Increase your email open rates by over 120%
A/B split testing is second nature to most marketers, but we want to shine a light on this method for those who haven’t come across it yet. We’ve recently sent out our July newsletter, and as a bit of fun we decided to raise the stakes in our office.
We had a little competition between Account Executive, Ross and our Marketing Intern Tabea, where they both had to write a subject line for our newsletter A/B split test. The loser of the A/B split test would have to get the rounds of tea in for the office for the WHOLE day! *See end of article for winner
We won’t show you the subject lines that we used for the test (you need to sign-up to our newsletter to see that! See the bottom of our website). But we will show you the results and how you can benefit from integrating A/B split testing into your marketing efforts:
(Click image to enlarge).
By running this A/B test and selecting Version A as the winner, our powerful software estimated that we’d receive an additional 100 opens (128% increase!).
What is A/B split testing?
Firstly, let’s look at the definition of split testing (AKA: A/B or sometimes multivariate testing): “In marketing and business intelligence, A/B testing is a term for a controlled experiment with two variants, A and B.[1] It can be considered as a form of statistical hypothesis testing with two variants leading to the technical term, two-sample hypothesis testing, used in the field of statistics.” (Wikipedia, 2017).
Or more simply, split testing is a method of conducting controlled, randomised experiments with the goal of improving a metrics, such as open rates, clicks, form completions, purchases etc.
Why should I bother with this?
Following on from the last sentence, if you want to improve your open rates, clicks, form completions and purchases, an A/B split test is an effective method to do so. The question you should be asking yourself is, why aren’t I utilising this great method?!
Here are a few more benefits from split testing:
- A/B Testing can improve your bottom line for both products and services in B2C and B2B sectors.
- Your end users/customers will end up with better quality, useful content.
- Testing customer behaviour before making decisions increases the likelihood of success.
What can I use it for?
You can use split testing for various marketing channels; direct mail (old-school but useful), email, social media, PPC, landing pages… and more!
In terms of the content, you can use split testing for things such as:
- Call to action
- Graphics
- Sales copy
- Headline / subject line text
- Product descriptions
A quick tip!
You shouldn’t try to compare too many things in your split test as you won’t know what variable had an effect on the end user (you want to be comparing a red and green apple rather than apples and oranges!). If you do want to test multiple variables in one go, multivariate testing is something to look into, we will touch on this in a later blog post.
Need a helping hand?
We use a powerful, professional-grade piece of email marketing software that is used by the likes of Adidas, Unicef, Mercedes Benz and Virgin. As well as running A/B split tests we’re able to track our clients success anytime, anywhere. To give you an example, our latest newsletter was read by a contact fishing in a lake in Kansas while another reader was on the Dubai Creek. How’s that for audience insight?
From Kansas and Toronto, to Malaga and Dubai, we’re able to see who is interacting with our newsletter and how they’re doing so.
There are also a whole host of other interesting things we can do that supplements A/B split testing; we can create personalised customer journeys, illustrate every message using rich customer data as well as integrating with your existing business apps like Salesforce and WordPress to make things seamless on your end.
Want to find out more? Email us or give us a call: 01752 426 333 and we can go through various options to Fuel demand for your business.
Or come in for a brew, there’s a lot to talk about! ☕
*Ross won this time!
