How A/B Testing Different E-mail Offers Can Significantly Improve Your E-mail Marketing Campaigns
Why A/B Testing Is Important to E-mail Marketing
A/B testing, otherwise known as split testing, is the act of conducting an experiment to measure which option or factor is most effective between two groups, A and B. In regards to e-mail marketing within e-Commerce and B2C businesses, these tests would be sent to a small body of subscribers to help identify which email offer is best suited for them. However, this tactic is based on the assumption that one offer is better than all others. This “one size fits all” approach to e-mail offers is an understatement that most businesses have yet to address.
Dynamic Offers Outweigh Other Factors In E-mail Campaigns
It has become increasingly important to realize the significance of quality e-mail content and subject lines. However, what drives your customer to click through to your site and finalize their purchase is your e-mail offer. People who buy products marketed through e-mail spend 138% more than people who do not receive e-mail offers (Forrester Research). If your offer isn’t competitive enough, then your customers may opt for another source with a similar product but greater offer. As we mentioned before, there’s no ONE offer that can satisfy all your customers. The key is dynamic offers- that is, targeted e-mail offers that are customized for each individual customer based on their demographic, income, social movements, interests and more. How is this possible? Through A/B Testing and intelligent marketing software, you can identify the best offers for your customers on a one-to-one level. 44% of e-mail recipients made at least one purchase last year based on a promotional e-mail (Jupiter Research). You can raise that percentage dramatically by treating your customers as unique individuals. Don’t waste your time and money by sending 200,000 e-mails to only 20,000 customers who care.
A/B Test Your Offers
What offers can you test? Here are a few that we’ve seen: 1) free shipping 2) % off promotion (i.e. 20% off) 3) $ off promotion ($15 off $75 or more) 4) free samples 5) free upgrades (standard to premium) 6) shipping upgrades (standard to expedited) 7) $ off on shipping ($5.99 shipping on any order) 8) minimum purchase amount to receive an incentive 9) seasonal e-mail offers 10) time sensitive e-mail offers (purchase before 11:59pm and receive 10% off) 11) exclusive offers (i.e. for newsletter subscribers or twitter followers) 12) last chance sales 13) restocked items 14) extra loyalty points How can you effectively run tests on your e-mail offers? It is best to give your tests a sufficient amount of time to generate more accurate results. These tests could extend from a few weeks to a couple of months, depending on the amount of variables (or offers) you plan to run. Whether you would like to run 70 or 700 dynamic offers, it is worth taking the proper steps and using the right tools to do so. Running A/B testing on your e-mail campaigns could give you more headaches than one, especially with multi-variable campaigns. However, using intelligent marketing software, such as Retention Science’s Customer Profiling Engine, you can automate this process with the click of a button.
