A/B Testing & CRO Explained
A/B Testing
A/B Testing (Split Testing) is experimenting with two or more variations of content to see which elements generate more conversions. Webpage headlines, text, elements, and colors can be tested through A/B testing. In digital marketing, A/B testing is extremely useful and beneficial because it allows marketers to pinpoint which specific elements are bringing in more interactions to a website.
How does A/B Testing work?
The first step for A/B testing is to create a controlled page and then modify different elements of the controlled page, creating the variation. Once these variations are made, your audience will be shown either the original page or the new variation page at random. Data about the user's behavior will then be collected as more people are shown the pages. Where users are clicking, how long users are looking at different pages, and whether or not conversions are being made are all examples of collected data from A/B testing. With this data, marketers are then able to further analyze and decide which elements to keep to optimize their websites.
Conversion Rate Optimization
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is the action of increasing the number or percentage of users on a website who complete specific actions that lead to conversions or desired outcomes.
While both CRO and A/B testing are working toward the same goal of optimizing an organization's conversions, these two processes are different because A/B determines what elements could be used on a webpage to optimize conversions while CRO is the process of how organizations can use these elements to increase conversions.
Similarly to how there are endless elements that could be tested in A/B testing, there are once again infinite factors that could determine CRO.
Elements That Affect CRO
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The homepage or landing page of a website is extremely important for CRO because this is a user's first impression of this website experience. It is on this page that a user will determine if they want to further interact with or explore the website at all.
Similar to the website homepage, if a website is messy, unappealing, or difficult to navigate, the odds are that users will not be interacting far enough for any conversions at all. Marketers should ensure that the overall aesthetic of a website is appealing and easily used since users also do not want to spend long amounts of time trying to navigate around different pages.
The content that is displayed on a website is significant in terms of products offered and narratives written. If a user is on a website for the purpose of shopping, then a purchase will only be made if the user sees a product that they believe will satisfy their needs and wants. As for a user that is looking for reading content, the user will only continue to interact with the website if its content is relevant to what the user is looking for.
A/B Testing Example
The organization that will be used to showcase an A/B testing example is Groove. As previously mentioned, a website's homepage has a significant impact on determining whether or not a user will decide to interact with a website. In this example, Groove's landing page will be specifically looked at.
Through analysis, Groove came to the conclusion that their landing page was only generating conversions at 2.3%. Because of this low percentage, Groove used A/B testing to determine why their users were not converting.
Groove then learned that they were communicating the wrong message to their targeted audience. This then led Groove to rebuild its website with two different variations that delivered different messages, one focusing on what Groove offered and another message focusing on what Groove could specifically offer to individual customers.
After examining the results of the two variations, Groove found that users were interacting with the website more with the newest message of personalized experience. These changes to Groove's website increased the conversion rate to 4.7%