Using A/B testing in email marketing is a great way to learn about your audience and reach your targets.

Here, we look at what A/B testing is, the different tests you can carry out, and how these can inform a successful email marketing strategy.

What is A/B testing in emails?

A/B testing in email marketing helps you gather insights about your subscribers and what they respond to. This will help you create emails that engage your audience and provide the results you’re hoping for. 

What to A/B test in email marketing

There are numerous email A/B tests you can carry out to discover what your audience finds engaging. 

Subject lines 

The subject line of your email will be the first thing your subscribers see, so it’s important to get it right. There’s a variety of ways a subject line can be amended for testing. You can change the length, the wording, or try emojis if they fit your company’s brand and tone. Personalisation is a great option for subject lines. Adding the subscriber’s name into the subject line can encourage them to open it. Stick to testing one subject line feature at a time so you can truly see what has an impact on your open rate. 

Personalisation

We’ve mentioned personalising email subject lines, but there are plenty of opportunities to personalise your main email content too. Including the recipient’s name at the top of the email is a great place to start. You could then tailor the content so that it reflects products or services they’ve bought before. For example, you might include products from the same range they’ve previously purchased from or include services that complement those you provide to them already. Through A/B testing in this way, you can find out whether people are more likely to shop with you again if you personalise your emails to reflect their previous shopping behaviours.

Images

There are two main A/B tests that you can carry out with imagery in emails. Firstly, you can test whether emails with images work better than emails without. For short, snappy emails it may be that images take focus away from your CTAs and reduce your click through rates, whereas people may find an email newsletter less engaging without images. Secondly, once you’ve decided where to use images in your email marketing, you can test the types and styles of imagery you use. This could be product images, lifestyle shots, photos of employees or customers, and even GIFs or videos. The visuals you use should meet your brand guidelines, but you can have fun testing what works for your customers. 

Copy

The main copy of your email can also be amended in numerous ways. You can A/B test whether long or short emails resonate best with your subscribers. This may depend on the type of email it is, for example, a newsletter will likely be longer than a new product release or sale announcement. You can also test the tone of your email to see what encourages customer to click on your CTAs. You could find that warm, positive language leads to higher engagement, or it may be that your audience prefer emails to be sharp and to the point. You’ll also be able to use this data to inform your company’s tone of voice for other marketing channels. 

Calls to action

Finding the right way to display your calls to action is vital when it comes to email marketing engagement. There’s lots to A/B test here. You can see whether text links or buttons work best, what colour CTA is most engaging, how big the text or buttons should be, and what the CTA should say. It could be that a simple ‘Read More’ is enough to get your subscribers clicking, or it might be that they’d prefer something more detailed. Remember, your CTAs should stand out without taking away from the overall aesthetic of your email, and any colours should be within your brand palette for consistency. 

Tips for successful A/B testing 

These tips will help you to run successful email marketing A/B testing.

• Create a hypothesis – As with all tests, a hypothesis is very important. Decide what you want to find out, what you think will happen, and how you’re going to test this. E.g. I think that including the subscriber’s first name in the email subject line will increase the open rate. I will test this by personalising 50% of the subject lines when sending the next company newsletter.
• Prioritise – With so many options for A/B testing, it’s important to prioritise tests to match your targets. For example, testing subject line personalisation may improve open rates, whereas testing CTAs may increase conversions. A lot of these tests will inform the next test but ensuring that you always have your end goals in mind will help you decide what to prioritise.
• Learn and implement – It’s important to remember that A/B testing offers a way to learn about your subscribers, and not all tests will result in useful data. If something doesn’t gain the results you hypothesised, use any learning to implement your next test. There will also be insights you gain, such as preferred tone of voice, which you can introduce across other marketing channels.

We hope we’ve helped you understand what A/B testing is and how to use it in your email marketing. We’d love to help you come up with A/B testing ideas, implement these for you, and provide data on what works for your audience.

For information about how we can support you and your eCommerce email marketing activity, contact us today.

To discover more about the different ways in which email marketing can positively impact your website traffic, sales, and engagement, look at our News page.