A/B tests - what are they and what do you need to know about them?
E-commerce
3 August 2023
Sales conversion in an online shop depends not only on price, available payment options and delivery options, but also on factors that many people do not realise at first. Often, small changes on the website or in the emails sent to customers turn out to have a decisive impact on the success of an online business. You can see how effective they are by looking at the example of A/B testing. What are A/B tests and why should you implement them in your own e-shop?
A/B testing - what is it?
An A/B test is a method of verifying customer preferences, and the aim is to see which option (A or B) contributes to increasing sales. In practice, this boils down to creating several versions of your own website, email message, SMS message sent to customers or mobile app interface. Contrary to the name, controlling user behaviour does not have to be limited to creating just two versions. There could just as well be more, as there is no rule limiting their number. The version that provides the best sales results is then used and visible to all customers.
A/B tested UX (user experience) is used by thousands of companies around the world. Thanks to this simple verification method, they are able to understand the errors that contribute to unsatisfactory sales. Most importantly, they make the necessary changes not on the basis of guesswork, but on the basis of irrefutable data - the behaviour of a test group of users. They themselves do not know that they are being tested, so their reactions are completely natural. For this reason, A/B tests are the most reliable and effective way of checking user preferences.
What are A/B tests used for?
Website testing is one of the most important applications of this method of customer verification. Web designers work with UX designers to position and detail elements on the website in different ways. People accessing the site see different locations of buttons leading to sub-pages, product categories grouped differently, individual elements listed differently, and so on. Sometimes the experimentation is not limited to the layout of the site, but also to the visual side, i.e. the fonts used, the number of photos and graphics and the colour scheme.
Online shops, among others, are interested in conducting A/B tests. Thanks to them, they are able to identify errors that contribute to low conversion, i.e. the ratio of the number of visits to the website to the number of transactions made. They are also useful when sales are satisfactory. This is because testing makes it possible to achieve even higher profits.
Shops operating on the web use this simple tool to promote their promotional campaigns. To this end, banners are displayed to individual customers in various locations on the website to encourage them to take advantage of it. By comparing the number of clicks, it is possible to decide where best to place this element on the site so that it is most visible to all users. The same action is also taken by all types of companies offering their services via an app.
However, it is not only online shops that use A/B testing. Marketing is also needed by social media owners. Generating different variations of the main user panel provides an opportunity to see how many users have noticed and tried out a new feature.
Different page configurations are used in analyses that check the time spent in the application. From the point of view of the companies managing such portals, it is crucial. The longer a user uses the app, the more suggested content is displayed. This, in turn, translates into profits for advertisers, who are all the more willing to pay for the opportunity to publish their material on an engaging site.
How to carry out A/B tests?
To carry out an A/B test, it is best to use one of the programs available on the internet. A good choice is Google Optimize. Its big advantage is a graphical interface that allows you to see how the various elements of a page are positioned. This tool is therefore worth considering, especially if you have not yet mastered more advanced programmes without such a simple and intuitive interface. Google Optimize can be used to test the performance of a website on both PCs and mobile devices.
The reason to be interested in the tool provided by Google is also that it is free to use. Those who already have some experience with web design in terms of user experience can check out other programmes, such as Optimizely, Omnicovert or VWO.
As the majority of websites on the Internet are created on the WordPress platform, A/B testing can be carried out using one of many plug-ins. Free ones include My WP A/B Testing, Tweeker and Split Test For Elementor. Among the paid ones, you can find cheaper suggestions such as Nelio AB and Split Hero, as well as more expensive ones such as Beaver Builder AB. Importantly, this plug-in is also available in a free Lite version.
A/B testing - what types of tests are there?
Those running an online business will not only find it useful to know what A/B testing is, but also what MVT testing is. In the first case, two variations of an element on a page are tested. In the case of more than one option, the test is referred to as A/B/n, where n stands for a certain number of additional variants.
A feature that both methods have in common is the control of a single element on the page. If there are more than one, and if they are not related to each other (e.g. the position of a banner on the home page and the position of the Buy button on the sub-pages are checked at the same time), one speaks of a multidimensional MVT test.
Regardless of the choice of test, it is important to remember that a sufficiently large amount of traffic is needed to analyse the results. In other words, in order for the test to be meaningful, you first need to use the Evan Miller calculator available online. Based on the data entered, it will generate the minimum number of users that can be considered a test group.
The timing of the analysis should also be taken into account. For example, checking the conversion of a promotional banner just after the New Year may not be reliable. Saturated by the recently passed period full of discount actions, and on top of that having less money to spend after Christmas, customers at that moment may not be interested in the new promotion.
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