Theoretical approach is good, but when we are discussing your website conversions, the practical one could be much more useful. So, who should you ask about what your customers need? Yourself? Your designer? I believe neither of them. The best way is to directly ask the customer. But how do you do it? In this case, A/B testing could be the perfect solution.
A/B testing, also known as split testing, is a powerful technique in digital marketing that allows you to optimize your website's performance and improve conversion rates. In this blog post, we will explore how to harness the power of A/B testing within the HubSpot CMS to achieve better results and create a more user-friendly and engaging online experience to convert your visitors into customers.
A/B testing is a method used to compare two versions of a web page or marketing asset to determine which one performs better. By presenting two variations, A and B, to your audience and measuring their responses, you can make data-driven decisions to improve your website's effectiveness. This testing method is crucial for optimizing the user experience, increasing conversions, and achieving your marketing goals.
The answer here is quite simple: starting from the Professional Plan, HubSpot Content Hub has a built-in A/B Testing feature for your emails and pages. Proving any of your theories in practice will not require too much effort. Additionally, HubSpot's intuitive interface makes it easy to create, manage, and analyze A/B tests.
Before delving into the practical aspect of A/B testing, let's define several things before conducting the test:
Start by setting clear objectives for your A/B tests. Ask yourself the following questions:
After defining the goals, you can shift from asking "what/how" to "which."
Now, you need to choose which elements on your web page you want to test. These can include:
Now that you have defined the goals and the elements to test, you need to design two different versions of the element you want to test. HubSpot's native solution can assist with this.
That was the theory; now let's move on to the practice. As mentioned earlier, you need at least the Professional Plan to run an A/B test. So, select the website page or landing page where you want to perform the test and go to the "more" menu:
then find and click on "Run a test":
or you can access it from the page editor by locating "Test" in the left menu and selecting "Run A/B test":
Choose the A/B test option:
then just choose the names for the variations:
Then, provide names for the variations: Click "Create variation." The test itself is now created. Your task is to change the content in the "B" variation as described earlier. To switch between the variations, use the menu located near the language version switcher.
Now that you've created the variation and made the necessary content changes, all that's left to do is wait for a while (as defined in your goals) and let your visitors determine which variation performs better.
When it comes to analyzing the results, you need to:
To view your test results, go to the page details and select the "Test results" tab:
Next, select the period and frequency. Please note that the "All data" period does not cover the entire testing period; it includes data from the time the page was created. It's better to choose the "Custom range" option and review the results from the day the test started to the day it finished.
Here's what the results look like for one of our previous tests:
By default, the results will show you the page views, but you can switch to see other parameters, such as:
In our case, we tested the conversion rate of our form, which was slightly different in the "B" version. The results were as follows: the "B" version showed a 1% conversion rate, while "A" had only 0.46%. As a result, we chose the "B" version as the winner.
By the way, if you look at the graph in the previous screenshot, you may notice that the views are not evenly split at 50/50; it's more like 70/30. However, conversions are a relative number, so even with such uneven splitting, the test can still be meaningful.
This is also a part of the native functionality. Simply scroll to the results and hover over the versions:
*Just note that the last variation was created while I was writing this blog post, so it doesn't have any views or submissions yet.
To maximize the effectiveness of your A/B testing in HubSpot, follow these best practices:
Steer clear of common A/B testing pitfalls, which include:
Incorporating A/B testing into your HubSpot strategy can be a game-changer for improving your website's performance and increasing conversions. Make data-driven decisions, continuously refine your content, and reap the benefits of a more effective online presence. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions, and happy testing!