What should you A/B Test?
Now that we know what A/B split testing is, here is a list of a few of the most important things you should be regularly analyzing in your email campaigns.
Time of send
Most marketers send emails first thing in the morning. However, this depends on the location of your recipients, among other things. Does sending your email campaign at 5:00 a.m. give you better results than sending at 8:00 a.m.? How will you know unless you test? Testing send time is the solution. Your test may suggest that sending email at 8:00 a.m. has far better email open rate than that sent at 5:00 a.m. The only way to know for sure is to continually A/B test.
Day of send
Which day is apt for your campaign to send emails to your subscribers? Whether it should be mid week or over the weekend? Well, this also depends on who you are sending emails to. An A/B split test might tell you that Wednesday is a better day than Thursday to send out emails. Remember to also consider holidays, as they also affect people’s email reading habits.
Subject line
The subject line is a preview of what your recipients can expect in the email. It is often what people use to decide whether or not to open your email. For this reason, you want to make sure your subject line is optimized to maximize your clicks. Your subject line should be concise and informative while enticing your recipients to open and click your email.
From line
To avoid deletion or being reported as spam, make sure your from line is easily identifiable by your recipients. When someone receives your email, who will appear in the “from” line? People tend to first look at the sender then the subject line to see if they believe the email is worth opening.
Layout
A well-organized layout increases conversions and leads while a poorly constructed layout has the opposite effect. It doesn’t matter how pretty your email looks if it doesn’t perform. Create multiple layouts and test them to see how they compare. Do bigger pictures or buttons make a difference? Should you have more text or less?
Content
Good content is essential to successful email marketing. You can do everything else perfectly, but if you don’t have compelling, first-rate content, your email marketing efforts will be a disaster. Find out what types of content works best for your target audience by creating different articles and offers and A/B split testing them. Don’t forget to test and analyze the wording of titles, as well.
Time of send
Most marketers send emails first thing in the morning. However, this depends on the location of your recipients, among other things. Does sending your email campaign at 5:00 a.m. give you better results than sending at 8:00 a.m.? How will you know unless you test? Testing send time is the solution. Your test may suggest that sending email at 8:00 a.m. has far better email open rate than that sent at 5:00 a.m. The only way to know for sure is to continually A/B test.
Day of send
Which day is apt for your campaign to send emails to your subscribers? Whether it should be mid week or over the weekend? Well, this also depends on who you are sending emails to. An A/B split test might tell you that Wednesday is a better day than Thursday to send out emails. Remember to also consider holidays, as they also affect people’s email reading habits.
Subject line
The subject line is a preview of what your recipients can expect in the email. It is often what people use to decide whether or not to open your email. For this reason, you want to make sure your subject line is optimized to maximize your clicks. Your subject line should be concise and informative while enticing your recipients to open and click your email.
From line
To avoid deletion or being reported as spam, make sure your from line is easily identifiable by your recipients. When someone receives your email, who will appear in the “from” line? People tend to first look at the sender then the subject line to see if they believe the email is worth opening.
Layout
A well-organized layout increases conversions and leads while a poorly constructed layout has the opposite effect. It doesn’t matter how pretty your email looks if it doesn’t perform. Create multiple layouts and test them to see how they compare. Do bigger pictures or buttons make a difference? Should you have more text or less?
Content
Good content is essential to successful email marketing. You can do everything else perfectly, but if you don’t have compelling, first-rate content, your email marketing efforts will be a disaster. Find out what types of content works best for your target audience by creating different articles and offers and A/B split testing them. Don’t forget to test and analyze the wording of titles, as well.