5 Proven Email A/B Test Best Practices to Increase Email Conversion Rates

A/B testing, also known as A/B testing, is one of the most effective methods to ensure how prospects and customers will respond to email messages. The results of A/B test can assist marketers in determining the effectiveness of future and ongoing email campaigns to achieve a higher impact. The A/B tests enable marketers to separate specific differences between the two versions of the same emails. These tests are performed by splitting the email list into two segments and then, sending one version of the email to one segment and the other version of the email to another segment. As soon as emails are sent to both segments, marketers can monitor, measure and determine the version that is performing better than the other one. 

As marketers, you need to test all the emails you send especially those transactional emails including shipping confirmation emails, product delivery emails, purchase order emails, thank you emails etc. which present greater opportunities of conversion. A/B tests will also help you explore if your welcome emails have potential to convert instead of just merely welcoming new subscribers and if the subscribers want to know more about your products, services or the website or if they are willing to follow your brand on social media pages – therefore, there are many elements you can perform tests and test the effectiveness of emails in achieving the marketing goals. These tried, tested and proven five A/B test techniques will examine if and how your emails can increase conversion rates. 

1. Split the main CTA into deeper Links

Marketers need to always emphasize upon the main call-to-action phrase or button because this element is more capable of increasing sales conversions. You can improve conversions and click-throughs rates of email campaigns by breaking the main call-to-action into multiple series of “deep links” which can allow customer move further deep into the funnel. For example, if you are asking your audience to give rating for a book in one version of the email, you can include the 5-star rating option with a few questions and the option to leave a comment. In another version of the email, you can remove some questions or you may present the option to “skip a step” and help them avoid detailed links to see which versions can amplify the conversion rates. 

2. Test different variants and sequence of links

Many email campaigns, especially emails that contain multiple secondary links, provide customers with various options to get them navigate through different ways through the sales funnel. Marketers need to not only test whether to eliminate some links, but also the sequence and contents of those secondary links to see which can increase sales conversions. These types of tests are easy to build with a gamut of templating languages available to add or remove content based on diverse criteria. Marketers can create variations, one without the links and other set with to find out how each set works. A/B testing performed on the sequence and the format of all sets of email content consisting of links can help a great deal in taking a more well-informed decisions on these areas. 

3. Test mobile-friendliness of your emails 

More than 65% of emails get opened on mobile devices over desktop devices that marketers should take it mandatory to ensure that their emails load and read flawlessly on mobile devices in order to increase their email campaign conversion rates. Hence, it is also important to track which mobile email clients and devices customers and prospects are mostly using. Therefore, they need to set up the A/B test process to conduct tests with a responsive email template to measure the impact of the template.

Use of responsive email templates will allow marketers to boost click-through rates of campaigns as much as up to 10% and it is worth enough to implement a little more CSS to design your email campaign. Get inspiration on creating effective responsive templates from “Get better results with Responsive Email templates”.

4. Test Call-To-Action (CTA)

The CTA is the element that prompts recipients to click the links and buttons in emails – so, we are well aware of the importance of testing CTAs to determine how well the links will perform. There are various good reasons why marketers must consider A/B testing such as, 

• To determine how effective the CTA is in making the right offers to prospects and customers. 
• To check if the CTA can guide recipients the action to take? 
• Is the CTA in the context of the email copy?
• Can the CTA stand out from the rest of the copy and be clearly visible? 

To test your CTA in emails, consider these test variations:

• Action words that direct the actions such as, “Sign up”, “Register”, “Download” “Book Free demo” etc.
• Variants in offers that are made through CTA to monitor results
• Positioning of CTA whether at the top right corner, in the center middle, or at the very end of the text

5. Test to determine the right time to send emails

After working out the right segment of the email list and crafting the right message, the next thing important for succeeding is to figure out the right time to reach the right audience with the right message. Marketers need to ensure that they are sending the emails at the best time when they will get the maximum engagement from their recipients; that’s why it is essential to define the certain days and certain times of the day when you yield results from email campaigns. Marketers can test emails on these variations such as, day of the week such as Wednesday, Monday, conduct tests on diverse time slots such as 10am, 2pm, 9pm and also, test frequency such as once a week or thrice a week. 

Apart from these tips, marketers should also perform tests on long and short subject lines, test email body copy, such as text only or visual and text, whether to use a personal tone or formal tone and many others.