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The ABC's of A-B testing
At some point, every aspect of business comes down to effective
decision-making. Marketing communications are no different. Few marketing
activities are laden with more opportunities for decision-making. After all,
there is so much to accomplish, and only so much money to go around.
One tool in the marketer's arsenal that can help you make better
communication-related decisions is A-B Testing. This age-old technique is a
systematic approach to testing alternatives that can yield terrific improvements
in promotional effectiveness. Tests can be done for a wide range of features,
including ad format, colors, headlines, body copy, calls to action, and response
devices (i.e. toll-free number vs. e-mail address vs. internet site landing
page, etc.). Tests can also be done for sales promotions, marketing literature
and telemarketing scripts.
A simple A-B Test works like this:
- Split your audience into 2 groups: an 'A' group which represents your
control group, and a 'B' group which represents your test group
- Develop 2 versions of whatever it is you are trying to test, and present
one version to each of the two groups
- Measure the results seen from each group
- Isolate the test with the stronger results, and adopt the format of that
tested feature in future campaigns
It is now possible to conduct A-B Testing on individual elements of Internet
web sites. Drugstore.com, for example, uses A-B Testing routinely to test
various elements of their web site, and determine what should be changed in
order to increase orders and raise profits. Two visitors to the Drugstore.com
site might very well see different layouts, colors, text or offers, even though
they visit within seconds of each other. As in any A-B Test, the stronger
combination prevails, and is rolled out to all visitors as soon as the
alternatives have been presented to a statistically-valid sample size, and
conclusive performance data has been accumulated.
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