July 20, 2020

When using digital media to advertise your business, a lot of trial and error occurs to improve and maximize the amount of performance you get out of your advertising methods.

For instance, in some advertising campaigns, certain keywords may do better than others or on landing pages, some call-to-action buttons work better at the bottom of the page than the top.

Understanding what converts better and why will help you improve your marketing methods and provide your business with a boost. 

One way of maximizing landing pages, buttons, and ad campaigns is through A/B testing.

What Is A/B Testing?

The term A/B testing is often used interchangeably with split testing, despite there being two different types of testing methods. A/B testing is often done with webpages, emails, or marketing assets, whereas split testing is applied to distinct designs. 

When you run an A/B test, you compare two versions of your marketing asset but change one or two elements, such as an image or a call-to-action and see which one does better.

With split testing, you would compare two versions of your marketing asset with completely unique designs. 

Why Should You Run A/B Testing?

It is important to run A/B testing on various marketing materials, such as ad campaigns, landing pages, and emails because it can tell you what hinders or helps sales.

It can give you an in-depth insight into what images, phrases, videos, colors, and testimonials work best and how simple changes can directly impact your conversion rates.

Running a landing page with a red “Get Started” button might garner 21% more clicks than running your landing page with a green “Get Started” button. 

How to Use A/B Testing with AdWords Campaigns? 

There are two ways you can run an A/B test.

The first is through your paid media platform with search only or display online advertising campaigns, and the second is directly through a campaign experiment in AdWords or Analytics.

With the first test run, you can test things like bounce rate from different landing pages or call-to-action conversion ratios.

With the second test run, you can test different variations of your advertising copy, your bid strategies, your device settings, and more. 

1. A/B Testing with Paid Media Platforms

The idea behind running an A/B test through your paid media platforms like AdWords or Bing Ads is to determine specific variables that change or impact performance.  This type of test is great for running two similar landing pages against one another to see which one outperforms the other and why.

Rather than changing your ad copy, you are running the exact same ad copy but changing up the landing page the user is directed too.

This allows you to monitor the conversions and bounce rate on both landing pages.

The one that outperforms the other should be the one used in all of your campaigns.  To run this test properly, all of your campaigns need to rotate evenly so each one is shown equally to your audience. 

2. A/B Testing with Campaign Experiments  

The idea behind running an A/B test through a campaign experiment gives you the flexibility to test different settings of top-performing campaigns without jeopardizing their overall performance. 

For instance, with this type of test you could make structural changes to your campaign, change what devices the ad can be shown on, or even change up the bid strategies used with it. 

To run this type of test, you will need to create a draft, make the changes to your campaigns, and then run it as an experiment in AdWords. 

If you want to run an A/B experiment campaign test using Google analytics, you are tied to comparing either landing pages or the content from traffic.

While you can test variations of your landing pages and split the traffic, you will be required to set up additional code to run the experiment. 

What Do You Need to Know to Test Effectively?

Before implementing your A/B tests, you will need to determine the objective or goal of the test and what variables need to be tested to determine this goal. 

For instance, you may need to tie the test to a landing page or a specific call-to-action. 

You will need to have enough traffic to run the test against and you will need to implement the test for long enough to get enough exposure on it. 

But by running A/B tests on a regular basis, you can increase your conversion rates, keep yourself competitive, and learn more about your audience. 

In doing this, your advertising will become more effective and give your business a boost.

For more information on how to effectively set A/B testing for your business digital campaigns, please contact us today!