A/B split testing
Email marketing studies can only inform people of what works as an overview for others, but that may not be the same for you. As an enthusiastic email marketer, you will have been monitoring the reports and statistics of your previous sends and you will also have noticed that they are never quite the same. Open and click through rates always vary – and you’ve probably been wondering why that is. After all, your newsletters are all designed in the same template and style… does this sound familiar?
Email split tests help YOU find out what works for YOUR email marketing campaigns. To run an email split test, you create two or more messages (either with different subject lines or even different content) and send them to randomised, equal portions of your whole mailing list. You can then, automatically or manually, deliver the message with the best results, “the winner”, to the remainder of the list. AB split test takes speculation out of your email marketing strategy!
Here’s how:
With GraphicMail’s A/B split testing you have two options: The first option allows you to select 5 newsletters to compare - perhaps all with the same content, but in a different order or different images, or even slight changes in the design or content. (You can just compare 2 newslsetters there is no requirement to have 5 different newsletters.) Alternatively, you can test up to 5 different subject lines, for example varying in length or personalised. So, if you want to test your clicks in a newsletter, send test newsletters with different message content and links and if you want to test your opens, choose different subject lines for your test.
Once you’ve decided what criteria you’d like to test, you can then select the percentage of your mailing list you wish to test on. So, if you choose to send the test to 20 % of your mailing list and you want to compare 2 newsletters, then 10 % will receive Newsletter A and 10 % will receive Newsletter B. Once the report identifies which one was more successful, you then send the best newsletter to the remaining 80% of your mailing list. And don’t worry: The system keeps track of who received the test, and who received which version – so none of your subscribers will receive your newsletter twice! And best of all, you’ll get statistical report for your test sends quickly in a pop up window within your account.
Want to know more?
This is how AB split testing benefitted a major media company.