Have you ever had tough time choosing which subject line will get more clicks on your campaign? Ever wondered which pre-header could help entice more clicks? Each time you create a campaign there are many ways to present your content, but you may wonder which way is best. This is where Split Testing (otherwise known as A/B testing) can help. A/B Campaigns are an easy, time-proven way to increase your open rates and click-thru rates of your campaigns.
How Does A/B Testing in Email Marketing Work?
Let’s make an example to help you understand it better. Say you want to send an email campaign to a list of 1,000 contacts in your CRM, and would like to test two different subjects lines to see which will product the most clicks.
You create an A/B campaign where there will be two sets of messages, Message A and Message B.
Next, you breakdown your list and send Message A to 15% of the contacts, and Message B to another 15% of the list and track the open rates. Once you have gathered enough data, you can make an informed decision between the two messages and send the highest performing subject line to the remaining 70% contacts.
This is how an A/B campaign works and helps you to prepare a better messages based on actual data. This in turn effectively helps you to create a more successful email campaign.
Factors Can You Test to Increase Email Open Rates
1. Subject Line – Often to most A/B tested element in email marketing, the subject line can make or break your entire campaign. This is especially true for first impressions.
2. Pre-header – the preheader text is a short-summary that follows the subject line in your email. The preheader text plays a huge role as this is shown in almost every modern email client. When cleverly used, preheader text can compliment your subject line and increase click-thru’s to your email.
3. Timing – Timing is an often overlooked factor in email marketing. There are several studies conducted to show the best times to send email campaigns. Remember, the optimial send times for YOUR unique campaigns will vary based on your audience and demographics.
4. Personalization – Personalization in email marketing is a powerful tool that can be utilized in A/B campaigns. Test using personalization in your subject lines to capture your audience’s attention. Just be sure the contacts in your CRM aren’t missing any fields.
5. Segmentation – Increasing open rate for your campaign goes far beyond the content of your emails. Make sure your are sending the right email to the right audiences. This is where segmentation is key email marketing automation. Learn more about segmentation and other valuable marketing automation tips in this post..
See how easy it is to split test your marketing emails with a A/B campaign using Soffront.