How A/B Testing Can Help Increase Conversions
The business world revolves around conversions. No matter whether your business is product or service oriented, conversions are necessary for business success. You want to convert cold leads to warm leads, warm leads to hot leads, hot leads to customers, and past customers to repeat customers. Increase Conversions is a necessary goal and a necessary step in moving people through your sales funnel.
The rate at which you are able to achieve conversions at each step of the process will ultimately impact your business’ bottom line. The higher your conversion rate, the more profits you can generate. High conversion rates are the desire of every business owner who steps into the world of websites. A lot can be learned by understanding what your Google Analytics is telling you about your site, which should be monitored daily. If your analytics reports show low conversions, you know that something is wrong. Navigating Google Analytics can be a tricky task and reading reports correctly is essential. Take a read of the 5 Best Google Analytics Custom Reports if you want to know which data is worth interpreting.
Therefore, it is imperative to increase your conversion rate for long term business success. One strategy that can be used to increase conversions is A/B testing. Learn what it is, and how you can use it to successfully increase your conversion rate and grow your business.
What Is A/B Testing?
A/B testing may seem like a difficult concept to understand, but it doesn’t have to be. You don’t need a marketing degree to understand how A/B testing works. Simply put, A/B testing is creating two different versions of the same content, and then delivering those two versions to similar clients to see which version leads to more conversions. Optimizely explains the basics of A/B testing, stating, “A/B testing (also known as split testing or bucket testing) is a method of comparing two versions of a webpage or app against each other to determine which one performs better. A/B testing is essentially an experiment where two or more variants of a page are shown to users at random, and statistical analysis is used to determine which variation performs better for a given conversion goal.”
A/B testing is essentially like running your own experiment. You start with a hypothesis of what changes will lead to higher conversion rates. You then create a duplicate copy of your current content and make the proposed changes. In order for the A/B test to be most effective, you will want to test only one variable at a time. If you change too many variables at once it will be difficult to tell which specific changes lead to the increased conversions.
Once you have made your changes, you will need to use a platform to deliver your content to your website visitors. There are many different platforms available, so be sure to research to discover which one best meets the needs of your business.
Once you have selected your platform it is time to set up your test. Follow the instructions to set up your versions and the parameters surrounding delivery. Then, begin running your test. Once you have run your A/B test you will need to evaluate the data. Look to see which version leads to a higher conversion rate. If you are happy with conversion rate of the better performing version you can choose to implement it permanently. If you feel there is still room for improvement, you can set up an additional test, using the former best converting version as a baseline. Continue to make tweaks until you reach a conversion rate that you are satisfied with.
Using A/B Testing to Increase Conversions
A/B testing can help to increase conversions by allowing companies to gather data about their websites and lead pages. It allows you to test different variations to discover which version is more effective. According to Steelhouse, a performance marketing company, conversion rates for most websites range from 1-3%. Since conversion rates are so low to start with, an increase of only a few percent can lead to doubling the rate of conversions. Who doesn’t want double the current amount of leads and customers?
Effective use of A/B testing can help you tweak your content so that it better resonates with your leads and clients. The AdPushup Blog quotes Conversionista, stating, “Conversion rates increase when your goals and your users’ goals meet.” This is the end goal of A/B testing; finding out how to communicate more effectively with your customers and potential customers so that both of your needs are being met. You may have the best product in your industry, but if you can’t convince potential clients of the value, you will never make a single sale.
Ultimately, split testing is all about the user experience. The more you can improve a potential client’s experience, the more likely they are to convert to a paying customer. Neil Patel, an expert in online marketing, echoes this statement by stating, “What you truly want to achieve in any split testing campaign is ‘relevance.’ You want to build web and landing pages that your target audience will find useful and relevant. That’s a challenge, because designing and testing the right landing page is one of the top five challenges faced by B2B marketers.”
In order for A/B testing to be most effective, you need to have a large enough sample size. If you have 500,000 visitors to your website each month, but your A/B test is based on results from only 10 visitors, your numbers may end up being skewed. The Kissmetrics blog supports this, stating, “The goal is to make sure you collect enough data points to confidently make predictions or changes based on the results. While the math behind determining the appropriate number of samples required for significance is a bit technical, there are many calculators and software applications available to help.”
Use A/B Testing to Grow Your Business
The goal of any business is to stand out among the competition, and effectively serve their customers. Conversion is simply the process of moving leads through your sales funnel until they eventually make a purchase. The more efficiently you can move people through your funnel, the more your business will grow.
A/B testing works with almost every aspect of your blog. For example, if you want to add popups but aren’t sure which will be the most effective, you can make us of lead generation software such as OptinMonster which allows you to use A/B testing to test different designs and content within the popup.
A/B testing is an effective strategy for determining if your content is resonating with your potential customers and meeting their needs. It gives you an opportunity to experiment with different variations of the same content to see which variation leads to more conversions and sales. It is typically not a one time experiment. Rather, think of A/B testing as an ongoing process designed to help you meet your target audience’s needs more effectively. If you do this well, you will be able to stand out from the competition and grow your revenue.
