Getting The Most Out Of Every Split Test

Getting The Most Out Of Every Split Test

Dennis van der Heijden
February 25, 2015

As an eCommerce marketer, one of the questions you ask yourself is; how can you get the most out of every test you do in the shortest time possible? Tests, or more specifically A/B tests, are made so that a website owner can gather information on what works and what does not work on your website. These tests can be run on almost all the aspects of your website. But the question is, how can you make the most of it?

In a recent webinar hosted by Convert, Creative Thirst‘s Bobby Hewitt shows how you can get the most out of each test taken. He also shows the advantage of selecting the best marketing agency and ways you could go about the whole issue of A/B testing. While most website owners run their own tests, there are also agencies that offer such services. You can view the entire webinar here.

Getting the most out

Traffic: More For Less

In this case, the amount of traffic does not matter. It is only about getting to know that type of traffic you get, and getting to know how to reach your target audience. The way to do this may surprise you. One of the major mistakes that online marketers commit is how they use the same A/B testing or multivariate testing technique without even knowing or understanding how to gain true leverage.

[Tweet “Through testing, you can still maximize your profits even if you have little traffic”]

In the webinar, you’ll be learning advanced techniques and easy to understand formats that is simple enough to be implemented straightaway. The best thing about this technique is that it can be applied in any situation or website. There are many ideas that one could use depending on what you are testing. Great tools such as A/B testing software” href=”https://www.convert.com/” target=”_blank”>Convert that make it very easy to test anything that you can dream of. But most marketers aren’t approaching their test correctly.

Good A/B testing can have an effect of more than 300% increase. However, most eCommerce marketers are still struggling to even achieve a 50% lift. There is no quick tactical for testing,but rather an approach to testing that you can use for every single one of your test to gain insights, and more results in less time. Most marketers unfortunately don’t understand the basics of testing and they’re just throwing up test ideas trying anything or copying other test case studies, to see what works.

A/B Testing

With a well run conversion rate optimization, you will surely achieve up to more than 100% lift. However, this cannot be achieved without having a good testing system in place. You need to get more lift from every test in the shortest amount of time possible with the least amount of traffic, so that you can make meaningful decisions to continue a follow up test. This is just one of the reasons why you need to approach testing differently. To simplify,

A/B testing is a simple way to test changes to your page against the current design and determine which ones produce positive results. It is a method to validate that any new design or change to an element on your webpage is improving your conversion rate before you make that change to your site code.

Understanding Testing Basics

According to Bobby Hewitt, what you need to know first is to understand the basics of testing. The three basics are:

  • Variable. A variable is a general element that you intend to test. An example would be a headline, or an image, or the layout.
  • Value. A value is the specific version of the variable that you intend to test. If the variable is the headline, then your values would be the different versions of that headline.
  • Treatment. A treatment is the display of your new values for the variable you are testing. It can simply be interpreted as worthy element your testing looks like.

Understanding these terms is quite important. Knowing how to run tests is as important as knowing what to test. Once you have figured these out, you can make the most of your A/B Testing. For more info about split testing, or if you want to view the full presentation, you can watch the full webinar here

Originally published February 25, 2015 - Updated April 15, 2019
Dennis van der Heijden
Co-founder and CEO of Convert.com, Dennis is a passionate community builder and out of the box thinker. He spends his time innovating to make Convert Experiences better. Learn about his journey as an entrepreneur and leader on the SaaS Club podcast.
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