What is Split Testing in Email and How to Do it Correctly
Where the Path Diverges
Exploring the world of data can be like a little kid in a candy store. There are so many choices to make – licorice, lollipops, and chocolates, etc. – but alas a kid’s budget only goes so far.
The same goes for the world of split testing in email marketing. Sure, you can decide to throw up an A to Z split test with 101 variations, but unless you have enough data samples and a heavyweight data analyst, it might be very hard sifting through the mounds of data to see what produces the best results.
The key is to see where the path diverges. Many times, it is not only hard to see this but to also understand what changes were put into place that caused this.
The Proper Marketing Approach for Split Testing
Therefore, a more conservative approach might be a better choice for producing better long-term results. In my career, email marketing best practices have shown that the “tweak here and a little fix there” approach yields not only greater improvements, but gives marketers a higher sense of awareness of what makes their customers tick.
Split testing in email is similar to other digital marketing areas; however, since you control the audience, you can decide what to split test, whom to split test to, and when to split test with far greater precision.
10 Split Testing Ideas You Should Probably Try
So today, I want to suggest 10 ideas for a/b split testing email marketing strategies that are specifically geared for the content of the email.
As for the goal of the email marketing campaign – well that can change. You can either be focused on customer conversion (think $ and sales) or just on clicks (think of sites that use email marketing as a tool to bring in web traffic) – but to simplify things, let’s just focus the email marketing ab testing goal as pure click through to open rates.
1. The Perfect Length for an Email Marketing Campaign
How long should an email be? Well, long enough to get someone to click on to your site. And if that’s your goal, try testing variable lengths of content.
For more on this subject, please check out this article: Why the Length of Your Email Matters
Guest post on the Inbox Expo blog By Shmuel Herschberg
2. Give Your Email Marketing Campaigns Some Style
What tone should my email be in? Here people are talking about setting up their email marketing campaign like a newsletter – or something I like to refer to as a generic magazine style – or if they should do a more personalized letter from the brand manager.
Well, there is only way to find out!
3. Should Email Marketing be More Personal?
Speaking of personalization. Here’s a quick idea you might want to test: Try sprinkling in some %%FNAME%%’s (i.e., a subscriber’s first name with a merge field) in or near the call to action links and see if a personalized approach elicits a higher CTA.
Remember, people are scanning and there’s nothing more flattering than seeing one’s name… well, maybe… and there’s only one way to find out.
4. Images in Email
Can images improve the click-through rates? How about the image type? Always be sure to compress your images so they are not too heavy, but try playing around with different image types to help bolster your conversion rates.
5. It’s Cold Out There… Button Up Your Email!
Here’s a good question about buttons: do they make things more clickable or less personable? If it’s the former skip this and select another option from my email marketing ab test ideas. If you are not sure, try split testing this in your next email marketing campaign and see for yourself.
I can see B2C brands that have a big personal connection lose clicks with buttons because the reader feels that the writer lost that personal touch. Seriously, when was the last time you included a button when you wrote an email!
6. LINK THIS!
Color matters? Size matters? SCREAMING matters? Like this article professes, split testing email marketing campaigns is not about knowing the right answer; rather, it’s about posing the right question to your audience. And tinkering with the color of your call to action links, or the font size, or making it outright ALL CAPS can potentially have an effect on the click-through rates.
7. So, for the 127th Time, How Many Links Should an Email Have?
That’s a great question. In general, I take the approach that people want to read – or skim – through your email before deciding to take action, so I would avoid opening an email marketing campaign with “Click here.”
However, if you are persuasive, you might get them to click earlier on – or perhaps a final PS line might do the trick – and there’s really only one way to know: split test an email campaign with version A having just one main call to action at the bottom versus version B, which would have that same CTA but it would be accompanied with several other links interspersed throughout the email.
8. A Smorgasbord of Links
The previous point focused on links to the same page, which begs the question: should an email link to multiple pages or just focus on getting traffic into one funnel?
If you’ve got a big announcement to make or want people to see a particular article then you should focus your efforts on just that one page – an all or nothing approach. However, if that is not the case, why limit your efforts to just one link?
Sure, you can decide to just serve up a whole buffet of content for people to click on, but if you want to be certain that this is the right approach, then test it.
9. Don’t Forget the Font
Do fonts matter? This might be more of a branding issue and I don’t advocate going off-brand, but if there is some wiggle room here try split testing different fonts. Just remember that most fonts do not render in email, so stick to the basics.
10. Does Size Matter?
And while we’re talking about fonts, let’s also explore the font size. With people reading emails on mobile devices be sure to make sure your emails are readable.
Finally, always keep in mind that people are skimming emails so having a large font can have a positive effect.
How large?
Well, by now you should know the answer: there is no one size fits all answer. Split test it and see for yourself.
