7 Split Testing Tips To Minimize Poor Performance

If your goal is to gain the maximum amount of profit from your business, then you need to enhance your conversion. And, it’s time to change your strategies.

Split test is the great way to improve your performance. It is the best answer for optimizing your site’s performance.

Let’s find out what is split testing and ways to boost your conversion rates and poor performance.

What is Split Testing?

Split testing (also known as A/B testing or multivariate testing) is a method of leading controlled, randomized experiments with the goal of improving a website metric, like clicks, form completions, or purchases.

It allows marketers to test two different types of elements- control (the original) and variation- to analyze which delivers the best result.

Split testing can be applied to everything: Landing pages, Emails, Blog post titles and Facebook Ads.

A good split test can result in huge ROI improvements i.e. 10X.

Here are some commonly tested elements-

• The call to action (CTA) button ( and wording, size, color and placement)
• Headline or product description
• Form’s length and types of fields
• Layout and style of website/ mobile website
• Product pricing and promotional offers
• Images on landing and product pages
• Amount of text on the page (short vs. long)
• Social share icons (placement, design, size)

Here are the steps you should take when conducting a split test-

#1 Reason to test

Your split testing should be data- driven. You need to find the problem first so that you can find the correct solution.

Possibly you should change your headline, feature image, forms. Possibly, your audiences feel misinformed.  So, you need to do a better job of creating message match between your ads and landing page.

#2 Create a Theory

Based on your reason, develop a theory. So, you will able to determine what needs to change.

For example- if you see your visitor average landing page session is only 5 seconds, then creating a more attractive headline will get to read the post and spend more time on the page that will eventually lead to more conversion.

#3 Calculate your accurate sample size

Optimizely’s calculator is great for calculating your accurate sample size.
You need to analyze the number of visits each of your pages (control and variation) get before you can be confident about your results.

This is what you’ll need to include for it to release an accurate sample size:

Baseline conversion rate: What’s the conversion rate of your unique (control) page? The higher it is; fewer visits you’ll require before you can finish up a test.

Minimum detectable effect: A 20% least detectable impact implies that, at the end of the test, you must be certain that a lift or drop in conversion rate higher than 20% is a result of your modifications.

The lower your base detectable impact is; the more visits you’ll require before you can finish up your test.

#4 Remove confusing variables

You are conducting your test in the large source that means there are the chances for one small factor to influence your test in a big way, which could result confusing.

Confirm that traffic sources and referring ads are the same for both pages and that other variable that could influence your test are removed to the best of your capacity. Here are the few things you’ll need to consider representing:

#5 Quality checks of your test

Look at all before your test goes live. Such as, does your landing page appear to be same in every browser? Is your CTA button working? Are all the links in your ads right?

Before you start running anything, it’s important to QC every part of your campaign to confirm nothing undermines the correctness of your outcomes.

#6 Bring traffic to your pages

Now it’s time to bring traffic to your pages. Check the traffic is coming from a similar place (unless, certainly, you’re split-testing your traffic sources or ads). And be careful where that traffic is coming from.

Once you’ve chosen your traffic sources, keep running your test until you’ve hit the sample size you recognized in your pre-testing analysis for both pages (original and control). And, if you hit that number in less than a week, keep the test running.

#7 Run, Rinse and Repeat

Once your A/B tests are ready to start, let them split and monitor your website testing software to see how each variant is performing.

Most site testing tools will give you real time response in the matter of how each page is fairing.

They will also tell you to know when you have hit a statistically significant limit where you can settle on a choice on which landing page variant was the champ.

Always run, rinse and repeat your test. There’s always something to test, something to improve.

Here’s a split testing example-