether or not your visitors stick around long enough to become customers. If you want to figure out how to best engage customers and keep them on your site from the outset, A/B testing how they interact with your headlines is a great place to start.

Increase Conversion Rates and Get a Better ROI From Your Marketing Campaigns

When you consider that the time you put into optimizing your website is an investment, then A/B testing your headlines is just another way of ensuring that you’re getting a good return on the time and effort you put in. Because effective headlines can help convert more traffic into paying customers, A/B testing them will help you turn a bigger profit.

The great thing about A/B testing is that it shows you what resonates with your customers in an unbiased way, meaning you can use the results of your analysis to appeal to more customers on a more meaningful level, and that will result in a healthier bottom line.

Combine Headline Testing With Other Marketing Strategies

Another great thing about A/B testing is that it isn’t restricted to a single marketing material at a time, and you can use a more advanced version of the process to get even more in-depth results. This type of test, called multivariate testing, allows you to test how your headline performs when it’s combined with other elements, such as a:

  • Landing page
  • Newsletter or email blast
  • Special promotion
  • Call to action

Multivariate testing allows you to see how slight changes to your web designs can impact customer experience, allowing you to tweak different aspects of your content and promotions to suit the needs and interest of your customers.

marketing strategy for online business concept image

Helping You Connect With Customers on Social Media

Once you’ve performed A/B testing on your headlines, you can then use the results of that analysis to determine what content to share on different platforms. This is particularly important with social media sites, which don’t allow you to test things like headlines the way your own website can. For instance, if you know the headline on a particular webpage performs well, you can share posts on your Twitter and Facebook pages using that headline to encourage followers to click through to your site.

You Never Know What Your Test Will Turn Up

Perhaps one of the most fascinating things about A/B testing is that it allows you to let your creative juices flow. Whereas web content used to be a guessing game in terms of what worked and where, analytics tools now allow you to track many different aspects of your website and the traffic it receives, giving you an opportunity to see what works and what doesn’t, according to the numbers.

Close-up view of analyzing reliable data about visitor behavior and other words or terms searched by site visitor

Accordingly, you can now have fun with more risqué or experimental content because it’s only a test, and because you’ll get to see within a short time whether you’re deterring, offending, or appealing to and engaging your customers or target audience. It’s entirely possible that your customers respond well to something you never thought would fly, and A/B testing will reveal that with evidence and data you can use to justify the changes you implement.

A/B split test isn’t necessarily a simple thing to implement, but it’s well worth the time and effort it takes. When performed with your headlines, the process can give you great insight into your customers’ interactions with your website. It helps you improve customer experience, shows you how to optimize your site based on the preferences of your customers, gets you a better conversion rate, and even draws more traffic to your site by leveraging the power of your tested headlines with your social media followers.

conduct tests and analyze data of your marketing campaign - chart concept imageAnd if you want to see how your headlines are performing in relation to other aspects of your website, you can even use multivariate testing to see how your content is standing up. The best thing about A/B testing is that it gives you a direct line to your customers without them knowing their behavior is being observed, and this guarantees you objective results and solid numbers you can use to implement changes on your marketing efforts, shape your marketing strategies, and increase your sales.

Contact Lead to Conversion™ to learn more about how A/B Testing and Conversion Rate Optimization can benefit your business.