What is email A/B testing?
Email A/B testing is the process of sending out different versions of the same email to different subsets of a mailing list to see which one works best.
If you want a more in-depth understanding of this concept, check out the FAQ section below:
Question #1: How does email A/B testing work?
As we have seen in the previous section, email A/B testing entails sending variations of an email to small subsets of your mailing list to determine which version works best before sending it to everyone else.
But what types of variations are we talking about exactly? Well, while you can make small tweaks to virtually any aspect of your emails, the ones marketers tend to focus on are:
- The subject line
- The content
- The visuals
- The call to action
Let us take a closer look at each one:
First, making small changes to the subject line of your email can have a significant impact on its open rate. You can change its length, the words you use, the order of the words you use and add a touch of personalisation (e.g., adding the recipient’s first name).
Second, you can also make minor tweaks to the actual body of your email. Just like with the subject line, you can play around with different lengths, words, and word orders. In terms of personalisation, however, you can do so much more with the body of your email.
For example, if you are testing an upsell email, you can try out different personalised product suggestions based on the recipient’s most recent purchase.
Third, you can also play around with different types of graphic elements and photos to find out which ones work best with your target recipients.
Finally, you can also make minor changes to the calls to action you use to determine which ones result in the highest click-through rates.
The good news is that doing email A/B testing is super easy to do with most modern email marketing platforms. In fact, with some of them, all you have to do is create two versions of the email you want to test. The platform will handle the rest for you. It will automatically send each version to a separate subset of your email list and then send out the version that comes out on top to everyone else on your list.
Question #2: What are the benefits of it?
The main benefit of email A/B testing is that it provides you with data you can use to optimise your email marketing campaigns for maximum results instead of just sending out the first version you come up with and hoping for the best. Over time, you will accumulate data to know how to craft emails that your list wants to open.
Check this article from BigCommerce to know more about its benefits.
Question #3: What does email A/B testing measure?
The main things email A/B testing measures are your:
- Average open rate – how many of your recipients open your emails
- Click-to-open rate – how many of the recipients who opened your email clicked on a link it contains
- Click-through rate – how many of your total recipients clicked on a link in an email you sent out
Question #4: What do I do with my email A/B testing data?
As we have seen earlier, the main thing you do with it is used it to find out what works and what does not so you can optimise your email marketing campaigns for maximum results.
Question #5: Does it work?
The short answer is yes. It is a great way to get the data necessary to figure out what types of emails work best with a particular email list.
However, it does not actually directly improve your average open rate, click-to-open rate, and click-through rate. For that to happen, you will need to actually use the data you collect using it to optimise your email marketing campaigns.