Split Testing

In recent years, AB testing has become a “big deal.” Online marketing tools have become more complex and cost-effective, making split-testing more accessible to small and medium businesses. As traffic increases, the speed with which online businesses can convert inbound visitors becomes more important.

WHY SPLIT TESTING

To understand why your visitors are not converting, it is important to ask what content is preventing your visitors from converting. Your intuition is not enough. What matters is the effect of the product on your visitors.

A split test puts your visitors at the center of your decision-making process. First, you can use the results of the split test to determine which page version they interact most with, and what information and design turn them into returning customers.

Running a split test is not only about making changes. Most marketers conduct split tests because they suspect that one aspect of their marketing is not working well, or because they think they can get better results.

Split testing basically has many potential advantages. These include:

  • Eliminate any uncertainty about marketing campaigns by avoiding guesswork.
  • Learn how customers actually respond, not how they believe they will respond to what can happen with survey data.
  • Get unexpected insights that can bring improvements across the enterprise.
  • Create better and more effective content.
  • Maximizing Internet traffic and visitor interest
  • Minimizing risk by testing changes before making them permanent.
  • Improve revenue. Making small leads and sales leads to a more profitable business.

Split testing is an ideal way to identify new strategies that can help you market your business. To determine which version delivers the best performance, it is important to conduct controlled tests.

Split testing generates better content for your small business by discussing which content is most valuable and why. When you test features, elements, and copies, you’ll ultimately find something that best suits what you want to achieve so that you can create similar, high-quality content in the future.

Split testing can also help increase profits and grow your small business. You have the opportunity to increase conversion rates and turn your viewers into customers. It reduces risk in decision-making, pricing, and strategy.

Ultimately, it is wise to design the next step in your business based on concrete results and to help you reach your goals based on facts and data. Hence, split-testing is a cost-effective and easy way to boost your website ranking and marketing campaigns.

WHAT IS SPLIT TEST

Split testing (A/B testing) is a controlled testing methodology that can be used to increase a site metric, whether by clicking on your website, conversions, or shares. This is done by directing incoming traffic between two different versions of online content to see which one makes the desired results more effective.

This process allows you to answer important business questions, generate more revenue from traffic, and lay the foundation for a data-driven marketing strategy. Once you’ve realized the most effective variation, you can implement the changes in other areas of your marketing.

You do not have to be a mathematician to do effective AB testing, but you need a solid understanding of the statistics for split testing. An AB test is an example of testing a statistical hypothesis, a process that hypothesizes the relationship between two records and then compares those records to determine whether or not there is a statistically significant relationship.

In practical terms, it is predicted that the page variation #B will perform better than the page variation variant #A. Then, records from both sides are observed and compared to determine if the #B variant has a significant improvement over Page variation #A statistically.

MULTIVARIATE TESTS

Multivariate tests use the same core mechanism as A/B tests, but compare a larger number of variables and show more information about how these variables interact with each other. As with an A/B test, traffic on a page is split across different versions of the theme. The purpose of a multivariate test is therefore to measure the effectiveness of a design combination for the ultimate goal.

Once a website has received enough traffic for the test, the data from each variation is compared to find not only the most successful design, but also to find out which elements most or less positively influence a visitor’s interaction.

WHAT SHOULD YOU SPLIT TEST AS AN ONLINE MARKETER

Split tests can be an excellent way to increase the conversion rate and achieve the desired results. You can use A/B tests in several ways. Below are what you can test to optimize your online presence.

1) Headlines

Headlines to check are especially important as the average site visitor spends only a few seconds on your site before deciding to read or leave. Therefore, it is important to make your headlines as appealing as possible and to test them if necessary.

2) Offers or promotions

Testing offers important because the wording of promotion can make a big change. You can create two separate offers that save the same amount of money for the user and determine that people are more likely to claim one over the other. Split testing lets you know which offer is most attractive.

3) Call to Action

Action prompts cause a user to take action on your marketing content. Changing the text used for the action call itself can lead to a completely different result than the original state. You also want to consider the style, color, and design of your action call. Is it a button or a hyperlink text? How large should the call to action be? Where on the web page or e-mail should you place it? Answer these questions by testing different strategies and seeing which one performs best.

4) Colours

There’s so much psychology in color, and you’ll see that you get different results if you change the main colors of your design or elements of it. Green makes people think about health and freshness, while red gives them a sense of urgency. Try different versions to get the perfect color combination for your design.

It is advisable to test all these elements, but do not make the mistake of putting it all together in one go. Instead, you should consider one element at a time. This will aid in determining which element is causing the changes you need, resulting in clearer data that you can use in future campaigns.

WHY USE GOOGLE OPTIMIZE TO CARRY OUT SPLIT TESTS?

Carrying out a successful split test is easier said than done. The learning curve can be steep. Measuring the result can be complicating. Google Optimize aims to fix these problems by introducing A/B testing.

Do you want to increase conversions on your website? Then you need to run A/B tests on your website to understand what works best for your audience. Do not worry if you do not have the budget or resources for an enterprise-class A/B testing solution. Google Optimize is a free A/B testing platform and stands as a perfect solution for small and medium businesses that need powerful split testing. Best of all, it is built on Google Analytics. So you can use your Analytics data to run A/B tests and improve conversions on your site.

Google has done well to make Google Optimize accessible to all website owners by eliminating the need for a web developer and making the tool really easy to use. Also, Google Optimize can be integrated directly into all events and goals defined in Google Analytics to make the evaluation of measurement data even easier.

 Google Optimize A/B testing will allow you to easily create variations of web pages using the user interface, select the relevant goals you want to rate, launch a site experiment and then wait to analyze the results.

CONCLUSION

Certain visual cues may unconsciously affect customers, and they prefer version A over version B, without knowing why. Sometimes unusual or counterintuitive things that seem to contradict traditional marketing wisdom can positively impact customers and increase conversion. Normally, it’s better to test a hypothesis than just guessing or doing what seems logically correct.

You can test things that are completely new and different from the original, or you can test minor changes, such as A different color or image, a small change in wording or rearranging some lines or phrases or even that something looks less fancy and simple. Things do not always have to be perfect, and sometimes a semblance of imperfection can have a positive effect and increase conversion. Sometimes, small optimizations can work better for customers on a subconscious level and have a surprisingly large impact.