Achieving eCommerce success requires a process of continuous improvement. And one of the best ways to continually optimize everything from product descriptions to email subject lines is to use A/B testing.
eCommerce A/B testing is the process of comparing two or more variations on content or website design to see which ones perform best. By using the right A/B testing tools and strategies, you can ensure that every element of your eCommerce website is optimized for success.
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If you'd like to start leveraging the power of eCommerce A/B testing and conversion optimization strategies, here's all the information you need to know about eCommerce email A/B testing and website testing for eCommerce.
What Is A/B Testing in eCommerce?
eCommerce A/B testing is a scientific way to evaluate a marketing variable in comparison to a control. To accomplish this, brands show a percentage of users either a control or variable version of a marketing asset.
eCommerce A/B testing helps businesses isolate individual elements that influence results. After identifying a winning set, they can apply their findings to remaining users and future marketing materials.
Overall, this testing process creates an ongoing cycle of optimization and, with the help of A/B testing tools for eCommerce, contributes to smarter marketing decisions. With tools that offer advanced A/B testing capabilities (like HubSpot and Klaviyo), eCommerce stores can capitalize on the latest trends, such as multivariate testing and AI-powered optimization. These tools also provide powerful audience segmentation features, which help to increase testing accuracy.
Key Areas for A/B Testing
With today’s advances in eCommerce and marketing technology, brands can A/B test almost any asset. However, we’ve seen that a few specific areas are particularly well-suited for testing. When it comes to your eCommerce website and email marketing strategy, there is always something that can be tested more thoroughly. Examples include emerging testing areas like mobile-first user experiences and personalization elements (such as dynamic recommendations).
Website Testing
Most conversion optimization strategies focus on optimizing your website. You can improve these aspects of your site with the help of A/B website testing for eCommerce:
Calls-to-Action
Consider evaluating button color, size, font, capitalization, messaging, and shape. These things may seem insignificant, but each factor affects users differently.
Optimizing these minor characteristics can improve engagement and drive sales, so be sure to take your time and find the best ways to make improvements.
Page Layouts
Carefully evaluate heading, button, and image placement. Each element contributes to the overall user experience and can either help or harm the purchasing process.
We frequently assess product detail and checkout pages during routine eCommerce A/B testing. These pages offer high conversion values for brands and should be a key focus for future success.
Product Imagery
Testing the order and content of your product photography can drastically influence consumer purchasing decisions. Consider evaluating lifestyle vs. isolated product images on your product detail pages.
Additionally, you can conduct tests to find out if user-generated images perform better than branded imagery in various places throughout your store.
Pricing Strategies
Testing individual and bundled pricing options can help brands better understand how these elements directly influence conversion. If possible, we encourage companies to evaluate their pricing/conversion relationships and consider how they ultimately influence profitability. You may find that you can adjust pricing to increase conversion without reducing profits.
Promotional Offers
Consider testing free shipping, discounts, and added perks throughout your site. When you directly compare these elements, it can provide greater insight into what resonates with your customers. You can then use this information to inform future marketing promotions.
Responsiveness and Accessibility
Testing your website’s responsiveness and accessibility will ensure that it works well on all devices and is usable by all customers. Start by testing how your site looks and performs across different devices while checking things like images, buttons, and loading speeds.
Next, you'll want to test accessibility features like keyboard navigation, screen reader compatibility, and text contrast. These aspects of eCommerce development are key to maintaining ADA compliance because they ensure that everyone can access your website regardless of any disabilities.
Email Testing
Email campaign optimization can make promotional messages much more effective at driving sales. Here's how to use email subject line testing and other forms of eCommerce email A/B testing to make your messages more effective:
Email Templates
Template design can drastically impact eCommerce email engagement. We recommend evaluating different templates with identical subject lines and messaging to see what formats lend themselves best to different marketing promotions. Consider testing the placement of your logo, banner imagery, CTAs, and body messaging.
Subject Lines and Preview Text
This is one of the most straightforward email elements to test. Email subject line testing can help you see what version achieves a higher open or click rate. Analyze your results and use the subject line that yields the best outcome.
Creative Imagery
Test banner images, product highlights, and other graphic elements within your email content to evaluate what motivates your users to make purchases. Although content will vary from one message to another, marketers can use this information to identify trends and enhance future marketing correspondence.
SMS Testing
While not technically a form of email marketing, SMS advertising and email promotion share many things in common and go hand-in-hand. Try testing different text, CTAs, and images in your text messages to optimize SMS campaigns.
How to Run an A/B Test
If you want to test an element of your website or email marketing campaign using A/B testing, here are the steps to follow:
Identify a Variable
When setting up your eCommerce A/B test, there are a few settings to determine. First, as with any experiment, you’ll need to determine your variable. The variable should be the only thing that is different between the two variations. A/B testing tools for eCommerce that include AI analysis capabilities can help you predict high-impact variables.
Set Distribution Percentages
After deciding what to test, set your distribution percentages. We recommend sending versions A and B to about 15 percent of your audience (for a total of 30 percent). After your results come back, the remaining 70 percent of your audience will receive the winning version.
Determine a Winning Metric and Duration
Next, you’ll need to set the winning metric. This is the standard you will use to determine your winner. HubSpot allows you to choose one of three winning metrics: opens by delivered, clicks by delivered, or clicks by opens. Establish benchmarks for these metrics based on your company's historical data or industry averages so that you'll have a baseline for evaluating performance.
Next, you need to set your test duration. We generally recommend longer test times to ensure your results are accurate.
Set Fallbacks
Lastly, don’t forget to set your fallbacks. Just like in a regular experiment, things can go wrong. Your sample size may be too small to get accurate results or the outcome may be inconclusive. As a result, it's best to choose the version you want to select if you run into one of these problems.
Implement and Monitor
The final step is to run your test and analyze which variable performed best in terms of your winning metric. With modern dashboards like HubSpot’s A/B testing reporting system, analyzing the results of A/B testing on your website is easy. Klaviyo, meanwhile, is an excellent tool for streamlining eCommerce email A/B testing.
Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
To ensure the accuracy of your tests, there are a couple of common pitfalls you'll want to avoid. The first mistake involves using too small of a sample size. While sample sizes may vary from one test to another, you’ll need to make sure that your samples are large enough to generate statistically significant results.
The second common pitfall involves failing to align your tests with broader business goals. You don't want to run tests just for the sake of running them. Instead, make sure they are designed to achieve measurable business goals, such as improving conversion rates.
Emerging Trends in A/B Testing for eCommerce
There are several emerging trends in eCommerce A/B testing that are worth considering, starting with the role of artificial intelligence. With AI and predictive analytics tools, you can enhance test targeting and automatically analyze your results for key insights.
Omnichannel sales and marketing represent a key trend in eCommerce, which means that omnichannel testing is important as well. Be sure to test across email, SMS, and websites simultaneously for unified insights.
Lastly, sustainability messaging is something that's gaining a lot of traction in the eCommerce industry. To capitalize on this trend, try testing how different eco-friendly initiatives impact customer engagement.
Conclusion
A/B testing enables data-based decision-making, helping you fine-tune every element of your eCommerce website and marketing strategy for better results.
If you'd like to start using A/B testing to optimize your website, email messages, and more, we at Groove Commerce can help! Contact us today to discover how our digital marketing experts can help you leverage A/B testing to improve customer engagement and generate more sales. You can also arrange a free website audit to learn about the most effective ways to improve an eCommerce store.
