Traffic acquisition costs are becoming more and more expensive.
Conversion rate optimization has become the mainstay of war: instead of buying traffic, marketers are now interested in converting current visitors. Here comes the dilemma: how could you possibly increase the number of buyers with the same number of visitors?
A/B testing is generally thought of as being the most valuable technique to increase conversion rate. Marketers are focusing their efforts on creating variations of a single page. Keeping the best version almost comes naturally, considering there are many key performance indicators that let you know what sticks and what doesn’t.
There are two main reasons why marketers started loving A/B testing.
The first one is pecuniary, but most things in marketing and advertising are so. For instance, testing tools such as AB Tasty are affordable for everyone, regardless of their technical knowledge. And thanks to an online graphic editor, marketers do not even have to code their variations. This requires low investment both in money and in time.
Yet there’s something to always keep in mind. Even if the implementation of tests is quick and easy to perform, the actual development of their hypothesis has to take time. After all, tests should be based on a deep analysis of a landing page and on data coming from analytics. These ones are more likely to provide good results instead of the ones that are simply based on intuition.
The second reason why marketers give credit to A/B testing is that they can easily estimate the increase in their turnover. This can happen precisely and effectively. Every test allows marketers to visualize exactly how much money they’ve made with the help of one variation or another. It’s also possible to follow the global conversion. In this sense, the use of such a testing tool becomes easily justifiable.
Aside from bringing money, A/B testing reveals information about your content and your customers.
Users react differently to tests and the impact the latter may have on user behavior leaves room for interpretation.
Let’s take this basic example: Say you’re an ecommerce website owner. Let’s assume that your conversion rate went up by 10%, after performing a text on the cart page, which included a sentence about the safety of payment. After having analyzed the results, you realize that the performance of returning visitors and the performance of new visitors are two different notions.
Suppose the test has a little to no impact on returning visitors, but increases the conversion of new ones. You earned your money, but you also learned a precious piece of advice: new users are skeptical. You need to make sure this audience segment understands that the website is undoubtedly safe to use. Nothing’s stopping you from going on: you can tests the impact of your customers’ comments. You can even try a new payment method.
That’s why marketers love testing.
A/B testing is a high return on investment in terms of money and in terms of audience data.
Alix de Sagazan is the co-founder of AB Tasty, the French leader in A/B testing. AB Tasty is a SaaS (Software as a Service) solution aimed at web marketing teams, that enabling them to carry out A/B testing autonomously. Started in 2011, the enterprise already has 28 people on the team and is trusted by more than 200 big players on the French market and worldwide: Microsoft, Photobox, Etam, AXA, Carrefour, France Television.
Image source: e-consultancy, 2013
