A/B testing should absolutely be in your marketing toolkit. You’re investing so much to get people to your website, whether it’s ad spend, SEO efforts, or affiliate partnerships. With that much invested in getting website visitors, you want to get as much value as possible out of that traffic.
A/B testing can be complex, but you can start simple.
A Few Different Options for What You Can Test:
1. The Order of Elements on a Page
We recently tested moving a video from the middle of a tour page to the top of a tour page, and we saw a meaningful improvement in the conversion rate, specifically for mobile devices.
2. Call to Action Buttons
We’ve seen instances where just changing the button text from something like “Book Now” to “Check Availability” has had a meaningful impact on conversion rates.
We don’t always see an improvement with changes this small, and the same button text doesn’t perform the same for different clients, but you might pick up an easy win here.
3. Headlines or Other Copy
This is really easy to do. If you’re not sure which headline or message is going to work the best, don’t just guess. Try it, and see what works.
4. Entire Page Redesigns
When we want to try changing a lot of elements, we often just create a brand new page and then split the traffic between the two. Sometimes we’ve seen the new page win, and sometimes we’ve seen it lose, even when we expected it to win. Gathering this data is really important. You don’t want to launch a new page and assume it’s performing better, especially when it’s not. And conversely, when the new page wins, it’s really helpful to know so that you can apply those same wins to other pages.
How to Get Started
- To run A/B tests, you’re going to need an A/B testing tool that handles traffic routing and statistics. We are currently using convert.com, but there are other tools available, too.
- Follow the instructions very carefully for setup, including your conversion tracking. This can be a little tricky and might require help from your web developers or your technical marketers.
Now, even if you’ve never run A/B tests on your website before, give it a try and see if some minor adjustments help you convert more of your hard-earned visitors.
