What is A/B Testing?
A/B Testing is split-run testing or bucket testing, which starts with a hypothesis. The hypothesis makes you believe that making a small change to your ad will improve the results. You have the control ad (A) and the one with a variation (B), and you compare them simultaneously. It is changing only one variable between them to see which one gets the better performance. For example, a higher click rate. It is a user experience research methodology vastly used in this online world. It surrounds us and the backbone of almost every successful app, webpage, ad campaign, etc…That you can think of!
https://neilpatel.com/blog/create-a-winning-ab-testing-strategy/ –>How to create a winning A/B testing strategy according Neil Patel.
A practical example
As you can see in the picture, both ads are pretty much the same, but if you look closely, you will see that the variation ad has a different CTA (call to action) button, “sign up” instead of “order now”. The whole thing of A/B testing comes from the hypothesis that maybe that small change (that could also be the text, the image, the link description, or the headline) can affect positively or negatively your brand and if that’s so, how? Exactly.
For more information about control and variation
To give a good practical example, let’s imagine that you are a digital marketer running an ads campaign for Facebook/Instagram for your company. First, you need to choose your target audience and create the ad A and B that you want to test looking for statistical significance, and then run them for at least a full week.
Keep in mind that people don’t interact with social media in the same way during the week or on weekends.
For more info about Facebook A/B testing; here is the link
What happens after you run your A/B Test?
Many tools can help you compare the results and show you which one has a better performance than the other, like Crazy Egg, Google Analytics & Google Optimize, Optimizely, and many others.
If you are using Facebook manager only, you will see which one has a better click rate, conversion rate, and few other metrics that perhaps is enough for you if, as mentioned in the previous example, you are just running ads on Facebook/Instagram.
With this said, let’s take a look at the previous picture; as mentioned before, if you want to know if your hypothesis was correct, you needed to look for statistical significance, and this picture showcases a perfect example of it. The chances to beat the original is a stunning 95%, and in general terms, the conversion is significantly higher.
We could go in-depth about all the different metrics that support (or not) your hypothesis. Still, if it was correct, after running an A/B test, you will get that significant difference you were looking for and optimize your sales!
What happens if my A/B Test “fails”
First thing, don’t panic! This can happen to the best of us! When experienced digital marketers do A/B testing daily, they have previous experience of what usually works and what doesn’t. They know the modus operandi of their customers and have a custom audience that tends to interact similarly.
Some of the reasons why it could “fail” or give inconclusive results are;
- You haven’t run the test long enough to collect the needed data. For more info, check this out.
- Your hypothesis was wrong, and you may need to check a different variable.
- You haven’t got enough conversion to make your A/B test valid. If your sample size or conversion pool is too small, your margin of error will increases.
The last thing about this subject that I want to showcase is that I used the word “fail” because knowing which variable is not optimal to optimize your ads takes you one step closer to find the right one. After all, that’s why trial and error is all about!
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In conclusion, should I run A/B Testing for my business?
Yes! In fact, everyone who cares about their business/company/app/webpage growth should!
The studies show that only 28% of marketers are satisfied with their conversion rates, but at the same time, 74% admit to run A/B tests for less than an hour.
those who methodically and efficiently run them found the way to increase the user experience (UX), minimize costs and increase their conversion rates significantly!
For more Blogs: https://blog.thedigitalmarketinginstitute.org/
International Institute of Digital Marketing ™ is a certifying body founded in the USA by several long-standing marketers. We have years of experience in business, marketing, and more, and have put forth our combined experience to develop DMI. Digital Marketing is something that’s all around us, yet there has been no solid foundation for marketing in many, many years. In the news, there are blunders again and again by companies, failing some of the core aspects of modern marketing. Because of this, the need for a solid, stable foundation for marketing in the modern world is needed– a foundation with the ability to be built upon and developed with time.