Creative A/B testing increases metrics for marketing campaigns. That much is simple.
But knowing what and when to test requires as much finesse as the content creation itself.
Opus Creative learned early on that A/B tests featuring content with considerable differences won’t net the insight required to increase performance metrics such as email opens and clicks.
Similarly, minimal content differences between A and B won’t tell us much, either. That’s why there’s an art beyond the art.
Only learned experience within an extended campaign allows creators to determine best paths forward for design and content.
“We maintain strong control over the process – we need to know why one piece of content wins over the other,” says Todd McIlhenny, Opus Creative’s Business Director. “Therefore, A/B testing can’t be a one-and-done. It needs to be tested within an ongoing program or campaign so you can check and double-check each variable.”
When Opus Creative consulted with Dell Technologies World to drive registrations via a global email campaign, the prevailing logic was to have the Registrations link as prominent as possible. For many email deployments, the Registration link had its own unique box design and color to set it apart from other links.
It worked: Clicks to registration outpaced all others. But the minimal engagement elsewhere was concerning.
That’s when Opus Creative decided to test boxed links for all Call to Action (CTA) links, similar to the Registration link. The risk was that the box links would decrease prominence of the Registration link, resulting in fewer engagements with the campaign’s most important metric.
Fear not: Clicks to Registration maintained its consistently high rate, and engagement elsewhere on the newsletter increased.
“Boxes performed immediately better,” Todd says. “We realized people have to see immediately where to click without thinking about it.”
Some other successful creative tests around Registration boxes include:
The Registration box had a different color scheme to set it apart from other box links. We tested several colors before finding that color doesn’t matter much – more importantly, it must be different from the other links in the email.
We added a second Registration box at the bottom of the email. This increased overall clicks to Registration.
“Every A/B test should be tested against your goals,” Todd says. “So to find success you have to look at unique clicks to the website first, then to registrations as a tie breaker. We want to see where on the email people are clicking to find out what interests them.”
Having that info is priceless, and proved useful at other points during the event’s campaign.