Blueprint for A/B Split Testing Emails
Email marketing is key to a successful online business. Another key point with email marketing success is engagement you can figure out by A/B split testing emails what your community is drawn too. In order to put together a blueprint for A/B split testing emails, first, let’s cover the why what and testing examples.
Why Plan An A/B Test
Planning an A/B split testing email campaign is done to test how your community engages or doesn’t engage with your content.
Questions to ask regarding current email stats.
- Are you happy with your open rates?
- Have my click-thru rates have dropped?
- Further, on the click-thru do certain links perform better than others?
Why, how are they different. In other words, A/B split testing emails is a tactic all online business needs to perform to increase engagement with email marketing.
What are A/B Split Testing Emails
A/B split testing emails may be referred to as A/B testing, campaign testing or you may also just hear it referred to as split testing. With this in mind no matter how it is referred to it’s, all the same, you're figuring out the communication style that gets your subscribers to engage in your email campaign. I’d like to point out this doesn’t mean that you send two completely different emails you’ll just be tweaking in order to test how your community engages.
Furthermore, you’ll change one element of the email and figure out which one performed better with your email list.
To Test Or Not To Test
The answer is to test, don’t shy away from this because you think it is to complicated. Generally speaking, most Email Service Provider makes this a simple process.
When planning the blueprint for A/B split testing emails choose only one area to test.
In the event that you changed two items, you’ll not know which of the two increases the engagement with your community. Hence this is the reason that you pick only one item to test.
What’s The Goal?
In order to figure out what to test you first must decide on your goal.
If you want to improve open rates then you’ll need to test different subject lines. Do you want to improve click-thru rates to your website or offer? With this intention, you’ll want to test your call to action copy.
In order to determine what you’re testing, you’ll need to have a goal in mind test in your email campaign.
Ideas List Of Tests
Here is an ideas list for A/B split testing emails in your campaign, pick the one that is in alignment with your goal and presently what needs to be improved upon.
Subject Lines – Ask A Question in your subject line. → Or use symbols or numbers to grab attention.
Pre-Header Text – To use or not to use can be the test. Test two different topics in the preheader text.
Call To Action – Does a call to action that is a hyperlink or call to action with a button perform better.
Content – Long-form content a very long email or short form that it just a bit with the option to read more on your website
Image or No Image – if you have images or no images which get the attention of the reader.
Offer – Test two different offers in your email campaign
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Keep Track
Ultimately, you need to track the results of the A/B split testing email. In short, keep it simple by jotting down the numbers on a piece of paper or in a spreadsheet.
Since you’ll want to see the results check the number after a couple of hours, 24 hours, after a few days and in a week.
The items that you’ll want to track and compare are:
Open Rates – how many subscribers opened the email. This will be a direct reflection of your subject line and pre-header text.
Total Clicks – What is the total number of clicks you received during your campaign. Did one email outrank the other?
Clicks per Link – If you were testing a call to action this will be a metric to watch.
Unsubscribers – did one email receive a higher unsubscribe number?
Conversation Rate – This would be a great metric for the success of your offers or your call to action.
Forward Rate – Sharing is caring! Did one of the emails receive more forwards? This is when the user shares your email with a friend.
A/B Testing is not a one and done. Do it again until your messaging is a fine-tuned communication machine.
Little Side Note
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Quick Wrap Up
To summarize, A/B split testing emails will help you figure out what connects better with your community.
A/B split testing emails comparing two emails with the same variable changed in each of the emails. Again, this will also be referred to as split testing, campaign testing or A/B testing.
It’s important to realize that every A/B split testing email marketing campaign begins with a goal in mind
New to the A/B split testing email world? In this case, review the list of ideas to get started on A/B split testing in your email campaign.
Finally, keep track of your numbers. If you do not track the item how will you be able to measure and determine success?
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