Marketing Basics: Split Testing

Marketing Basics

There are many strategies and techniques you should use to help you market your business, but one strategy you cannot ignore is split testing. Also known as AB testing, split testing allows you to determine what works and what doesn’t when it comes to landing pages, content, ad copy, email, and more.

You Already Know How

Luckily, it’s very simple to perform a split test. Just like you learned in your elementary science class, the best way to conduct an experiment is to keep all variables the same except one, the one you are testing. This will help you determine whether the change in variable caused the change in result.

The same principle works with split testing. Keep everything the same except for one thing. Then release both versions to the public and track to see which performs better. Don’t rush the results, but be patient and give it some time until you see a clear winner. Then, you make another version based on the winner and repeat. Simple, right?

Real World Example

Let me give you an example. Suppose you own a store that specializes in selling tennis equipment and utilize email marketing to reach out to your current customers. In the email, you feature a picture of the latest Wilson racket in blue, which links to your website. You decide to split test and make another version of the same email featuring a red Wilson racket. You randomly split your email list in half and send one half the email with the blue racket and the other half the email with the red racket. After waiting a few days, you see that the email with the blue Wilson racket got double the clicks than the email with the red Wilson racket. Through split testing, you found out that people respond better to your emails when they see a blue racket opposed to a red racket.

Art, Science, and a Little Magic

The idea is very simple, but sometimes the execution can be much more complicated. For example, how do you pick which variable to manipulate? There are literally hundreds of variables and ways you can test. The possibilities are endless! Sometimes, it’s just about instinct and at other times, experience. This is what makes marketing both a science and an art form. So now that you know about split testing, make sure you use it to continually optimize all of your online marketing campaigns. It might be a little work, but it’s definitely worth it.

If you need help with your online marketing campaigns, contact us at 1.888.986.7736. We can help!