A/B testing or split testing is a statistics method implemented to test and improve the efficiency of a process by changing one or more variables of the same version, comparing a subject's response to both of them, and determining which one works better.

First, you start by preparing two emails that differ in a certain way. The elements that differ might be the subject line, email copy, CTAs, or any other element that you want to test. You need to be careful that you make changes to only one element at a time - if you change more than one element you won’t be able to determine what caused an increase (or possibly a drop) in your statistics.

Then you form a list of addresses and randomly send these two emails. The results of responses will show you which test email is more effective and appealing to your prospects.

Tips and Tricks:

To conduct your A/B test campaign in the most effective manner and avoid common mistakes, you need to follow certain rules and best practices of proper A/B testing:

1. Carefully choose what elements you want to test depending on your key performance indicators (opens, clicks, replies).

   • Subject lines/calls to action/offers
   • Body text
   • Added value for your prospects

   Each of these elements (and many others) is equally important because it can help you convert. Let’s go deeper and relate them with your KPI’s:

   • Open rate: Your first goal is to get your prospects to actually open your email and read what you have to offer.- Craft your subject line to perfection and make sure you invest as much time as you need to make it as catchy and compelling as possible. - Delivery time is also important if you want to A/B test properly. Narrow down the most likely times when your prospects will be going through their inboxes. Autoklose has the ability to adjust sending times based on different time zones for each individual campaign.
   • Click-through-rate (CTR): Too many links in the email body can lead to bad consequences and your email might land in your recipients’ spam folder. Use only trusted links for your email content and avoid URL shorteners.
   • Reply rate: This is the hardest part. How to get your prospects to reply to your email, and of course, give you a positive response.
     – Adjust the content length. You don’t want to bore your prospects with endlessly long email body, but on the other hand, maybe your prospects actually like to have it all explained in one email. Since this isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer, what you should do is try both versions and see what works best for you!
     – Use the right tone and wording. Make your email fun to read and give all the necessary information.
     – Formatting your email body is also important. Short and scannable paragraphs are easier to read.
     – Social proof is also something you want to include and test as some studies show that people will be more likely to do business with you if they see recommendations from trusted field experts. Drop a few names occasionally but don’t overdo it.
      

2. Carefully choose your testing subject lines.

   Pick a group of prospects you want to include in your A/B testing (for example 100 of them, as that number is enough for getting results in just a few days). Make the groups as equal in size as possible; you can also evenly distribute recipients according to their job title, location, seniority level, etc. That way, variations in these factors will have a minimal impact on your results.
    

3. Give yourself enough time to test

   A/B testing should be conducted over a certain period of time in order to achieve satisfying statistical significance. If you test your campaign for a too short or too long period of time, you won’t be able to tell whether the results are really significant or you will lose valuable time.

   Keep in mind that there is no guarantee that your efforts will bring satisfactory results, but you should give your test campaign enough time to produce results you can work with.

   Don’t drop everything or stop testing if one of your test campaigns fails, or stop testing after a successful one. Test your winning version against a new one, as that way you will have the most optimized version to use in your future campaigns.

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Happy klosing! :)

Your autoklose.com team!

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