A/B split testing and multivariate testing: what to test first

Eva Maria Schmidt
August 2, 2012

In order to improve relevance and efficiency of our marketing efforts, it’s obviously important to test! Testing, improving and increasing conversion by working in a more personalized way, is an essential component of Selligent, that offer several ways to test (A/B, multivariate).

The question is: what do you test and improve first? You can’t test and improve everything at the same time. Marketing optimization is a continuous process. Of course, the best way to define what to test first is to know what the potential impact is of all elements you test – and improve.

In an excerpt of MarketingSherpa’s recent Email Marketing Benchmark Report, there is an interesting chart, mentioned by Dr. Dave Chaffey, showing what elements marketers most often and which deliver the best results when optimized. Conclusion: there is a gap between what we test and what we should be testing from an efficiency viewpoint.

A perfect example is the subject line, the most commonly tested element. As Dave Chaffey rightfully says: because it’s the easiest to test. However, testing subject lines does not lead to the best improvement possibilities and results; testing the target audience and next the landing page does.

Testing and prioritization: focus on what can work and what does not work first

Testing increases conversions by seeing what your segments like most. A/B split testing allows you to find which content is most effective on your websites and create different versions of your emails, whether it concerns the subject line, image or copy. And with multivariate testing (MVT), you can carry out several split tests on different elements simultaneously.

However, it’s not only about using the right tools; it’s also about picking the elements to test that will lead to the best results. And, last but not least, focus on testing the elements where you have conversion issues to solve from a customer-centric perspective: those that make the customer journey harder.

Of course, you can test everything after a while but prioritize, keeping these two tips in mind.

According to MarketingSherpa, the five most effective elements to test are (in order of decreasing importance):

Test the water with A/B split testing and improve conversions with multivariate testing today with Selligent. The segmentation and personalization features of Selligent allow you to increase conversions even more. Note that personalization and testing the target audience (and thus also targeting and segmentation) are both in the top five.

With Selligent you can do it all. Request our brochure or contact us for a free demo today.

Have questions? Let us know!

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