Why A/B Testing?

Why A/B testing

In the digital era, the smallest details can affect how a consumer interacts with your webpage or app. Changing something as simple as the placement of a button can change conversions dramatically, but how do we know if a change is working in our favor? This is where A/B testing comes in handy! A/B testing compares two different versions (Control and Variation) of your website or app. This is done by showing half of your traffic the Control Version of your webpage or app and the other half of your traffic the variation page to see which one performs better. By using A/B testing, you can turn hypothesis into knowledge that is supported by data. With A/B testing, you can eliminate guessing whether something worked. If used effectively, A/B testing could be a resource to help achieve business goals. Software such as optimizely can measure, collect, and analyze your data. With these resources, informed decisions can be made because it shows if a change had an effect. The easiest way to prove someone right or wrong is to back it up with data.

Best Practices

Now that we’ve seen how beneficial A/B can be for your company, let’s go over some best practices! I learned a couple of tips from the optimizely website. When using A/B testing, you can’t show engines different content than a typical visitor would see. This process is called Cloaking, doing this will result in your website getting demoted in search results or being removed from the search results entirely. To get the most accurate results, use rel=”canonical” when you are running a test with multiple URLs to prevent confusion for Google. By using rel=”canonical” it will point back to the original page. Speaking of redirecting, when running a test that redirects the original URL to a variation URL, use the 302 (temporary) redirects instead of 301 (permanent). Lastly, only run the experiments for as long as needed otherwise Google will think it is an attempt to deceive search engines. It is a good habit to update the tests regularly.

Companies and Success with A/B testing

There are many companies that have used this resource and benefited from it. A HubSpot article tells a success story about a company called ComScore using A/B testing. ComScore’s goal was to increase conversion rates. Their A/B test consisted of 3 variations of their websites with different designs and orientations. They tested 2,500 visitors and saw that compared to the original, variation 1 increased the conversion rate of the product pages by 69%. This was due to the vertical layout with client logo displayed on top.

The same HubSpot Article, tells another success story of Electronic Arts. When pre-sales were not doing as well as expected for their new game SimCity, they decided to do an A/B test. On the control page, there was a “Pre-Order and Get $20 off your next purchase” banner on top of their website. The variation page did not have the banner. Electronic Arts found that the Variation page had an increase of 43.4% more purchases and it turns out that people did not need an extra incentive to buy the game.

I encourage you all to try out A/B testing! Whether you find that a change is beneficial or harmful to your website or app, there is no guessing left. Data gives you knowledge and knowledge is power. Stop guessing and start doing!