Let’s be honest. The chances of you writing a flawless email on the first try are slim to none. It would be amazing if you could write compelling, engaging and high-converting emails without breaking a sweat, but, unfortunately, that’s not how email marketing works.
The average person receives around 122 emails a day. You need to make sure your emails stand out in a cluttered inbox. You can build a bulletproof email marketing strategy by sending targeted emails on relevant topics, creating specific landing pages for specific email campaigns, and, above all, A/B testing your emails.
How can you improve your emails without testing what works and what doesn’t? When whipping up your first homemade batch of red velvet cupcakes, you experiment with ingredients until you’ve created the perfect masterpiece. It’s the same with A/B email testing (except without the finger-licking good cream cheese icing).
What is A/B testing?
First things first, what does A/B testing emails even mean? A/B testing, also known as split testing, involves sending two slightly different variations of an email to your audience to see how small changes can impact your results. A/B testing allows you to fine tune your emails. You can test how different factors affect your conversion rates and engagement levels.
For example, you could test any of these variables:
- subject
- headline
- page layout
- call-to-action (CTA)
- body text
- image
- closing text
- your offer
It’s important to only test one variable at a time. For example, if you change the subject line AND the closing text in one email, you won’t know which change led to a significant increase in leads.
Or test the entire email itself…
While you can test a CTA button color or a headline, you can also try making the entire email your variable by sending two completely different emails. This type of testing can yield the biggest wins, but you may want to start off slowly and make smaller tweaks first.
How to decide what to test
Look closely at the various elements you can test including layout, color scheme, etc. Remember factors such as personalization, as well. Think about where your problem lies. Are your email open rates rapidly declining? Start with the subject line. Are your CTAs overlooked or just plain ignored? Try changing the button color or action verb. What you test really depends on your business and your email performance rates.
Keep one email as the “control”
When you decide what you want to test, keep one email the same, always. We learned in 4th grade what a control is - a constant and unchanging standard in experimentation - and our 4th grade teacher wasn’t lying when she said the definition would prove useful someday! Test version A (the current version) against B (the altered version) and see which version performs best.
Randomize your groups
This is not your old little black book where you listed your contacts by “besties” and “frenemies.” Select the email lists at random when splitting up your contacts. You can decide on the group size. For the most part, you’ll want to send the emails to your entire email list to maximize your results (UNLESS you’re testing something extreme that you don’t want the masses to see).
Analyzing your results
After running the two campaigns, you obviously want to see how the two email campaigns performed. There are a few different metrics you’ll want to take a look at:
- open rates
- click-through rates
- conversion rates after they’ve visited your website
Monitoring all of the above metrics is critical for optimizing your marketing emails. You want to cover all ground here. If you’re happy with your open rates, but your click-through rates are embarrassing, you may need to switch out your offer.
Or, your readers may be clicking on the CTAs, but not downloading your white paper or scheduling a consultation once they’ve reached your landing page. In this case, you may want to uplift your landing page and take inventory of your copy.
Timing is everything
Make sure to test your emails simultaneously and often. The time of day, month or year can have an impact on your campaigns. Avoid sending the emails at different times, or it can throw off your whole test.
A/B testing your emails is a simple way to improve your open, click-through and conversion rates. Before you test anything, think about how your customers actually read your emails. Do they only convert when an email is personalized? Do they avoid salesy emails like the plague? Get to know your audience, and use this insight to create emails they’ll love.
