How A/B Testing Can Dramatically Improve Your ROI

Testing is a core part of app development, web design and even marketing. Honestly if you are not regularly testing what you are doing then how can you be certain the changes you are making are for the best? As an experienced mobile application development company and web designer we know how A/B Testing can dramatically improve your ROI and today we wanted to share that information with you.

What is A/B testing?

At a very basic level, A/B testing is a simple method to choose between two options; option A or option B. For example, you might draft two different introduction paragraphs for a marketing email or have two different logos for your app. Instead of just going with the one you like the best or that is voted on by people in the creative group, you present both choices to a test audience comprised of people that fill up your target demographic.

The result will help you discover which option resonates better with the people your efforts are aimed at.

Typically when you test you offer up questions to go with the choices that help you understand in what ways one option is better than the other according to the group. For example, with the paragraph you might ask, “Which paragraph makes you want to keep reading?” This helps not only in this instance but can also provide valuable insights into how both things you created are perceived.

Testing can be done for literally any aspect of your projects however often they are best used for the critical points in a process such as first impressions and pivotal points where a customer could jump ship like the onboarding process in an app or the landing page of a website.

Testing will improve your ROI

Testing can improve your ROI especially in areas that directly impact conversion rates. It can be a real eye opener for some people who have never done testing before to see the dramatic difference something as minor as a color change can make because to them the original option seemed fine.

But in today’s hyper competitive market “fine” doesn’t always put money in your pocket.

Every action and every conversion directly affects your bottom line and testing can help increase conversions in both major ways and minor ways that add up. Even if you only see a 1 or 2 percent increase in clicks, opens, or app retention, if you can find a handful of spots like that suddenly your ROI has increased by 10%.

While some people simply make a change and then track what happens in a live environment, why would you want to ever risk losing out on business or negative effects? Even the smallest changes should be tested and properly vetted if your goal is to have a site or app that is optimized for success.

You simply won’t know the impact unless you test it.

Common spots to test

These are a few of the most impactful areas to consider testing that can dramatically improve your ROI:

• Logos – No matter what the logo is for from an app to your business, you want one that inspires confidence and trust. A bad logo can kill conversions faster than a skunk clears a room.
• CTA Buttons – While some people might think the size, shape, color or font of a CTA button is no big deal, in some cases changing these simple buttons have increased clicks by +20%.
• Email Header – The first step in getting an email opened is the header followed by the opening paragraph. It makes sense to increase opens if you want to even get to the opening paragraph.
• Product Name – Similar to the logo, you need a good name, especially in the app world, that is interesting and descriptive.
• Images – For both apps and websites, images play a big part in the user experience because humans are very visual. Do your images create engagement?

These are just general starting spots as depending on your business there could be quite a few more critical junction points that testing could help with.

The bottom line

The bottom line is that A/B testing can dramatically improve your ROI if you aren’t regularly doing it. Target audiences can be a complex group that might not always react or respond in the way you assume they will which is where testing comes in. By taking the time to compare options you will be able to make the changes you should that will increase your bottom line versus changes you hope will work.

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