With A/B testing, you can increase the performance of your online assets by 5%, 10%, and often higher. Your motorcycle company must have solid marketing expertise to achieve these noted percentages. One notable point is that you will get better marketing from riders than from passengers.
The percentage increase for companies that have historically lacked marketing expertise can be much higher once they gain it. Importantly, A/B testing lets you know what is working and what isn’t, so you know what to change.
Without A/B testing, you will have to guess what’s working and what isn’t, which can be frustrating. Guessing what changes to make also eats up time and money. Plus, guessing will still leave you wondering if you’ve maximized the performance of your marketing assets.
But A/B testing your site elements, social media posts, website SEO, newsletter, and other online marketing assets lets you know. Data supports the results of what works best based on facts. The benefit of data-driven decisions is explained in the MVP approach article.
What Is A/B Testing?
You can run an A/B test to compare offline and online assets by changing just one element. But for this blog article, I’m referring to A/B testing for digital marketing assets (website, social media, newsletter, etc.).
Next, with these tests, you have the current asset called the “control.” Then, there is the same asset with just one modified element called the “challenger.” This way, when you A/B-test the elements of your website, you are testing only one at a time. Here are some examples of “elements” on your marketing assets:
- Color or location of a button on your website.
- Navigation-link text variations can be tested. For instance, the link text could read “Biker Jackets” or “Motorcycle Jackets.” Which one yields the best results? A/B testing will let you know.
- An image on a page of your motorcycle site
- The title of a page on your website.
- Social media ads or website calls to action (CTAs), such as “Shop Now” or “Learn More” buttons.
- The subject line in your company’s newsletter
A/B Testing vs. Split Testing
Often, A/B testing is referred to as split testing, but there is a difference between the two. A/B testing compares two versions of an online marketing asset. However, split testing refers to comparing two entirely different assets. For instance, you can test two completely different web page versions.
You should use A/B testing as often as possible. It helps you identify causes based on facts. You should also do website audits to see how your site is currently performing.
Setting Up A/B Tests
1. Choose which asset you want to test. Note that you will have analytics and reporting tools to help make decisions for most online assets. You can also use a heat map on your website to show visitors’ interaction with pages.
With these tools, you can see product pages with low conversion rates and where visitors are clicking or leaving your site. Use this data to prioritize which assets to use in the A/B test.
2. Set your goals – For example, your goal could be to increase your website’s conversion rate or engagement rate for social media ads. Another example is to get more clicks from your newsletter.
3. Create a new version – If you have a control asset, create your challenger version with one changed element. If you don’t have a control asset, create both your control and challenger versions.
4. Run your A/B test – Ensure each group gets equal and randomized traffic long enough for the predetermined metrics.
5. Evaluate the results
6. Implement the proven new strategy
7. Start your next A/B test
Granted, A/B testing your marketing assets takes time and money. But if you are not testing, you lose money every time your target audience interacts with an underperforming asset. You also waste time and money creating new marketing assets that do not perform as well as they could.
If you want to learn more about marketing in the biker world, check out our blog articles. For more information, visit our professional web services pages.
