The main focus of A/B testing is not to simply increase sales. It is to achieve knowledge so that you can understand the intent of your potential customers and create an experience for them. You will be able to predict their behavior and improve conversion rates.
Good copy and excellent design alone are not enough for a good conversion rate. A/B testing will help you with that.
Do you want to know what to test during A/B testing of a landing page and how to do it?
Keep reading to find out.
What is a landing page?
A landing page is not some page that tells Apollo 11 where to land on the Moon. But to be fair, it has something to do with the landing of some sort.
A landing page is a standalone web page that users are redirected to after they click on a link in an email, or ads from Google, Bing, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or other places on the internet.
It is called the landing page because this is a place where users “land” after clicking on a link.
Landing pages are not like other web pages. They don’t have many goals and don’t encourage exploration.
They have only one goal, to call to action, known also as CTA.
Landing pages are very important. It is where conversions will take place.
Conversion can be defined as any action that you want the visitors to do on your website.
It can be a purchase, price inquiry, membership signup, etc.
The landing page promotes a single offer together with ads. Their power lays in converting the traffic a brand is already getting. Every modern marketer uses a landing page as an essential marketing tool.
Learn more about landing pages in these blogs: How To Create An Effective Landing Page? How To Use The Serial Position Effect In Creating Effective Landing Pages?
What is A/B testing?
Now that we know what landing pages are let’s turn to A/B testing.
A/B testing involves comparing two versions of a marketing asset, versions A and B, and provides information about which one performs better.
A marketing asset can be any website or landing page which sells a specific product or service. It can also be an online or traditional ad. It is basically any asset used in marketing.
We use A/B testing to improve on the existing assets.
These variants (A and B) are randomly presented to users. A statistical analysis later determines which page performed better depending on the predefined KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).
Some of the key performance indicators are click-through rate, cost per lead, traffic-to-lead ratio, etc.
Split testing and A/B testing are very often used interchangeably but it shouldn’t be the case.
A/B testing is not the same as split testing.
A/B testing involves comparing two versions of your marketing asset by changing only one element.
Split testing compares two completely different designs.
Many people prefer A/B testing to split testing.
The reason why this is the case is when it comes to A/B testing you know which element contributes to the difference in data.
When you compare two different designs of the same page you don’t know which element made more conversions. Was it the color, image, or text?
WHAT SHOULD YOU BE TESTING WHEN A/B TESTING YOUR LANDING PAGE?
When doing A/B testing of your landing page you should decide what exactly you should test. Our recommendation is to think about these two things:
- Which landing page should you test?
- Which elements of that landing page you need to be testing?
1. Which landing page should you test?
If you only have one landing page this may seem to be a trivial question. But most websites will have more than one landing page for different offers, products they promote, etc.
When you have more than one landing page and limited traffic you are getting on them, the answer is not so simple.
Don’t forget that A/B tests take up time to collect enough data and need traffic. To select the landing page you will invest in, you need to consider these parameters:
- Does that page contribute a lot to your bottom line? (For example, number of leads of signups)
- Is there an issue that is preventing that page to perform better? (high bounce rate, for example)
- Does that page have decent traffic?
2. The elements of a landing page you need to be A/B testing
When you are doing A/B testing of your landing page you should focus on:
- CTA button
- Images
- Headlines
- Copy
- Form Inputs
A/B testing for Landing Page CTA button
When it comes to the CTA button, these three things are important and should be tested
- copy
- placement
- design
1. CTA button copy
How you phrase your CTA (Call-To-Action) button will determine its success. You should carefully think about exactly how you wish your leads to interpret what you are saying.
Ask yourself are the words you are using and message clear and descriptive enough for the users. Are they going to know what to expect when they click on the button?
You can basically say the same thing but in different ways and test how the leads will react to them.
For example, your control CTA could say “Get my free guide” and the test could say “Get your free guide”.
You should do more than one A/B test on a page to make sure which phrase will get better results.
2. CTA button placement
Very important when it comes to A/B testing for the CTA landing page button is placement.
In the past, people believed that you should place CTA above the fold. The fold can be seen without scrolling down your website.
But you may want to rethink this strategy depending on the type of your product.
Potential customers may need to know more about the product before they choose to purchase it. In this case, you should choose to place the CTA button lower on the page.
It is not a good idea to place the CTA button before the description of your product. You want people to first understand what you are offering.
3. CTA button design
Changing the design is very likely the easiest and fastest way to test how visitors react to the website.
It is perfect for conducting A/B testing on.
You should think about which color describes your brand the most and ask yourself the following questions.
Is your ideal buyer going to react to it or not?
Is your audience mostly male or female?
How are they going to react to a certain color?
You should consider testing the text color and the button color of your CTA button to see which one brings the best results.
A/B testing for Landing Page Images
Design is very important when it comes to AB testing for landing pages. The image you have chosen may deter people from your page, so choose carefully.
As aesthetics are important, choosing an image just for the sake of having an image can have a detrimental effect on the success of your marketing efforts.
This is why you should test to see which one is the best for your purpose. Don’t forget that an image can be a logo too.
The use of images on landing pages has become more popular recently. You should test different images or even a video. You can also test does your landing page even needs an image or not.
A/B testing for Headlines of your Landing Page
Headlines are very important and properly phrased one can make or break your landing page. It is all about the first impression, and the first impression only comes once.
Your HEADLINE and sub-headline should be STRONG and CLEAR. You have to phrase it in a way that it generates trust and helps its readers choose you.
Even if you believe that you made it perfect the first time, we suggest that you A/B test it too.
Do A/B testing of your headline by changing only a few keywords or the entire headline.
We are not saying that you are not good at phrasing headlines, but A/B testing of your landing page headline will ensure that you are getting the most out of your landing page.
You should always think about customer experience, not your own. A deep understanding of your product and customers is needed when you are testing headlines.
Different keywords will have different responses. For example, “Schedule your free appointment” or “Schedule your free consultation”.
You may feel that the difference among these headlines is insignificant, but people may react better to one of these versions. You will never know which one unless you test it.
A/B testing for the Copy of your Landing Page
Emotion plays a very big role in purchasing. As a famous quote by Seth Godin states:
“People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories, and magic.”
Some do not agree with this statement calling Seth Godin a dreamer and that they don’t need a relationship with their toilet paper.
But for most cases, we agree with Seth Godin. A good story sells. And what does a good story create? The answer is emotion.
Not only stories create emotion. Influencers do, especially on social media. And that is exactly what you want to do. Evoke emotion with your customers.
A copy should attract them, make them stop, and read. And to do that you have to come up with something meaningful, something similar to when you smell freshly baked cookies and can’t resist getting one.
It should be irresistible to ignore. Page-fillers will only fill your page with unnecessary content and waste your space without providing potential value.
You can use customer reviews if you have them. People tend to trust what other customers have said about the company more than what the company says about itself.
But don’t neglect one part of the page copy for the other. The entire landing page has to be carefully thought out.
It doesn’t matter if the content of the page is filled with emotion when you haven’t anchored visitors’ attention with an eye-catching headline.
If the headline hasn’t grabbed the reader’s attention, they may not even see the rest of the page.
Even though the headlines are small, they have enormous power.
When the headline draws people in, the content should get people to stay and make them do the desired action. If this doesn’t happen your CTA (Call To Action) copy needs to be improved.
You improve on the CTA copy of your landing page by A/B testing it.
It is important to remember that the headline, body, and CTA copy are vital for your landing page. They must complement each other. You will find out the best way they do it by the A/B testing.
A/B testing of your Landing page Form Inputs
When it comes to the Form Inputs you will include on your landing page, some practices have proven to be better than others.
The number of fields you are using and what you are asking should be carefully planned out.
Name and email address are good enough for simple signup for joining a newsletter or mailing list.
But you will want to collect more info if you are offering, let’s say, a guidebook for beginner vegetarian meals. You want to instill a bit more trust by asking for more than basic personal info.
A masterfully crafted attention-grabbing copy of your CTA button is not enough if the rest of your landing page is not up to the task. As we previously mentioned, all elements of your landing page should work together to achieve your goal.
So, you should carefully plan what data to collect in the form of inputs and, of course, A/B test it to make sure you are getting the most out of it.
Very important tip: DON’T FORGET OPTIMIZING FOR MOBILE PHONES.
As studies have proven that people are mostly browsing the internet using their phones, mobile optimization is very important.
Just because something looks great and works smoothly on your computer screen, it doesn’t have to be the case for mobile phones.
Make sure to do all the necessary adjustments so that users can access your landing page smoothly and conveniently from their phones too.
HOW TO PERFORM LANDING PAGE A/B TESTING?
Now that you know which landing page and its elements to test, we would like to tell you about some of the best ways to perform landing page A/B testing.
Our tips when performing landing page A/B testing are:
- Run a single test at a time
- Test one thing at a time
- Test at the same time
- Test the sales funnel
- Keep running a control test
1. Run a single test at a time
You don’t want to do A/B testing of a landing page at the same time you are testing the method that got the traffic to the page.
To determine what causes the shift in leads you need to do one test at a time. That way you will get the most accurate results that will help you in your marketing strategy.
2. Test one thing at a time
If not all the time, at the beginning you will want to make small changes and test the results. Changing a headline, CTA button, or an image are the perfect choices, to begin with.
If you are looking at too much at the same time during A/B testing, you will not know exactly which element is producing which results.
This will create confusion and you will not know which element brought the best results.
3. Test at the same time
You want to do A/B testing of both pages at the same time. This is how you will get the most accurate comparison between them.
The traffic will be automatically split to each version randomly ensuring the most accurate comparison information.
4. Test the sales funnel
A small reminder: The sales funnel, also known as a revenue funnel of the sales process, refers to two things.
The first is a buying process through which companies lead customers when purchasing products.
The second refers to a process in which a company finds, qualifies, and sells products to its customers.
As you already know it is extremely important to ensure that the right people see the right thing, at a tight time. This is why the sales funnel exists in the first place.
Your landing pages may generate new leads but are those leads converting into paying customers? You should follow those new leads to find out.
5. Keep running a control test
If you want to change a word in your headline as a part of your landing page A/B testing, you should run and test this change against the original.
In this way, you will see if the change has a positive or negative effect.
The best tools for A/B landing page testing
This is a topic by itself so we will only briefly mention the tools we find to work the best. Feel free to tell us about other tools you find useful that are not on our list.
- Google Analytics
- VMO
- Optimizely
- AB Tasty
- Adobe Target
- Convert
- Crazy Egg
- Freshmarketer
To sum up
To achieve your goal of increasing conversion on your site, among other things, you have to learn about your customers and their behavior.
The A/B testing will provide the information you are seeking. But DON’T STOP TESTING. Things change and there is always room for improvement.
To ensure that your landing pages are as effective as possible you should keep doing the A/B testing.
WE ARE MORE THAN HAPPY TO HELP YOU DURING YOUR DIGITAL MARKETING ENDEAVORS.
We hope that this guide was helpful to you. If you need further assistance in A/B testing for landing pages feel free to contact us.
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