A/B Testing Your Online Ads For More Clicks
If you visit your eye doctor, you’re familiar with A/B testing – where you look through a lens at images of different focuses while the doctor asks, “What looks clearer? A … or B?”
Inbound marketing A/B testing for online ads is based on the same principle: It measures what elements increase the click-through rate (CTR), meaning more response from your target audience.
Putting together such a test isn’t that hard. It comes down to running two versions of your content – the control version and the variant – simultaneously.
• For your ad’s call to action, the A/B variants may feature small, subtle differences, like a slight variation in wording, a different position on the page or even a new background color for the button.
• For a lead generation form, the variants can include what questions or information you request in exchange for premium content.
• For an offer of premium content, you could test the success of a video against that of an e-newsletter.
What you want to measure
At some point, you may find that one version of the A/B performs better than another. You’ll learn this via metrics that support your marketing goals. These can include click-throughs to your landing page, increased traffic to your website, sign-ups for an e-newsletter, or even customer inquiries about RV sales and service.
Where to run the variants
Using A/B testing, you’ll measure the response of your CTAs in Google AdWords text, in your display ads, as part of your blog, or integrated into your Facebook page or Twitter feed. Wherever you think you may find web traffic interested in RV topics is a good place to test the effectiveness of your marketing messages.
Clicks can lead to conversions … eventually
A/B testing is designed not to close a sale, but to help you understand what drives your customers and prospects. So while you can take advice on what kind of media, message and placement to use, only your own experiments and experience will determine the best tactics for your dealership.
