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How to A/B Test Email Campaigns: Ideas & Best Practices

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How to A/B Test Email Campaigns: Ideas & Best Practices

In today’s fast-paced world of digital marketing, A/B testing has become a mainstay for brands looking to optimize their email campaigns. While many are using this technique, not all are harnessing its full potential. In this blog, we’ll dive into how A/B testing, once a niche approach, has now become a cornerstone of email marketing. We’ll uncover the common pitfalls that limit its effectiveness and offer insights into maximizing the overall benefits of A/B testing. 

It’s clear that A/B testing is the best way to continually refine email campaign strategies over time and improve performance through data-driven decision making, but how can we perfect this strategy as marketers? Let’s jump into the basics…

 

What’s A/B Testing in Email Marketing?

 

A/B testing is also called split testing or variable testing. When you conduct an A/B test, you compare two variables to see which one performs better. Email A/B testing uses this process to test variations of emails or email campaigns against each other to see which performs better for a specific metric, such as open, click-through or conversion rates.

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Companies typically employ this technique by segmenting their email list into two groups, version A and version B, to test different variations of an email. Often, the split is even, or it can be done as a 10/10 split, with the remaining 80% of the list receiving the winning version. More advanced approaches include using holdout groups, where emails are tested on a subset (i.e: 10% or 20%) of the regular email list for that specific segment. 

After a designated time frame, typically 1 or 2 hours, sufficient data is collected to determine which version performs better. The winning version is then sent to the remaining members of that segment, helping email marketers refine their campaigns for maximum effectiveness.

 

You can test simple or complex variations. Here are a few examples of A/B email testing:

 

  • Sending variations of subject lines to see if subscribers respond better to certain words, phrases or formats

 

  • Testing variations of CTAs — such as the verbiage or where the CTA is located

 

  • Launching email campaigns on different days or at different times to find the best time for open rates

 

Benefits of A/B Testing Emails

 

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A/B testing for email campaigns doesn’t have to be difficult, especially when you use the right software and other tools. These tests are highly effective especially considering more than 50% of marketers use A/B testing to boost conversions. But conversion isn’t the only benefit to A/B testing… 

 

A/B testing has other benefits, including:

 

  • Statistical proof for your email marketing decisions — you won’t have to rely on instinct or trust existing processes, which may not lead to the best possible outcomes

 

  • A competitive edge over others in the industry, especially if they aren’t also using A/B email testing to improve performance

 

  • A better understanding of your target audience and what messaging resonates with customers — data you can use to inform future email campaigns or other marketing strategies, including social media and web content

 

  • An increased ability to improve critical email marketing metrics like click-through and conversion rates as well as revenue driven by email

 

Of course, there are several things to consider when A/B testing. You can only test one variable or element at a time. Otherwise, you don’t know which element is responsible for any improved performance. It’s also important to keep in mind that new privacy regulations from Apple will likely spread to other providers making it difficult to track open rates consistently. This means you should focus on KPIs like clicks and conversions. 

 

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Try A/B Testing These 8 Email Elements

 

If you want to put email A/B testing to work for your organization, we’ve got eight variables you may want to test. Remember, choose one at a time when you set up your tests — otherwise, you muddy your data and won’t get any actionable insight. 

 

1. Subject Lines

 

The subject line is one of the most important elements of any email because it’s a major factor in whether someone opens the email or not. This element typically shows up in bold right under the sender name or in another prominent location in the inbox.

Subject lines are a common variable of A/B testing because they’re so powerful and because they’re easy to test. You simply send the same email with different subject lines.

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Here are some ideas to try when A/B testing email subject lines:

 

  • Change the length of the subject line. Up to around 30 characters show up on mobile devices and up to around 55 characters on desktop devices, so start by testing within those ranges. Find out whether your target audience prefers a shorter or longer subject line.

 

  • Rephrase your subject line. Test out different words and approaches, such as the difference between “Exclusive offer” and “Limited-time offer.”

 

  • Test personalization. Your audience is more likely to respond when their name is in the subject line.

 

You can also test the inclusion of emojis, symbols or punctuation as well as asking questions.

 

2. Preview Text

 

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The preview text, also commonly referred to as pre-header text, is a snippet, summary or sneak peek into email contents. It’s also called the preheader line, and it shows up under the subject line on some devices. It’s not as powerful as the subject line itself, but you will only know if it matters to your audience if you test it.

 

During this phase consider testing:

 

  • Original preview text compared to just including the first line of the email. Sometimes the first line of your email copy is enough to pique someone’s interest – but a custom subject line could be more effective at instilling a sense of urgency or summarizing the contents of the email.

 

  • Various calls to action in the preheader. For example, test whether your audience responds better to a directive to open the email and find out more or a more subtle call to action.

 

  • Different summaries of what’s in the email. Preview text is short, so it can only include a little bit of information. If you can’t decide what the most important bit of your email is to tease, test it.

 

3. Sender Name

 

Sender name is what shows up in the “From:” field in an email. Emails sent by your brand might show up as “From: ABC Brand,” for example. Or you might create emails that come from specific people: “From: Sue at ABC Brand.”

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What sender name will help build a personal connection with your audience best? You can’t know that until you conduct some A/B email testing.

 

Consider testing options such as:

 

  • Including a person’s name instead of the company name to add a human element to email marketing.

 

  • Testing full names versus first names only to determine how your audience wants to connect with your employees.

 

  • Sending from a different email address may resonate with the audience better because it’s more connected to a product or sounds more professional.

 

4. Send Time

 

Google the best time to send emails and you’re likely to run across multiple articles stating that Tuesday afternoons are the ticket. In reality, Tuesday afternoons work best for some businesses. That doesn’t mean it will work best for you.

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The only way you can know what day and time is best for your audience is to split test by sending emails at different times and narrowing it down for yourself.

You also have to account for trigger emails, which can’t all be sent on Tuesday afternoons. For example, you may find that cart abandonment emails work best when sent 2 hours after the person puts an item in the cart and welcome emails work best 10 minutes after sign up. Note that these aren’t recommendations; they’re examples. Run the tests for yourself to find out what works for your audience.

When you’re running A/B testing on email send times, remember to segment by time zone if possible. That way, you can figure out what’s best for each subsection of your audience.

 

Ideas for A/B testing email send times include:

 

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  • Testing the day of the week you send emails. Consider setting up a tournament of sorts. Have days of the week compete against each other and use email metrics to determine the champion — and find out if it is, indeed, Tuesday.

 

  • Testing times of day. Does morning or evening work better for your audience? Do you get more performance during lunch times or in the afternoon slump around 3:00? These are the questions you can answer when you A/B test email send times. 

 

  • Testing how long after a trigger you should send emails. Do you get more performance when cart abandonment emails are sent 1 hour later, or do people return and make purchases more often when emails show up a day later?

 

5. Call to Action

 

The CTA tells the email reader what to do next, so it’s pretty important. A/B testing helps you improve CTAs to improve click-through rates.

 

Consider testing:

 

  • The actual words used in the CTA

 

  • How often do you include CTAs in emails — does one above-the-fold work, or should you repeat it later in the email?

 

  • Does a button work better than text for your audience? If so, can you improve performance further by changing the color of the button?

 

  • Whether size, font choices or capitalization make a difference 

 

  • The location of the CTA in the email

 

6. Email Copy

 

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Most marketers agree that short and sweet is best when it comes to email copy. In fact, it can be a good idea to ensure you concentrate on a single idea in an email marketing message. Your copy also needs to be engaging and grab the attention of the recipient.

Of course, “attention-grabbing” is a subjective description, and what captures the eye of one audience won’t engage another. A/B testing helps you determine what copy works best for your audience. 

Test factors such as the length of your copy, the words and style of writing you use, whether you include personalization and the tone. For example, does your audience respond better to formal or informal writing?

 

7. Email Design & Layout

 

It only takes a couple of seconds before someone decides whether to continue reading your email or not. Email readers definitely judge the book by the cover, so to speak, so your design and layout matter.

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Test out design and layout variations such as whether you include plain text or HTML or send emails with simple designs or messages with many bells and whistles.

An email marketing design that resonates with your audience improves click-through and conversion rates. It can also increase brand awareness and create positive downstream effects on marketing efforts outside of email. 

 

8. Images

 

If you have a little experience with social media marketing, you know that images are powerful. Facebook and Instagram posts with images get much more engagement on average than text-only posts. The same can be true for email.

A/B testing can help you understand where the line on images is for your audience.

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Some ideas for A/B testing images in email include:

 

  • Whether or not to include a header image

 

  • How many images you include

 

  • What type of images you include — for example, a person versus a product

 

 

  • What style of image you include — for example, black and white versus colored or realistic versus painted

 

How to Run Better A/B Tests for Email Campaigns

 

Now that you have plenty of ideas for A/B email testing, let’s look at a few tips for running the best split tests you can.

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Determine Which Variable to Test

 

Start by thinking about the business goal you want to meet. For example, if you want to increase conversion rates, then you might want to work on optimizing your CTAs, as they directly relate to conversions. Subject lines impact open rates and images and email copy can improve engagement and positive brand affinity.

Once you start working on a specific variable, repeat the test across different emails. This lets you collect more data and normalize it. Otherwise, other factors could inadvertently impact your test. 

You should also test with the right type of email. If you’re trying to figure out when the best time for cart abandonment emails is, testing with your monthly subscriber newsletter is pretty useless.

 

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Select a Random Sample of Users

 

Select users randomly for tests and avoid using the same people for every test. Most businesses can test with around 20% of their list. However, if you only have a few hundred subscribers, 20% of that number won’t lead to statistically significant conclusions. In these cases, test with about 80% of your list.

 

Run the Test

 

It may seem simple, but the final step is actually running the test. As previously mentioned, between 30 and 50% of organizations don’t get to this step.

Be patient as you wait for results. If you’re looking at a metric like open rates, you may have a pretty good idea of performance in just a few hours — and you definitely know which variation was a winner within a day. 

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But other metrics, such as click-through and conversion rate, take longer to measure. That’s because someone may open your email and decide to come back to it later or think about your offer. For these types of metrics, you may need to let the test run for a few days to ensure you have a good sampling. 

 

Final Takeaway

 

By leveraging A/B testing, you can support email marketing campaigns that perform better. Looking to learn more about this process? Reach out to our Tinuiti Lifecycle Marketing experts today.

 

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How To Combine PR and Content Marketing Superpowers To Achieve Business Goals

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A figure pulls open a dress shirt to reveal the term PR on a Superman-like costume, reflecting the superpower resulting from combining content and PR.

A transformative shift is happening, and it’s not AI.

The aisle between public relations and content marketing is rapidly narrowing. If you’re smart about the convergence, you can forever enhance your brand’s storytelling.

The goals and roles of content marketing and PR overlap more and more. The job descriptions look awfully similar. Shrinking budgets and a shrewd eye for efficiency mean you and your PR pals could face the chopping block if you don’t streamline operations and deliver on the company’s goals (because marketing communications is always first to be axed, right?).

Yikes. Let’s take a big, deep breath. This is not a threat. It’s an opportunity.

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Reach across the aisle to PR and streamline content creation, improve distribution strategies, and get back to the heart of what you both are meant to do: Build strong relationships and tell impactful stories.

So, before you panic-post that open-to-work banner on LinkedIn, consider these tips from content marketing, PR, and journalism pros who’ve figured out how to thrive in an increasingly narrowing content ecosystem.

1. See journalists as your audience

Savvy pros know the ability to tell an impactful story — and support it with publish-ready collateral — grounds successful media relationships. And as a content marketer, your skills in storytelling and connecting with audiences, including journalists, naturally support your PR pals’ media outreach.

Strategic storytelling creates content focused on what the audience needs and wants. Sharing content on your blog or social media builds relationships with journalists who source those channels for story ideas, event updates, and subject matter experts.

“Embedding PR strategies in your content marketing pieces informs your audience and can easily be picked up by media,” says Alex Sanchez, chief experience officer at BeWell, New Mexico’s Health Insurance Marketplace. “We have seen reporters do this many times, pulling stories from our blogs and putting them in the nightly news — most of the time without even reaching out to us.”

Acacia James, weekend producer/morning associate producer at WTOP radio in Washington, D.C., says blogs and social media posts are helpful to her work. “If I see a story idea, and I see that they’re willing to share information, it’s easier to contact them — and we can also backlink their content. It’s huge for us to be able to use every avenue.” 

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Kirby Winn, manager of PR at ImpactLife, says reporters and assignment editors are key consumers of their content. “And I don’t mean a news release that just hit their inbox. They’re going to our blog and consuming our stories, just like any other audience member,” he says. “Our organization has put more focus into content marketing in the past few years — it supports a media pitch so well and highlights the stories we have to tell.”

Storytelling attracts earned media that might not pick up the generic news topic. “It’s one thing to pitch a general story about how we help consumers sign up for low-cost health insurance,” Alex says. “Now, imagine a single mom who just got a plan after years of thinking it was too expensive. She had a terrible car accident, and the $60,000 ER bill that would have ruined her financially was covered. Now that’s a story journalists will want to cover, and that will be relatable to their audience and ours.” 

2. Learn the media outlet’s audience

Seventy-three percent of reporters say one-fourth or less of the stories pitched are relevant to their audiences, according to Cision’s 2023 State of the Media Report (registration required).

PR pros are known for building relationships with journalists, while content marketers thrive in building communities around content. Merge these best practices to build desirable content that works for your target audience and the media’s audiences simultaneously.

WTOP’s Acacia James says sources who show they’re ready to share helpful, relevant content often win pitches for coverage. “In radio, we do a lot of research on who is listening to us, and we’re focused on a prototype called ‘Mike and Jen’ — normal, everyday people in Generation X … So when we get press releases and pitches, we ask, ‘How interested will Mike and Jen be in this story?’” 

3. Deliver the full content package (and make journalists’ jobs easier)

Cranking out content to their media outlet’s standards has never been tougher for journalists. Newsrooms are significantly understaffed, and anything you can do to make their lives easier will be appreciated and potentially rewarded with coverage. Content marketers are built to think about all the elements to tell the story through multiple mediums and channels.

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“Today’s content marketing pretty much provides a package to the media outlet,” says So Young Pak, director of media relations at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. “PR is doing a lot of storytelling work in advance of media publication. We (and content marketing) work together to provide the elements to go with each story — photos, subject matter experts, patients, videos, and data points, if needed.”   

At WTOP, the successful content package includes audio. “As a radio station, we are focused on high-quality sound,” Acacia James says. “Savvy sources know to record and send us voice memos, and then we pull cuts from the audio … You will naturally want to do someone a favor if they did you one — like providing helpful soundbites, audio, and newsworthy stories.”  

While production value matters to some media, you shouldn’t stress about it. “In the past decade, how we work with reporters has changed. Back in the day, if they couldn’t be there in person, they weren’t going to interview your expert,” says Jason Carlton, an accredited PR professional and manager of marketing and communications at Intermountain Health. “During COVID, we had to switch to virtual interviewing. Now, many journalists are OK with running a Teams or Zoom interview they’ve done with an expert on the news.”

BeWell’s Alex Sanchez agrees. “I’ve heard old school PR folks cringe at the idea of putting up a Zoom video instead of getting traditional video interviews. It doesn’t really matter to consumers. Focus on the story, on the timeliness, and the relevance. Consumers want authenticity, not super stylized, stiff content.”

4. Unite great minds to maximize efficiency

Everyone needs to set aside the debate about which team — PR or content marketing — gets credit for the resulting media coverage.

At MedStar Washington Hospital Center, So Young and colleagues adopt a collaborative mindset on multichannel stories. “We can get the interview and gather information for all the different pieces — blog, audio, video, press release, internal newsletter, or magazine. That way, we’re not trying to figure things out individually, and the subject matter experts only have to have that conversation once,” she says.

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Regular, cross-team meetings are essential to understand the best channels for reaching key audiences, including the media. A story that began life as a press release might reap SEO and earned media gold if it’s strategized as a blog, video, and media pitch.

“At Intermountain Health, we have individual teams for media relations, marketing, social media, and hospital communications. That setup works well because it allows us to bring in the people who are the given experts in those areas,” says Intermountain’s Jason Carlton. “Together, we decide if a story is best for the blog, a media pitch, or a mix of channels — that way, we avoid duplicating work and the risk of diluting the story’s impact.”

5. Measure what matters

Cutting through the noise to earn media mentions requires keen attention to metrics. Since content marketing and PR metrics overlap, synthesizing the data in your team meetings can save time while streamlining your storytelling efforts.

“For content marketers, using analytical tools such as GA4 can help measure the effectiveness of their content campaigns and landing pages to determine meaningful KPIs such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, lead generation, and conversion rates,” says John Martino, director of digital marketing for Visiting Angels. “PR teams can use media coverage and social interactions to assess user engagement and brand awareness. A unified and omnichannel approach can help both teams demonstrate their value in enhancing brand visibility, engagement, and overall business success.”

To track your shared goals, launch a shared dashboard that helps tell the combined “story of your stories” to internal and executive teams. Among the metrics to monitor:

  • Page views: Obviously, this queen of metrics continues to be important across PR and content marketing. Take your analysis to the next level by evaluating which niche audiences are contributing to these views to further hone your storytelling targets, including media outlets.
  • Earned media mentions: Through a media tracker service or good old Google Alerts, you can tally the echo of your content marketing and PR. Look at your site’s referral traffic report to identify media outlets that send traffic to your blog or other web pages.
  • Organic search queries: Dive into your analytics platform to surface organic search queries that lead to visitors. Build from those questions to develop stories that further resonate with your audience and your targeted media.
  • On-page actions: When visitors show up on your content, what are they doing? What do they click? Where do they go next? Building next-step pathways is your bread and butter in content marketing — and PR can use them as a natural pipeline for media to pick up more stories, angles, and quotes.

But perhaps the biggest metric to track is team satisfaction. Who on the collaborative team had the most fun writing blogs, producing videos, or calling the news stations? Lean into the natural skills and passions of your team members to distribute work properly, maximize the team output, and improve relationships with the media, your audience, and internal teams.

“It’s really trying to understand the problem to solve — the needle to move — and determining a plan that will help them achieve their goal,” Jason says. “If you don’t have those measurable objectives, you’re not going to know whether you made a difference.”

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Don’t fear the merger

Whether you deliberately work together or not, content marketing and public relations are tied together. ImpactLife’s Kirby Winn explains, “As soon as we begin to talk about (ourselves) to a reporter who doesn’t know us, they are certainly going to check out our stories.”

But consciously uniting PR and content marketing will ease the challenges you both face. Working together allows you to save time, eliminate duplicate work, and gain free time to tell more stories and drive them into impactful media placements.

Register to attend Content Marketing World in San Diego. Use the code BLOG100 to save $100. Can’t attend in person this year? Check out the Digital Pass for access to on-demand session recordings from the live event through the end of the year.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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Trends in Content Localization – Moz

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Trends in Content Localization - Moz

Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.

Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.

Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

AI and startups? It just makes sense.

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