A/B Testing: What Is It and Why Perform It?

Introduction

Small- and mid-sized online businesses of today have more advantages than before. Although A/B testing has been in existence for years, today's innovative online tools make testing simpler and more economical than ever.

Countless studies have shown the strength of A/B testing and how it boosts conversion rates. Although large companies previously benefited from this method, any of today's online businesses, no matter the size, can now gain access to these powerful advantages.

What Is A/B Testing?

Also known as split testing, A/B testing happens when two versions of a similar item, such as a campaign email, are shown to the consumer for x amount of time. After comparing each item's results with pre-selected metrics, you can detect the more effective version that should be used from now on. Many types of actions, including SEO and email marketing, implement A/B tests.

A/B testing allows owners of online stores to assess the impact of every detail, whether that be your homepage design or CTA buttons. This will help you learn what exact words, color scheme, prices, or any other variants have greater influence over consumers to open and respond to your CTA. Once you realize which version brings the best results among each group of visitors, you can use this version for all of your audience.

The most minute details in each group can have a huge impact on rates of conversion. What online business owners believe might not make a difference, such as the type of font or text size in a CTA button, might turn out to be a crucial factor for a customer's decision to click. Having gone through multiple A/B testing, a business owner can find that even minuscule differences in wording, color scheme, prices, and other factors can drastically change shopping behaviors.

Ecommerce Benefits of A/B Testing

There are numerous benefits for businesses that implement A/B testing in their online marketing strategy. Here are a few:

• Awareness of Consumers and Marketing

Consumers are becoming more discriminating and will quickly locate an alternative if their first choice has given them a negative user experience.

Whether their negative experience stems from a site's entire user experience or only a certain part, A/B testing will allow you to glean enough data to make a proper determination either way.

• Boost In Conversion Rates

The main advantage of A/B testing is improving conversion rates. That is, it enhances the results of each website visit. You can get a firsthand glimpse of which test option is more preferable to your audience and will encourage further conversions once implemented sitewide.

• Lower Bounce Rates

Higher conversions mean reduced bounce rates. While you notice which alternative is favorable to customers, you can also observe which options have been proven unfavorable and omit them from the site. As a result, fewer customers will quickly abandon your site due to having a favorable user experience.

• No More Speculative Decisions

Despite the best online marketers, only about a quarter of marketing decisions end up successful. With an approximate three-quarters failure rate, A/B testing assists in increasing the number of positive outcomes. These winning decisions aren't a result of guesswork but, rather, are from how consumers react to certain variables.

• Avoids Complications With SEO

Updating SEO indiscriminately could lead to adverse effects on the ranking and traffic of your site. Because it takes a long time for SEO to become effective, it's more difficult to fix poor SEO strategies. However, with A/B testing, you can pinpoint what new strategies are the best and keep what already works to avoid future problems.

• Low or No Cost Tools

It was once costly to do A/B testing, making it financially out of reach for small businesses. But today, things have changed. Free innovative tools such as Google Analytics and Optimizely are now available. These can be used to conduct A/B testing and data gathering while gaining a helpful understanding of their websites.

• Immediate Results

The greatest thing about A/B testing is that, depending on your site's typical traffic, the results of your work can be seen within one or two days. As additional traffic comes to your site, you'll acquire more data. Through this, you'll have an early start to find which version is most popular, allowing prompt decisions to be made about your site's user experience and begin applying immediate changes.

Conclusion

Conducting A/B testing is a productive method for enhancing your entire site. Through running real-time, controlled tests, you can monitor your site traffic to glean important information to enhance your site for better conversions.