A/B testing is a common practice in marketing that allows companies to test different versions of their website, app, or blog post and find the best way to reach their audience. With 24 A/B Testing Ideas, You Should Try, you can create your successful campaigns using these proven techniques. You’ve done an excellent job of coming up with new strategies to increase traffic to your site. However, if that traffic isn’t turning into sales, you still have a long way to go. This is a frequent misunderstanding that I see all the time. Businesses invest a lot of time and effort into improving their organic SEO while also executing PPC advertising to increase website traffic. This technique has nothing wrong with it, but site traffic isn’t the only number that counts.
You should also pay attention to how visitors act after they are on your site. Do they seem to be converting? If it doesn’t, that traffic isn’t converting into cash. That is why you must understand how to enhance conversions with constant A/B testing. These tests can assist you in better understanding how to optimize specific design components on your website. Minor tweaks may have a significant influence on how well your traffic converts. If you’ve never done A/B testing before, I suggest reading through my tutorial on everything you need to know before getting started. This list is ideal for you if you already know how to do A/B tests but aren’t sure what you should be testing. In actuality, there are unlimited things you might test on your website, but
24 A/B testing ideas you should try:
1. The size of the CTA
You’ll notice that CTA buttons occur multiple times during the conversation as you go through this tutorial. This is understandable given that it is the essential feature of conversions. Begin by adjusting the size of your CTA button. This button should be large and bold for the most part. It stands out and pops off the screen this way. The last thing you want is for someone to have trouble finding your call-to-action button. So what size should it be to get the best conversions? Experimenting with various sizes is the only way to find out. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:
These two CTA buttons, as you can see, are identical. The typeface, color, and positioning on the page are similar. The size is the only difference. However, more significant isn’t necessarily better. In reality, after doing this test, it was discovered that the more prominent CTA resulted in 10% fewer conversions. There might be various reasons for this, but we don’t need to discuss them right now. The crucial point to remember is that without the A/B test, this would never have been found. So don’t presume that your massive CTA button will convert well. To be specific, test the size.
2. The phrasing of the headline
The headlines on your landing pages will be different. These headlines will inform your visitors about the content on the page. Depending on your aims, the phrasing may also urge individuals to do a specific action. Furthermore, you want your headlines to be SEO-friendly. A great deal of care should have gone into creating these words. That is why you must master headline writing to get clicks. To accomplish this, you’ll need to do A/B testing to determine which phrase produces the best conversion rates. Take a look at the following sample from the Movexa website:
The two pages seem to be identical at first sight. The headline is the sole difference between the control and variation groups. As you can see, the difference is insignificant. They just changed one word. After adding the term “supplement” to the headline on this landing page, Movexa saw an 89 percent boost in sales. As a result, don’t assume your headline is ideal until you’ve tried a few versions. You may be shocked by the outcome.
3. Information regarding free shipment
This one is geared at ecommerce sites. However, it is a crucial aspect that should not be disregarded. To begin with, you should not charge them for shipping. If this is a personal expenditure, just include it in the essential cost of each item rather than charging for it individually. The most common cause for shopping cart abandonment is this additional fee.
However, merely not charging for freight is insufficient. This information should be prominently displayed on your website. In this manner, your consumers will know that shipping is free before they arrive at the checkout page. But how can you inform them? That’s something you’ll have to figure out via A/B testing. Experiment with various placements on your website’s banner. Include it in the headline if possible. After you’ve played about with the positioning, you may experiment with the text’s size, font, and color. Try using all capital letters or adding an exclamation point to check whether these changes affect your results.
4. Phrasing of the CTA
Let’s return to the CTA button discussion. You may start experimenting with the phrase now that you know the appropriate size from the test I mentioned earlier. Your objective will determine the wording. If you’re attempting to attract website visitors to subscribe to your email list, for example, a “purchase now” CTA won’t work. Here’s an example of a landing page for visitors looking for a loan:
“Apply now” was compared to “submit” by the team. Every other aspect of the pages was identical. The idea was that the term “application” conveyed that the visitor may be turned down for a loan, discouraging them from converting. The “submit” button, on the other hand, makes it seem as though anybody may be accepted just by filling out the form field above. On each website’s landing page, I strongly advise you to experiment with CTA button language. This is just too critical a button for you to miss.
5. Display of pricing
On certain websites, the costs are not shown on the landing pages. Do you think so? You may not believe this is required depending on the sort of company you have, your branding plan, and the sector you’re in. It’s conceivable, though, that advertising your pricing can boost conversions. Take a look at the following example:
Adding a price to this landing page raised conversions by 100%. You may perform more tests once you’ve added the pricing to ensure optimal on the page. To guarantee that you obtain the most conversions, change the placement, color, font, and size.
6. Promotional material
Promotional material on your landing pages encourages visitors to purchase whatever it is your marketing. These factors should, in principle, increase conversions. However, don’t make assumptions without putting them to the test. Take a look at the following sample from the SimCity website:
The advertising material was at the top of the screen, behind the navigation bar, on the original landing page. It’s straightforward. If you pre-order the game, you’ll get a $20 discount on your next purchase. Isn’t an incentive like this enough to persuade people to convert? Not so fast, my friend. They reported a 43 percent increase in checkouts after removing the promotional information from the landing page. Conversion rates are more significant for websites with basic designs. Adding too much promotional information to your sites might cause visitors to lose attention to your CTA buttons. It might be advantageous to remove unneeded text. I’m not suggesting that you throw away all of your advertising materials. I’m only trying to demonstrate that you must do tests to determine whether or not it is worthwhile to include.
7. CTA placement
No, you haven’t finished testing your CTA button yet. Now that you’ve taken care of the button’s size and language, it’s time to decide where it should go on the page. You’ll have to do a lot of testing with this. Your CTA should always be visible above the fold. Make sure it’s visible all of the time. However, experiment with other positions on the page. The center, left side, right side, or even slightly off-center to the right are all good options. Every site is worth a shot. Play around with two CTA buttons. Continue to conduct these tests until you have a winner.
8. Image topic
Your website’s backdrop shouldn’t always be white and devoid of graphics. To boost your marketing plan, you must use visual aspects. However, don’t simply choose a photo out of thin air and hope it will improve your website. A/B testing may be used to determine which photos convert the best. Here’s an example of how Highrise used pictures on their website to experiment:
Michael’s conversion rate was over 5% higher than Jocelyn’s. This may seem minor, but depending on the number of visitors to a website, it might be the difference between tens of thousands of dollars in a year.
9. The menu of options
How can visitors to your website locate the information they’re searching for on your pages? The most straightforward approach for them to jump from page to page is usually via navigation menus. However, if these menus are too complicated, they may detract from your conversion rate. Keep in mind that keeping things simple is always the best option. Take a look at what occurred after Yuppiecheif deleted its homepage navigation menu:
Yuppiechef was able to improve conversions by 100% due to this design adjustment. It could work for you as well if it worked for them. Even if you don’t want to delete your menu totally, you may experiment with other aspects of it. Color, size and positioning may all be altered. To keep individuals focused on converting, consider eliminating some of the alternatives.
10. Proposition of value
We have already discussed the significance of free delivery. You may, however, test other aspects of your value offer. Take a look at some of the other important words that encourage people to purchase online.
You may increase conversions by showcasing these extra advantages in the form of a value proposition on your website. If you want to learn more about this notion, check out my tutorial on constructing a highly successful value proposition.
11. CTA color
As I previously said, for your CTA to be successful, it must stick out and be evident. That is why the button’s color is so crucial. Sure, you want your website’s color palette to be pleasant to the eye, but that doesn’t imply your CTA button has to fit in with everything else. A blue CTA button will be lost in the mix on a blue backdrop. A color like brilliant yellow, on the other hand, will be challenging to read. So, which colors are the most effective? To discover out, do tests. Here’s an example of a green and red CTA button being tested:
Usually, we equate green with forwarding motion and red with a reversal. As a result, it’s reasonable to expect that the green CTA button will outperform the red one. However, the findings of this test were unexpected, demonstrating the importance of not making assumptions. The red CTA button received 21% more clicks than the green CTA button.
12. Design of the product page
The design of your product pages on an ecommerce website will have a significant influence on conversions. Because these conversions will eventually be converted to cash, these A/B testing must be prioritized because a mistake here might cost you money. As an example, consider these Smartwool socks:
They attempted to promote certain goods on their product page at first. They reported a 17 percent boost in average income per visitor after switching to a uniform grid system and doing an A/B test. Also, give this a shot. Experiment with how many goods you can show on the screen simultaneously. If you have a grid, compare three-row rows versus five-row rows. Alternatively, instead of three columns, two might be used. Make sure your product icons are the correct size. After a series of testing, you’ll be sure that you’ve found the best design for your website’s most crucial pages.
13. Free Trial vs. Buy Now
Free trials convert better than a single choice that forces customers to purchase right now, as you well know. But do you have any idea how much? GetResponse’s homepage was used just to offer a Buy Now button.
Their enrollment rate increased by 158.60 percent when they put a Free Trial button on their site.
Because some people quit during the free trial time, their income did not grow by 158.60 percent, but the aggregate revenue increase should still be in the double digits. If you haven’t tested a free trial strategy yet, you should do so since I’ve never seen one fail to presume you have an excellent product or service to offer.
14. Using a Credit Card vs. Using a Debit Card
Free trials are not all created equal. Some organizations demand a credit card to begin the free trial, while others do not. Totango recently published intriguing research that compared the benefits of asking for a credit card upfront vs. afterward.
The outcomes were enormous! They could boost front-end signups by 500% and total paying customers by 50% by removing the credit card requirement. Although not as large as 500 percent, a 50 percent growth is still significant.
15. Symbols of Trust
We take trust symbols for granted, yet they may assist improve sales. The risk of using a trusted sign on your site is low since conversion rates are seldom affected by such symbols. Blue Fountain Media needed to boost the number of leads coming in from their Request a Quote website.
As a result, they decided to add a VeriSign emblem to the website to see whether it would increase the number of individuals who felt more comfortable sharing their personal information.
Sales increased by 42 percent as a consequence of the campaign. This just goes to illustrate how powerful trust indicators can be.
16. Including a Live Chat Option
You’ll have at least 30 customers who won’t purchase from you for everyone who does. Their reasons for not buying may vary greatly, and you will seldom know until you ask them. You may accomplish this by polling your visitors, or you can just ask/help your visitors through live chat while they are on your site. EZ Texting experimented with integrating live chat onto their website to serve their consumers better.
They could raise their conversion rate by 31% because of just one innovation. However, before adding live chat to your website, make sure you have someone ready to answer your visitors’ inquiries. Your conversion rates may suffer if you are unresponsive throughout the conversation and no one is ever there.
17. Don’t Sell People, Help Them
Are you accustomed to being sold something? You are, without a doubt… I mean, who isn’t? Your guard is up because you’re accustomed to people attempting to market to you, and you’re ready to say “no” even before they try to sell to you. ActiveNetwork decided to modify the way they market their product through email. They rewrote the email language in a helpful rather than sales tone. Take a look at the distinction. Here’s a sneak peek at the retail version:
Here’s a sneak peek at the supporting version:
The email’s encouraging tone raised leads by 349 percent. To earn money, you don’t have to sell to people. Sometimes the most effective technique to get a client is to just assist them by engaging in a polite chat. They will convert if they are interested in what you have to say.
18. Make a video that explains what you’re doing.
I’ve made a few explanatory videos, but they’ve all been done incorrectly. I immediately witnessed an increase in our conversions after learning what parts needed to be in an explainer film to assist in enhancing conversions. On CrazyEgg.com, we improved homepage conversions by 64% by adding a video with the same message as our homepage content. People don’t always enjoy reading text, but they are receptive to listening to a brief video that describes a product or service, which was the most important thing I gained there. You can employ services like mine if you don’t want to make explanation films yourself. These are the people I utilize.
19. Make your registration button follow the visitor around the page.
People on TreeHouse’s library website were scrolling down and reading their stuff, but they weren’t pressing the subscribe button. So they experimented with altering the color of the registration button from grey to green at first. The color change had an effect, but it wasn’t significant enough. As a result, they experimented with a notion similar to Facebook’s: having the main navigation bar scroll with the reader. The fact that the registration button is in the navigation will induce users to notice it.
This simple adjustment raised conversions by 138 percent on this one page.
20. Set up a two-step checkout procedure.
I firmly believed in decreasing the number of page loads and processes consumers had to do to boost conversions. Crazy Egg featured a straightforward checkout procedure because of this, in which you first choose your plan, then create an account and enter your payment information on the second page.
I was asked to evaluate a three-step checkout procedure by Conversion Rate Experts. You would first choose your plan, then go to the page where you would establish your account, and finally to the page where you would input your payment information. The number of form fields was the same as in the two-step checkout procedure, but we divided it into three pages instead. We had a winner after 817 conversions: the three-step checkout procedure resulted in a 10% boost in conversions.
21. The duration of the trial
Your free trial should be as long as possible. Right? That’s what I believed until my co-founder decided to compare a 30-day free trial on KISSmetrics against a 14-day free trial.
There was no change in front-end conversions when he compared the 14-day free trial to the initial 30-day free trial. For each trial length, the same amount of participants signed up. However, the most significant change was the increase in product utilization. Compared to the 30-day trial, customers who signed up for the 14-day trial utilized the product 102 percent more. We rapidly discovered that shortening the trial period made users feel obligated to use our product right away. People thought they had a lot of time with the 30-day trial, so they neglected to use the product even though we gave them email reminders. As more consumers learned about the benefits of KISSmetrics, revenue increased.
22. Provide time-based incentives
I used to charge $197 for the QuickSprout Traffic System. If you purchased it, an Internet marketing course would be emailed to your mailbox, teaching you all you needed to know about digital marketing. At first, I didn’t provide any incentives, but then I decided to throw in a few for free. A video lesson was included as a bonus, along with a free software plugin. My conversion rate increased by just 11% due to those two incentives. Finally, Michael Williams suggested that I run time-based incentives, where the first 50 and first 100 signups would get something that the rest of the group would not.
We obtained a 47 percent boost in conversions by giving time-based incentives that incentivized consumers to join up immediately rather than later.
23. Give your freebies a monetary worth
Not everyone is prepared to make a purchase straight immediately. Some individuals are interested in learning more about you or your firm. They will be willing to purchase everything you have to offer after gaining your confidence. That is why you must capture the email addresses of everyone who is ind in purchasing your product or service but isn’t quite ready to make the purchase. Even though I am not selling anything on Quick Sprout, I collect email addresses to alert you when I publish a new blog article. I just asked for your email address and never offered you anything in return. I then tried providing you a free eBook and a 30-day course, but conversions only increased by 6%. My conversions increased when I assigned a 300 dollar value to the free course content in my sidebar.
I increased my email opt-in rate by 22% by putting a financial value on the same free content I was previously supplying you.
24. Removing form fields
On your landing pages, experiment with the length of form fields. Shorter form fields, on the whole, have more excellent conversion rates.
However, as you can see from the graph, this isn’t the case everywhere. Based on this trend, you can infer that if you reduce the number of form fields from six to four, your conversions will rise. However, if you need to gather a lot of information from your consumers, you may require lengthier form fields. Based on the information above, a form with 28 fields will not perform as well as 40 specializations. As a result, there are times when shorter isn’t necessarily better. Run an A/B test on these forms till you’ve worked out what’s going on.
Conclusion
A/B testing is something you should do regularly. You don’t stop optimizing your site for conversions just as you don’t stop performing SEO. Be cautious when reading blog postings regarding conversion optimization, such as this one and others found on the internet. You may wind up losing a lot of money if you just imitate previous successful tests that others have conducted. Because each site’s visitors are unique, you must determine what works best for yours. You must first determine if the test is appropriate to your site, and then you must perform it. You should never make assumptions about the parts of your website. Instead, make a hypothesis and test it using A/B testing. Don’t give up after only one exam. You should constantly look for methods to enhance your design, boost conversions, and increase profitability.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are testing ideas?
A: Testing ideas are ways of testing out different scenarios and seeing what works best.
What is the most critical decision in a B test?
A: The most critical decision in an A/B test is the control group and its size. To have a valid A/B test, you need to know that you are using a large enough sample of people who do not receive either treatment, also known as an N number (the more significant, the better).
What should I A/B test on my website?
A: You should test your website with different browsers, devices, and operating systems to see which works better.
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