Have you ever wondered how to supercharge your email campaigns? What exactly should you change in your email for better results? Is it your subject line, call to action, or email design? There’s only one way to truly know the answer to your questions: by conducting an A/B test.
But running an A/B test isn’t something you do without a plan. Today, we dive deep into email A/B testing and how to implement it successfully.
What’s A/B Testing in Email Marketing?
A/B testing in email marketing is a process that involves comparing different versions of an email campaign to find out how each one will perform in real life. This process is also known as split testing, and aims to improve email campaigns.
In email A/B testing, typically, you send two variations of a particular email to two different samples of your email subscribers. Then you look for which one gets more opens, clicks, conversions, etc.
Here’s an illustration for clarity:
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For example, in an email A/B test, you can have the same email content with different subject lines. The idea is to determine the best-performing email, often called the winning email, from the sample test, so you can send it to the rest of your subscribers.
The Benefits of A/B Testing in Email Marketing
Email marketing is a critical component of any eCommerce, B2B, or SaaS marketing strategy. That’s why brands go to great lengths to build their email lists.
Some invest in assets and share them for free as lead magnets to collect email addresses. Other marketers even use a digital business card for seamless collection of first-party contact data at industry and networking events to follow up with leads. But you can’t reap the benefits of email marketing if you don’t optimize your campaigns in the first place.
An A/B test helps you optimize your email campaigns. For this, it can do the following:
- Improves Open Rates
Email open rates refer to how many recipients open your email when it gets to their inbox. Through an A/B test, you get a better idea of what works for your audiences.
For instance, what type of subject line will get them to open the email? Or, what time of day are they more likely to open an email? With this information, you’ll be able to adjust future email campaigns for better results.
- Enhances Click-Through Rates
Factors like your email content or design can determine if recipients click on links within your email. Through A/B testing, you’ll understand how best to structure your emails based on how your samples perform. This allows you to enhance the click-through rates of your future emails.
- Elevates Conversion Rates and Boosts Sales
Conversion rate refers to how many email recipients perform your desired action based on the call to action within your email. Typically, conversions will take recipients from your email to your website or dedicated landing page where they can eventually make a purchase.
As a marketer, you can drive more conversions by optimizing your emails based on A/B test results.
Note that conversions on your landing page may depend on how the page is designed. So as you test your emails, you also want to A/B test your landing pages to optimize them for conversions.
Overall, A/B testing improves the efficiency of email marketing campaigns. This can also help to streamline your email marketing efforts. Since you already know what works best for your audience, you can better manage your time and overall productivity when designing email campaigns.
What Can You A/B Test for Optimal Results?
Now, let us look closely into some crucial elements of your emails that you can A/B test for optimal results.
- Subject Lines
Email subject lines are pretty much what your recipients will see first. That’s why subject lines are likely to determine if your emails get opened.
When testing subject line variations, there should be clear distinctions between them.
For example, one subject line you test may be in a question format and another may be written as a simple statement. You can also test one with emojis and another without, just like what we have in the example below:
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Always keep your subject line variations short and straight to the point. The subject lines should also be relevant to the content of your email.
- Sender Name
The sender name tells your recipients who the email is from. See the examples below:
If you’re unsure which sender name will connect more with your audience, conduct an AB test. In one variation, you can use your brand or company name as the sender name. For instance, “Shortform,” or “Zendesk.’
In another, you may use a more personalized sender name like “Pedro from GetResponse” or “Paige at PoliteMail”.
The metric to observe when testing your sender name is the open rate.
- Email Content
Use A/B testing to determine how to write your email effectively. For instance, if you want to promote a special offer, try crafting one email with an exciting tone and another with a more balanced tone.
See what gets your audience to engage with the content. You can use an email copy generator to help create different email variations for your A/B tests.
Additionally, you can test email content variations with or without images, like MailerLite did below:
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Why not use GIFs in one variation and a static image in another? See this example below:
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You can also do a split test to find out which content length (long-form vs short-form copy) works best for your audience.
Just remember that all the email versions you create for your A/B test should address your target audience’s specific pain points. You can easily collect this information via online research, written surveys, or even interviews using outbound calling solutions.
When testing your email content, you want to look out for metrics like clicks and conversions.
- Email Design/Layout
Both email design and layout are key determinants of how well your campaigns perform. Try out different email templates or designs in the A/B test to see what grabs attention.
The example below is an AB test with different designs. One has a CTA button and a heading, and the other has hypertext links and has no heading.
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Experiment with details like button color, button placements, design color schemes, and image positions. The aim should be to see which design or layout makes your CTA more prominent and actionable. So, click-through rates are the metrics you want to look out for here.
- Sending Time
It’s unlikely that all your email subscribers will open their emails at the same time. So, you want to know the time that the majority of people in your email list are opening your emails.
Send emails at various peak times or days. If you’re unsure about where to begin, use popular statistics as a guide. GetResponse, for example, suggests that the best time to send emails globally for optimal open rates is at 4 AM while the best time to send emails for optimal CTR is at 6 AM.
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But as the GetResponse report shows, different regions have slightly different results. So, you must test different send times to determine which one produces optimal results for you.
When testing your email send times, look out for open rates, click-through rates, and conversions, among other metrics.
5 Tips to Follow When Implementing an A/B Test Email Campaign
Now that you know what email A/B testing is, here are five steps to follow to ensure proper and effective testing.
1. Select the Relevant Variables for Testing
Start by choosing specific elements to test, such as the subject line, email content, design, or any of the variables we have discussed above.
Make sure the variables you select are relevant to your campaign goals. For instance, if you want more open rates, then you know that subject lines, sender names, and message previews are what you should test.
Alternatively, if you’re looking for more click-through and engagement rates, variables like personalization and email design are what to test.
2. Isolate and Test One Variable at a Time
Focus on testing one critical thing at a time. For example, if you want to test your email sender name and subject line, do them separately. First, test two email versions with different sender names and the same subject lines to see which performs better. Then, using the winning sender name, test with two different subject lines to see the combination that does better.
Similarly, if you want to test promotional email content, you can test two variations with different designs. For instance, one with gamified email elements like leaderboards and timeslots, and another without. Take the winning email, change the call to action button color for each variation, and see how they perform.
Testing one important variable at a time helps you know exactly what element is affecting the performance of your email.
3. Determine the Appropriate Sample Size
Define a representative sample size for testing your email. Make sure the emails in your test sample are active and valid. So, verify email addresses first before adding them to your sample and your campaign email list.
How do you determine the best sample size? Well, note that the goal here is to gather sufficient data for future campaigns.
So, if you have a relatively small email list, such as less than 1,000 subscribers, you may choose to A/B test to 80-90% of your entire subscriber base. This way, you can gather insights without excluding a significant portion of your audience.
If you have a larger list, say over 5,000 subscribers, the general recommendation is to work with 20% of your entire audience for email A/B testing. This is based on the 80/20 rule or Pareto Principle.
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Here’s how that specific rule works: you send one email version to 10% and another variation to a different 10% of your audience. The version that performs better will then be sent to the other 80% of recipients in your list. If you use email newsletter software like GetResponse, this is usually the default sample size when split testing a large audience.
4. Set the Timing Window
Establish a clear timeframe for your A/B test.
You could run the test a few hours or days before the winning email goes out. Note, though, that waiting for up to 24 hours after you send your email variations can help ensure more accurate results. This is because a longer window gives people more time to engage with your email (or not).
Think of it this way: If you send an email in the morning, some recipients may see the email but choose to open it in the evening. Other recipients may open the email as it enters their inbox.
Giving your A/B test more time allows you to capture data for both types of people and see the overall email performance.
5. Optimize Delivery Timing
If you’re testing for the best email delivery time, schedule your email variations at different times and days. Then, identify the optimal send time by looking at peak email engagement times.
Once you uncover the best delivery time, incorporate what you find into your other split tests. So, essentially, you have to configure your subsequent tests so that they end at that best time.
For instance, if you found your peak response time was 11 AM, you want to set up your subsequent A/B test to determine the best subject line, to end at exactly 11 AM.
If your A/B test results about the best email delivery time are accurate, then your email variations to determine the best subject line should have good engagement. The only question would be which email with a specific subject line yields a higher engagement rate.
In Closing
A/B testing is a remarkable way to boost the performance of your email marketing strategy. Testing elements like subject lines, sender name, email content, email design, and sending time helps you improve your campaigns.
Today, we went over some key tips to follow to implement email A/B testing. Select relevant variables and test one variable at a time. Also, choose a big enough sample size. Set a timeframe that allows more accuracy. Finally, optimize your A/B test to match your peak delivery time.
Now it’s over to you. Just be consistent in your email A/B testing methods so you can accurately compare your results and make improvements. Good luck!
