The Importance of A/B Testing

Nothing helps to back up your opinion than actual data from your actual customers. And that is where A/B testing really comes into play. 

Have you heard of A/B testing or split testing? The team at Rockar tech loves to run various A/B tests, but before we get into the details about the different tests we have completed and the results we have got, let’s try to understand what they are first. 

A/B testing is a method of comparing two different versions of a website or app against each other to determine which one performs better. There are so many elements of a website that you can change that can help you achieve your goal. 

The main reason behind A/B testing is to learn more about your customers behaviours and how they interact with your website. It is so easy to put our own opinions into place when we think about customer journeys and landing page layouts, but what a better source than actual real life customers. So not only can the tests improve important metrics, but it can also improve the experience for users – and who doesn’t want to provide a simple journey to checkout for our customers? 

Now for some example tests you could run: Let’s say you want to increase the number of people who click on your Buy Now button, so you can change the colour, the location, the size and the wording and pretty much anything else you can think of. For each test you must only change one element at a time and see which variation brings the most clicks. Once the data is in, you can analyse it and make the change permanent or stick with the original. 

So now let’s talk about some of the amazing results we have seen from our A/B tests:

– 100% increase in offer nav clicks simply by changing colour

– 60% increase in baskets by moving cta up the page

– double conversion rate by showing refundable deposit before checkout

As you can see from these results, we cannot recommend A/B testing enough. If you want to give A/B testing a go for yourself, here are a few helpful tips to keep in mind:

  • Start with data: When looking for a page to optimise, look for a page with a low conversion rate or a high drop off. Pages with high traffic will help you to gather data quicker. 
  • Set goals and track them: Make sure you track your goals, these can be anything from clicking a button to making a purchase. This will be the best way to see if the new variation is better.  
  • Generate hypothesis: Once you’ve highlighted a goal you can begin generating A/B testing ideas and hypotheses for why you think they will be better than the current version. Once you have a list of ideas, sort them in terms of expected impact and difficulty of implementation.
  • Create variations: Using your A/B testing software (like Google Optimize), make the changes to an element of your website. Most of the A/B testing tools have a visual editor that will make these changes easy. 
  • Run your experiment: Start your experiment and wait for visitors to provide your data. At this point, visitors to your site will be randomly assigned to either the control or variation. Their interaction with each experience is measured, counted and compared to determine how each performs.
  • Analyse results: Once your experiment is complete, you need to analyse the results. Your A/B testing software will present the data from the experiment and show you the difference between how the two versions of your page performed and whether there is a statistically significant difference.
  • Implement the best: Once you have your winner make the changes to your site and see your metrics improve. 

The number of A/B tests you can run on your website is pretty much endless, but if you would like some support in getting the most out of your pages and the traffic they receive, get in touch to find out how. 

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