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Email Marketing A/B Tests for Your Business

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The point of any marketing campaign is to increase ROI. If your marketing materials encourage someone to engage with your brand or lead them to actually make a purchase, you’re doing something right! However, if your marketing efforts are not accomplishing the goals you have set, it may be time to make some changes. Email marketing presents us with the perfect opportunity to try new tactics and make changes to our plan. In this article, we’re going to discuss email marketing a/b tests and give you recommendations of specific tests to try!

What is Email Marketing A/B Testing?

Email marketing a/b testing refers to the process of creating two versions of the same email and then changing one variable to two subsets of an audience. The point of email a/b testing, which is also referred to as split testing, is to see which version performs the best with your target market. You can use split tests to determine which elements of your current email marketing campaign should change and which elements should stay the same. Here are some email marketing a/b tests we recommend for businesses to try!

Make Adjustments to Your Subject Line

You absolutely must split test your subject lines! This is the first thing your recipients will see when they receive an email from you, so it makes sense that subject lines are an essential part of any email marketing campaign. In fact, 47% of email recipients open email based on the subject line and 69% of email recipients report email as spam based solely on the subject line.

This further proves the importance of an effective subject line for email marketing. Unfortunately, there is no formula for creating the perfect email subject. Every market is different and will therefore respond to different subject line types.

On your next email test, try to change these key aspects of your subject line:

  • Make the word count on one email subject line longer and one shorter.
  • Make one email subject line a statement and the other a question
  • Include emojis in one subject line and leave the other one without emojis.

Set a Standard Length for Your Email Messaging

Another email marketing a/b test you should consider is varying the message length in your emails. The members of your target audience likely have a preferred email message length and it’s up to you to discover what it is. Send out emails where the messaging is on the shorter side – around 100 words – and some where the messaging is a touch longer – around 175 words. Take some time to evaluate the level of engagement, responses, and conversions each email receives and then use that information to set a standard email messaging length for all future email marketing campaigns.

Play with Visual Content in Your Emails

You can also test your email marketing campaigns to see if they do better with or without visual content. Including images, GIFs, or videos in your email messaging has the potential to intrigue members of your target market and encourage them to closely read your email. If you want to take this a step further, you can test emails based on how many visuals are included inside.
In the world of email marketing, there is a theory that 30% of your email should be dedicated to visual content and the other 70% should be reserved for the message. We recommend that you use this rule as part of your split test and then try the reverse for the other part.

Send Your Emails on Specific Days and Time

The next recommendation we have concerning email marketing split tests is to evaluate the days and times when you send your messages. You need to a/b test your email marketing campaigns in order to figure out when your recipients are most likely to open your message. In general, we recommend that you avoid sending emails on Mondays and Fridays as these are the days closest to the weekend and emails tend to pile up. It’s also believed that the best times to send your emails are around 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Just like everything else, you’ll have to test sending your email campaigns on different days and times to see how you target audience responds. Be sure to regularly evaluate the results of your split tests and decide on the best days and times based on those results.

Include Calls to Action in Your Email Marketing Messaging

One last email marketing test you should perform is centered around calls to action. You should always include at least one call to action in your email messaging because they encourage your target market to further interact and engage with your brand. The elements you’ll want to test here are how many calls to action you should include in each email campaign and what kind should they be.
Split test email campaigns with only one call to action and multiple calls to action to see what your target audience responds best to. You should also try to vary the way your calls to action are displayed. You can link a motivating phrase, add a button, or include a clickable image.

As you can see, a/b testing is an important part of the email marketing process. If you want your emails to be successful among your target market, split testing is the best approach. We understand that this process can be confusing and that it requires a great deal of time and effort. Point of Action Marketing is here to help you with email marketing in any way you need. Check out our list of marketing services and fill out our contact form to get started today!

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