Home > Email Marketing Resource Center > Getting the Right Message Out-As Easy As A/B
Getting the Right Message Out - As easy As A/B
by Got Corporation
In an effort to increase your click-through and open rates, consider
implementing an A/B test.
Email
marketers often shy away from using techniques like A/B testing because
of the misconception
that such tests are "scientific" and
therefore complex and only accessible to Marketing organizations with
huge budgets. Indeed there is some "science" behind the technique
and large corporations like Dell have put A/B testing to great use on
their retail website, but there is no reason why any marketer cannot
enjoy the same great benefits.
A/B tests are an easy and highly effective way for all marketers to increase their open and click-through rates above a pre-defined benchmark. What is required is that the marketer be willing and able to devote time, to be patient and to have a keen eye for detail-and what marketer among us isn't willing and able when the result is improved performance on key email campaign metrics?
A Science and an Art
A/B split testing with email marketing is as much a science as an art
- requiring patience and a scientific touch in order to optimize the
message mixture gradually and effectively over time. Effective testing
requires diligent analysis, modification, experimentation and re-analysis
to maximize the efficiency of the message over time. Marketers expecting
to send two versions of a campaign to two subsets of their list - and
see a marked difference in the results immediately - will be disappointed.
Why? Because achieving significant improvements will require several
small iterations over time in order to ensure that changes in results
can be directly attributed to a particular change in the campaign.
While there are the obvious and easily changeable variables apparent in an email marketing campaign such as subject lines and "from" fields, the numbers of variables that can be changed in an email message are endless. A/B split tests primarily fall under two main categories - changing the offer and changing the creative.
• Offer changes often include the messaging related to the offer itself: 15% off vs free shipping, subject lines, copy/content, and hard vs soft sells.
• Creative changes reflect the 'packaging' in which the offer is sent, including: color choice, images and image placement, and overall mailer design.
According to a recent MarketingSherpa study, 76% of email marketers
blessed with high click-through rates in their emails (and therefore
the ability to analyze and interpret a well-represented set of results
and fine-tune their next message), saw significant results using A/B
testing of their offers above all other options listed in the survey.
67% saw results when testing their creative with an A/B split test, and
at 74%, changing an email's subject line was the second most-significant
method of testing in a high click-through email environment.
According to a recent MarketingSherpa study, 76% of email marketers blessed
with high click-through rates in their emails (and therefore the ability
to analyze and interpret a well-represented set of results and fine-tune
their next message), saw significant results using A/B testing of their
offers above all other options listed in the survey. 67% saw results when
testing their creative with an A/B split test, and at 74%, changing an
email's subject line was the second most-significant method of testing
in a high click-through email environment.
Here's the full breakdown of the study's results:
| Testing Method | % of those tested seeing significant results |
| A/B testing offers | 76% |
| Subject lines | 74% |
| Landing pages | 73% |
| A/B testing creative | 67% |
| Personalized with name | 64% |
| "From" name | 64% |
| Long copy vs short | 64% |
| HTML vs text | 58% |
| - Source: Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2006, MarketingSherpa | |
| Here are some great steps to follow when implementing your own A/B test | |
| Step: | Tip: |
| Establish a Benchmark campaign | Testing is a waste of time without anything to compare future results against. Establish your benchmark with your best-performing campaign, and tag this as your control message. Measure the success of this control message over a set period of time, and use that same time period for all subsequent incremental changes. |
| Split your lists. | Split your list into 3 random sets - test list A, test list B, and a third list making up the remainder. Randomizing your lists is crucial to getting the best exposure of your testing campaigns to your entire audience, and not a specific type of subscriber, reader or buyer. Once split, your test lists should remain as the test lists - if possible they should not be modified until the A/B test is completed. |
| List and record the variables that you want to change. | Define the changes you want to make to your campaigns. Don't limit yourself to simple adjustments like subject lines, from fields or blue vs. red buttons (although always include these basics). Imagine any and every conceivable change or modification you can make. Keep your variables specific - 'change design' vs. defining what changing your design entails - and record each change as another variable. |
| Set your goals, but remember to be patient. | If you are implementing an A/B test to increase click-through or open rates, set realistic goals for your metrics. Click-through rates will never increase by 90%, no matter how effective your campaigns are, but an increase in 5% over a defined period (always depending on your knowledge of your audience and their behavior) is practical. Your goals however are set by you - therefore can be as ambitious or pragmatic as you like. |
| Make incremental, gradual progress... and measure. | The cornerstone of successful A/B split testing. Always make your changes incrementally, one at a time. Changing multiple variables within the same campaign will not pinpoint the precise change resulting in improved performance. Instead of moving your logo to the right and moving copy to the top of the campaign during one send, space thesechanges out over two separate campaigns. Although painstaking and time consuming, proper A/B testing requires that each and every variable be isolated and its results recorded. Although it's not a quick process, the results speak for themselves, and all changes, however small, can actually have a dramatic effect in your overall click-through and/or conversion rates. |
About The Author
GOT Corporation’s Campaigner
products enable organizations to have
highly personalized one-to-one email dialogues with their customers.
The Campaigner Software-as-a-Service platform allows organizations to
quickly implement effective and relevant permission-based direct marketing
campaigns. Campaigner products enable organizations to communicate with
customers, measure how they respond, and analyse those responses to interact
in a more intelligent, automated way - resulting in more profitable relationships.
Founded in 1999, GOT partners with industry leaders including Yahoo!
and Salesforce.com; provides solutions to companies such as AT&T,
GlaxoSmithKline, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Speedo and to thousands of
small and medium-sized businesses.
permission | relevance | intelligence
If you are are looking for a solution to your email marketing and list management software needs we recommend IntelliContact. You can learn more about IntelliContact here.
