Many business owners don’t use A/B testing because they aren’t sure what to test. It can be overwhelming to consider all the possible combinations of factors to test. Let’s take a look at the top six things to check out.
- Sender name
- Subject line
- First sentence
- Template
- Time of day
- Call to action
Sender name
When sending out emails to customers or clients, many companies don’t give much thought to the sender’s name they use. An increase in open rates can be achieved by replacing the company name with the sender’s name, but you should test this theory first. Try an A/B test with a subset of your subscriber base to see which subject line—an organization’s name or a person’s—results in a higher percentage of click-throughs.
Subject line
The subject line of an email is crucial to its success. It’s the first thing that people see when you send them an email, and it can make or break whether or not they choose to read it.
Your email subject lines can be optimized in a number of ways. Experiment with various text lengths and voices. You could conduct tests to determine whether questions or statements produce better results in terms of open rates.
You can also test to see if your open rates improve after including the recipient’s first name in the subject line. Whether or not emojis in the subject line are appreciated by subscribers is debatable; therefore, it is something you may want to A/B test.
First sentence
The opening line of your message is yet another variable to try out. The first sentence of an email is particularly important because it serves as the message’s “preview text” for the recipient. In most email clients, only the first 40 to 90 characters are displayed to the user, so choose your words carefully and experiment with various phrases in drafts before sending. It’s possible a 45% increase in open rates could be achieved by simply fixing this sentence.
Template
Checking with your subscribers to see which email format they prefer is a smart move. You can test out various color schemes to find the one that works best. Compare the performance of HTML emails to those written in plain text. You should experiment with the size and placement of the images you send via email. Learning what kinds of images your subscribers prefer to see in your emails can help you build a stronger brand.
Time of day
If you want your email marketing campaign to be successful, you need to think carefully about what time of day you send your emails. A subscriber’s likelihood of opening an email drop below 1% after 24 hours, so it’s important to send emails when they’ll be seen as quickly as possible.
Sending an email to your subscribers at different times of the day can help you determine the most effective time to send your emails. The email could be sent to one set of recipients in the morning and another set in the early afternoon, for instance. It’s impossible to pinpoint the ideal time of day to send emails, but you can see if your subscribers prefer the mornings, afternoons, or evenings.
Call to action
Your email’s call to action (CTA) is crucial because it encourages readers to take action on your behalf. Experiment with various call-to-action (CTA) variants to see which resonate most with your subscriber base.
To begin, you can test which your subscribers are more likely to click on: a button or a link. From there, test out if a different button or link color makes a difference. Altering where your call to action appears is another option. If you frequently send lengthy emails, for instance, you could try scattering various buttons throughout the message.
You can also test out different wordings and tones to see what your subscribers respond to best. Emails that are highly likely to result in a click-through can be perfected through repeated A/B testing of the call-to-action.