A/B Testing: What It Is And Why You Should Use It

It must be constantly improved for the site to attract new customers and increase sales. But how do you know what your audience responds best to? The most obvious is to make the necessary changes and see what happens. But this is time and money that you don’t want to waste. This is where A/B testing comes in handy. The article will show examples of this tool and how to use it correctly.

What Is A/B Testing?

Typically, A/B site testing involves:

• option A – page without changes, “control” option;
• option B is a version, as a rule, with one difference.

If there are more page options, the process is called A/B/N testing.

An example of classic A/B testing is testing a page on a website with different call-to-action buttons.

Place a button labeled “Get a free consultation” on page A and a button “Get a price calculation” on the same page B.

If you see that one of the pages has more clicks, leave the inscription on the winning button as the primary option and continue testing other elements of the page: the color of the controller, its location, and background.

Why Use A/B testing?

Putting material on the site and forgetting about it is a bad strategy. If you want your site to bring you customers and sales, you will need to update it regularly. And you also need to constantly check how the content is perceived by visitors and improve it to get the most out of it.

The site’s AB test takes the guesswork out of it. After testing, you have accurate data in your hands – proof or disproof that the changes will improve the performance of the web resource and increase the percentage of visitors, sales, and conversions.

What is checked using split testing :

• Advertising texts. In paid advertising, unconvincing text can drain the budget—the same on the website. The more interesting and relevant your content is, the less likely a visitor will lose interest in it and leave the site.
• Calls to action. Your audience must react to the site: subscribes to the newsletter, buys, and shares content. Testing calls to action will help you find the right tone of messages and correctly place call-to-action buttons on site pages. Try different button shapes, sizes, text, and graphics to see which elements drive more conversions.
• Separate pages. Test not only the elements of the advertising campaign – creatives or texts, but also ordinary pages. Analyze background color, the relevance of content, and the location of blocks. So you will know which elements of the site users like and which are annoying and force them to close the page.
• Letters from the mailing list. Check the subjects, content, layout, and other elements of the letter. Split your audience in half, send the same email with different subject lines, and then see which subject they opened the most. A split test will help you determine what your audience responds to better and find successful options faster.
• Subscription forms. Everything from button colors to text is necessary for lead generation forms. Such nuances can seriously affect the user’s reaction, reducing the time spent considering a purchase or making them leave the site. AB-test will help to improve subscription forms and increase CTR – the click-through rate.

Also Read: Does A Designer Need To Know How To Program?