How To A/B Test Your Emails For Ecomm Success

Do you wish you could learn more about the types of email content that your target audience is interested in, as well as what motivates them to open, click, and convert? Well, your wish has been granted because this blog is all about A/B testing and how you can use it to gain insight into your customers’ minds.

Drip
21-12-2021

Kasey Luck, founder and CEO of Luck & Co Agency, has agreed to share her expertise and insights on the subject.

Whether you’re new to A/B testing or looking for a refresher, this blog will teach you everything you need to know to get started right away.

So, what exactly is A/B testing?

That’s an excellent question! A/B testing is a technical term for sending variations of the same email to a subset of your email subscriber list and then analyzing the engagement data to learn more about your audience. This allows you to learn which variations your subscribers respond to the best and use that information to improve the efficacy of your email marketing.

When more of your customers like your emails, they are more likely to buy from you (again and again). Furthermore, when testing offers, copy, or imagery, the insights gained from A/B email tests can frequently be applied to other marketing channels, leading to optimizations across your ecommerce marketing. That means more satisfied customers and more revenue for your company – yay!

What metrics should I investigate?

When you do A/B testing, you look at the Open Rate, Click Rate, and Conversion Rate. Depending on the information you seek, you will select one metric for each test. So, how do you make your decision?

Rate of Availability

Do you want to know what subject lines, preheader copy, and send times are most effective in reaching your target audience? Conduct a split test with OPEN RATE as the winning criterion.

The release of Apple iOS15 in Fall 2021 skews this metric slightly because it allows customers to opt out of sharing their open, location, and device data. Because Apple Mail reports anything received through their app as “opened,” open rates may be slightly inflated as iOS15 adoption grows through the end of 2021. Keep this in mind as you analyze data in the coming months.

Click Through Rate

Do you want to know which image to use in an email, which line of copy grabs your reader’s attention, or which design generates the most conversions? Run an A/B test to determine the click rate. Because the goal of opening an email is to drive customers to your website, anything in the email body should be tested with the goal of optimizing for click rate. Other elements to test using click rate as the metric are as follows: