What Is A/B Testing in Marketing: Boost Your Campaign
If there’s one thing you should know about marketing campaigns, you should always invest in analysis. Part of this will involve testing A/B variations of similar messages. So, what is A/B testing in marketing? The answer could be more simple than you think.
Variations of similar messages are key because they enable you to fine-tune your approach and, therefore, your results. It’s a strategic game of “this or that”—eliminating the less effective marketing content and boosting your overall campaign.
In this guide, we’ll teach you exactly what A/B testing is and how to harness it. Get ready for definitions, how-tos, and insights into using this strategy across different platforms.
Who needs to fork out thousands on marketing when you’ve got tricks like A/B testing up your sleeve? Give us less than 10 minutes, and you’ll test your marketing messages like a pro.
What Is A/B Testing in Marketing?
A/B testing is simply running two separate messages in different formats and measuring to see which performs better. This type of strategic customer engagement performs a job — sending out targeted content — but also provides feedback. It acts as two-way communication, marketing your business while providing guidance for future campaigns. Clever, right?
But what is A/B testing in marketing exactly? What might you be testing in marketing strategies, and how do you measure results?
The simple answer is that you could test a whole multitude of things. A/B testing is a type of multivariate testing. That is, it has the capacity to test for many variables, including:
- What time you send a message at.
- The design of the message (which can be something as simple as a button color).
- Different formatting of subject lines (e.g., including statistics or verbs at the beginning).
- Various forms of addresses (e.g., personal address vs. general address).
- Varying call-to-action strategies.
You can use A/B testing for email marketing or as part of an SMS marketing strategy. It’s even a helpful approach for social media; you could measure the performance of two Facebook ads or Instagram posts.
There are multiple ways to measure the results of this split testing, too. For instance, you could use:
Google Analytics
Specifically designed testing tools
In-built analytical dashboards on marketing software
As you can see, A/B testing is more of an umbrella term than one single type of marketing strategy. It’s a versatile testing approach that is effective across a whole branch of approaches, from email to SMS and social media.
It’s also simple to adapt to your business needs and capacities. It’s suitable for businesses that currently utilize marketing software or want to invest in a one-off tool.
How Do I Set Up an A/B Test?
The truth is that setting up an A/B test only requires a few steps: variables, a testing platform, and content. In theory, you could be up and running with your first test set up in a matter of minutes. But, of course, the better your ideation, the more you’ll gain from the process.
With that in mind, don’t stress if you wonder, “How do I set up an A/B test?” We’ve got you covered; here are the basic steps to follow.
1. Pick Your Variables
Any logical test needs variables, such as an independent and dependent variable. You’ve got the dependent variable, which you measure (for example, conversion rates), and the independent variable, which you change. This could be anything from the email subject format to the time you send content.
The whole point of A/B testing is measuring which independent variable performs best so you can repeat effective strategies. Therefore, this stage is the most important; don’t rush and spend as much time as you need. There’s no point in testing variables that aren’t meaningful or don’t hold value potential for your business.
Equally, your marketing efforts are nothing without a quality testing platform. Establish what you’ll be using to test your variables and check that they support what you need to measure. Measuring conversion rate optimization requires more advanced testing features than counting Instagram likes.
3. Create the Marketing Content
Creating the content might have initially seemed like the most critical job. However, by now, you’ll see how this last step is just regurgitating all your preparation. You’ve done all the hard work beforehand!
In this step, you just draft up messages that reflect your variables and check their compatibility on your testing platform.
What Is A B Testing in Digital Marketing?
In digital marketing, A/B testing is simply whittling down multiple content formats to find the most effective. Sending out two variations allows you to test variables. For instance, does the Facebook ad with the Contact Us or Book Now button perform best?
There’s one difference between “What is a b testing in marketing” versus “What is a b testing in digital marketing.” That difference is simply the fact that digital marketing refers to specific modes and methods of contact. For instance:
Social media
- Emails
- SMS messages
- Internet
Marketing is more of a general phrase; it could refer to traditional methods like posting flyers or using billboards. Utilizing the term “Digital” narrows down the specific category of marketing strategies you’re using. It specifies that you’re using more modern channels, although this might be something you wish to whittle down further.
For instance, specifying that you’re using emails within your digital marketing campaign. As a general rule, the more specific you can get, the better — marketing is all about being purposeful.
What Is The Purpose of A/B Testing in Digital Marketing?
This testing strategy enables you to gather feedback on how to run your digital marketing campaigns best. It works on all types of digital strategies, too, from SMS to email and social media to internet marketing. As we established above, it concentrates on a specific, modern approach.
Utilizing feedback from A/B testing in digital marketing usually involves online testing tools or manually collecting online data. For instance, you might count Instagram likes or tally up Meta engagement stats. You can also monitor conversion stats by using email marketing software and its built-in analytical dashboard.
The primary purpose is to gather this online feedback to better improve how you show up in digital marketing campaigns. A/B testing in this format can be valuable. You often don’t get the same degree of in-person feedback as you do with traditional approaches (e.g., people accepting flyers). It’s helpful to be proactive and see which approaches actually hit the right spot.
In short, it’s a useful strategy for evaluating your existing digital marketing approach and optimizing future campaigns.
What Is A/B Testing in Email Marketing?
A/B testing in email marketing is just one method of this split testing strategy. It involves testing which types of emails perform the best by changing different variables. For instance, adjusting the subject lines, lengths, interactive features like illustrations, and timings.
You can easily measure email A/B testing through specific software. Many email marketing software comes with in-built analytical dashboards, so you get instant feedback from each message.
Consider it another form of monitoring. Just like you’d factor in wider email marketing trends, you consider internal performance, too. It purposefully uses responses to varying emails as a sounding board to aid future growth.
5 Benefits of A/B Testing
Now you understand exactly what A/B testing entails, it’s time to establish the key benefits. Understanding the benefits of this strategy helps for numerous reasons. It motivates you, deepens your conceptualization of the approach, and helps evaluate whether or not it’s right for your business.
With that in mind, let’s look at the top five benefits of A/B testing — here’s what you can expect to gain from this strategy.
1. Offers Improved Engagement
Engagement is single-handedly the most vital aspect of marketing. Without people engaging with your content, it will fail to have an impact. Engagement becomes akin to visibility, and you need to know that your campaigns are worthwhile.
By studying what works and what doesn’t, you’ll better appeal to your target audience. In turn, this will improve how people engage with your content.
2. It’s More Cost-Effective
Nobody wants marketing campaigns that don’t deliver value for money. The best strategies are cost-effective; that is, the value they bring in exceeds the investment you make. By testing messages and adjusting them accordingly, you can ensure that your strategies are cost-effective.
3. Provides Boosted Profits
With better engagement and more cost-effective campaigns, that spells out one thing: boosted profit. It’s (ironically) like putting A and B together and getting C. These two factors will result in more turnover for your business, and who wouldn’t want that?
4. Offers Feedback
How frustrating is it to almost nail a marketing strategy and not know it? You could be a millimeter away from success and just never quite reach it. Feedback is valuable as it stops you from being in the dark and facilitates growth.
5. It’s Cheap Compared to Other Investments
A huge benefit is that A/B testing is cheaper than other investment strategies, such as marketing consultants. It is something you can carry out independently once you understand how it works. Because of this, it’s much more realistic for businesses with smaller budgets and of all shapes and sizes.
Beambox: How Could WiFi Help?
Perhaps WiFi could be the added bonus you need to support your A/B testing strategies? Are you currently using captive portal marketing? If not, you could miss a huge opportunity to maximize your marketing impact.
You invest in A/B testing to optimize your marketing results. Similarly, by growing your email subscribers or text list, you optimize results by widening the pool. Here’s how it works.
Captive portals are webpage pop-ups that you attach to your pre-existing WiFi network. When guests click to join your WiFi, it triggers the pop-up to open and reveals a form requesting contact details. To proceed and access your internet, guests must comply and provide you with marketing contact details. Once they do, they browse at leisure, and you grow your marketing lists — it’s a win-win.
Not only can you track and analyze your WiFi marketing, you can use these portals to lengthen your contact list. It’s just another smart way to maximize your marketing results. And the best part is, unlike A/B testing, it is entirely passive once you set it up. You can organize it so that the contact details just run straight into a database for later.
At Beambox, we offer an all-in-one WiFi marketing platform to help you do that. Now, you can answer the question, “What is A/B testing in marketing?” and focus on more ways to optimize your strategies. Start your Beambox free trial today.
FAQ
Where do you think you’re rushing off to? You now know the basics of A/B testing for marketing. You understand strategies like how to test email campaigns and boost social media performance. However, the real question is how much of what we’ve taught you have you actually retained?
A quick FAQ test is one of the best ways to solidify your understanding. How many of these commonly asked questions can you answer quickly?
What do we mean by A/B testing?
A/B testing is when you measure the performance of two varying variables in the form of marketing messages. You can adjust future marketing campaigns to achieve better results by testing which performs better. It’s a simple analytical process.
A/B testing can be utilized by all sorts of businesses to fine-tune their marketing approach. It’s easy to carry out using marketing software and testing tools online.
Why should I use A/B testing?
A/B testing is all about making your marketing content more effective. By testing the variables, you can achieve greater success in your campaigns moving forward. You will know exactly what strategies and techniques your customers respond best to. It’s like knowing which buttons to press to achieve the most desirable results.
It’s also worth noting that A/B testing is extremely cost-effective. Most of the time, you can simply harness your pre-existing tools — especially if you already have marketing software.
What are A/B testing examples?
An example of A/B testing could include sending one email at 10 a.m. and one email at 6 p.m. You’d measure the open rates and see which time is optimal for contacting customers. It would be advisable to repeat this test to establish the reliability of results and then implement the optimization moving forward.
Other examples could include varying subject lines, colors, or even content types like videos versus reels. A/B testing is anything that tests the impact of a variable.
