Marketing trends and techniques change every now and then. All it takes is a creative idea executed effectively to bring something new for the audience; the rest just follow. With marketing going digital, there hasn’t been a more competitive playing field. A startup can also beat a well-known enterprise through its digital marketing campaigns. Digital marketing is one of the fastest-growing career fields these days. When you open any job portal, you will see a variety of job opportunities available, like content marketing manager, PPC specialist, SEO analyst, marketing research analyst, growth hacker, social media manager, and so on. Not to mention, all these job opportunities come under the umbrella of digital marketing.
People seek perfection, not only in digital marketing campaigns but every task in general. Considering digital marketing is relatively new, business executives keep on experimenting with new strategies and check whether they give desirable results. Gaining some experience in doing so, one comes up with a set of best practices to follow and promote their products effectively. Lately, one of the practices that brands follow to compare their marketing efforts is A/B testing.
Let us know what A/B testing is all about and why digital marketing managers rely on it.
A/B Testing – What is it?
We have all a/b tested things sometimes in our life; only the fact here is we were not aware of the term used for this practice. Suppose you had to make a PowerPoint presentation; you would basically start with a default theme and font styles. As you go on to add content, you simultaneously explore various other themes, animations, text format, text colors, and finally change so many parameters until you finalize the best possible layout for your slides. We conduct A/B testing in a similar way.
A/B testing in digital marketing refers to the process of comparing two versions (version A and version B) of an email, webpage, application, or other assets of a marketing campaign to identify which version gives better results. It is a very effective method to understand what strategies work best in this dynamic world of digital marketing. Right from search ads, call-to-action buttons, web page design to sales emails, the position of website elements, an image, and the blog content, you can perform A/B testing on any of them.
To start with, you need to decide which marketing asset you want to test. Though there are a number of elements to be tested, you can track a change more effectively when you pick one variable at a time. Generally, version A is the existing design and known as the ‘Control’ variable. Version B is what you are experimenting with to check if it is better than the existing one, also known as the ‘Challenger.’ Make sure you run both the versions simultaneously and not one after the other, as it may not give you accurate results. Additionally, the time for the test should be pre-decided and sufficient. Insufficient or overtime can give you skewed results, and there are chances you will not gain appropriate insights.
Benefits of A/B Testing
There are a lot of benefits companies get when they perform A/B testing accurately. Firstly, it gives you an idea of what marketing strategies work best for your product or service, as you have evidence to support the decision. You will understand what particular advertising or marketing campaign lures your customers to click on your CTAs. Further, it allows you to emphasize the things that actually work for your business, thereby giving you more chances to increase your sales and profits. Some surveys have found that companies that adopt A/B testing achieve marketing returns as high as 37% compared to those who don’t incorporate this practice.
The results of A/B testing helps in solving the audience pain points, i.e. the web elements that lead to a bad user experience. It is also seen that even small changes in the website let you make the most of your existing traffic and improve your conversion rate. Once the user starts getting an enhanced experience, they will spend more time on your website and its bounce rate will also reduce gradually.
You may also be looking at the other aspect of A/B testing as well – what if the test fails! Well, there is no denying that your test may fail multiple times and you may incur some loss temporarily. However, when you finally come up with the best design, you will be able to generate more leads and chances are high that they will convert into sales. Ultimately, such a high conversion rate will cover up all the initial losses and you will raise your revenue considerably.
Closing Notes
A/B testing, though an interesting topic, forms only a small part of the digital marketing world. There are more fascinating concepts you will love to learn if digital marketing is your preferred career choice. We would recommend you to enroll in an online digital marketing training program that covers all the aspects like SEO, PPC, social media marketing, content marketing, email marketing, and so on. Apart from mastering the process of A/B testing, you will get to learn a whole lot of new things.
