Bulk Email with A/B Testing

In the world of digital marketing, email campaigns are essential as they help in grabbing customers and keeping them engaged

Check out this must-do! Related: The one knock-out way to torch your email marketing efforts—A/B testing. All these versions of your emails can be tested so that you know which one works better in providing results for you. Continue reading to learn how you can apply A/B tests in your mass emails and refine the way you market.

What is A/B Testing?

An A/B test (also called split-testing) allows you to test two variations of a single email—segmenting your audience into smaller groups so that each group receives different versions of an email.

A/B Testing: You probably understand this concept from past experiments, but it is like a random sample of your audience split into two groups testing one email versus another, for example. It will then send the best-performing version (in terms of KPIs such as open rate or click-through rate [CTR]) to your remaining target audience.

Bottom Line for Large Email Marketing Campaigns? — A/B Testing

Bulk email campaigns are very useful to reach a large audience quickly. Without any testing and optimization to round it out, you probably will leave a lot of engagement and conversion on the table. A/B testing allows you to:

• Optimize Subject Line: As the subject line is considered a key determiner regarding whether an email will get opened. Testing different subject lines is needed in order to understand which one gets more opens/conversions at best.
• Email Content: Make sure that when your email finally hits the inbox of a user, you are actually talking to them. It means that if you run an A/B test and see which CTA button placement or copy is most effective, go ahead with optimizing your content.
• Email Layout Design: The design and layout of the email determine what it looks like, which ultimately contributes to how readable the contents are, as well as how presentable they look. Play around with different grids, type styles, and color palettes to see what resonates best for your viewers.
• Time and Frequency Optimization: There are better times when you can send the emails for a higher CTR. It means testing sending your emails at certain times, or maybe on some days of the week when they are more likely to be engaged.

Bulk Email Campaigns A/B Testing

Here is a step-by-step guide on how you can implement A/B testing successfully in your bulk email campaigns:

Step 1: Start With Your Goal

You want to set a goal for why you're running an A/B test. Trying to get a higher open rate, click-through rate, or conversion? Ok, it might get you into your testing with a starting purpose.

Optimize for One Variable

If you want accurate results, pick one. Keep it simple! Whether it's your subject line, email content itself, CTA (call to action), design, or send time, it could become unclear which change caused a performance difference if you try to test multiple variables at once.

Step 2: A & B Development

Prepare two versions of your email, called "A" and "B." Each should only be different in the variable to test. For example, if you are testing 2 subject lines, the body and appearance of the email have to be the same for both.

Select a random sample of your audience to receive the A and B variants. Your data set should be large enough so you would reliably get statistical significance (like >10% of your final send amount—but bigger is better) without stripping too much possible population for that dataset.

Step 3: Examine the Outcomes

After sending your test emails, check out how each version of your email performed based on opt-in metrics like open rate and CTRs. Identify the top-performing version and implement it for your larger audience.

Step 4: Implement and Iterate

Roll it out to the rest of your audience once you know which version works better. This will aid in the overall improvement of your email campaigning. Remember, A/B testing is a continuous process, so keep experimenting with different elements as you go along.

A/B Testing Best Practices

The following are some best practices to take into consideration with your A/B testing efforts:

• Keep Testing: One campaign is just the start. Regular A vs. B investigations will help you to re-engineer your approach as audience behavior changes.
• Log Your Findings: Write down the tests you conducted and what they inferred. Now you have some documentation for yourself on what resonates with this specific audience.
• Patience: A/B testing is a slow and tedious process, so be patient. Allow your test to gather enough data for the results to be statistically significant before you act on these results.
• Trust the Results: While it might be tempting to select the version of a poll question that receives more traffic as your top result, always make data-based decisions and aim for an honest pick. Regardless of what you imagined, trust the results.

Conclusion

Need more room for the activities that can make or break how your emails perform? A/B testing is one aspect of email marketing. It transforms good bulk emails into great ones. Systematically testing and optimizing the pieces of your email one by one enables you to make data-driven decisions leading to higher engagement rates and greater conversion rates, all resulting in better business results. Grow your program with today's addition of A/B testing in email marketing that may provide the campaigns with a high journey.