What is A/B Testing?

A/B testing - the mysterious word we have all heard in our ongoing campaigns with the marketing world but rarely understand the meaning of. 

It is an indispensable part of running a business today and is therefore worthy of your attention. 

However, if you don’t know what A/B testing means - worry not. Just keep scrolling to find out what it means, and how it can benefit you and your business & marketing strategies. 

A/B Testing - Definition

Expert marketers will tell you the key to creating the perfect marketing asset is this: make two versions of it, compare them for efficiency, and then pick the one that gives you better performance. It is this process, that is known as A/B testing. 

Also called split testing, A/B testing works by assigning each of the versions to a different group, and then see which group does the best job! More or less, it’s like a mini-competition: the winner should be your asset to go forward with! 

How to Execute A/B Testing 

The four steps to perfectly A/B test your marketing assets are as follows:

• Research

Research how your marketing asset is currently performing so you can better evaluate the end results. 

• Hypothesis

Based on your research and prior observations, form a hypothesis that can act as a guide for your A/B test endeavors. For example, based on the data collected from your current website, you can hypothetically state that an increase in the speed of the site will lead to a better CTR.

• Variations 

Once you come up with a hypothesis, you can then move on to making a variation that you can test against the existing version of your asset. For example, your hypothesis states that making changes to the color of your landing page will lead to a better conversion rate. You can create a variation of the landing page that uses another color, and test it against the landing pages you currently have. You can even create multiple variations.

• Test

After completing the other three steps, you can finally run your A/B test and see which variation fits your hypothesis.

Why Bother with A/B Testing?

Creating the perfect marketing asset like a web page or an email copy may sound like an easy task, but it definitely isn’t. There is so much room for you to go beyond your financial restrictions and end up wasting money. That’s why A/B testing your assets before you commit to them is an essential practice. To put it simply: A/B testing is an indispensable part of a modern marketing strategy. 

A/B testing can be used in the following ways:

1. A/B testing enables you to address and solve visitor pain points.  
2. A/B testing helps you improve return on investment (ROI).
3. A/B testing reduces bounce rate. 
4. A/B testing means making low-risk adjustments. 
5. A/B testing improves your assets based on data and stats. 
6. A/B testing assists you in saving money. 

Final Words

Now that you know exactly what A/B testing is, you have no excuse to neglect it. Whenever you think of making any changes to your marketing assets like a website, you must run an A/B test to ensure that you don’t end up wasting your money!