A/B Testing For Ecommerce: 4 Reasons Why You Need It

Due to rapid eCommerce sales growth, selling online is an excellent strategy to create a profitable business. To help get you started, we recommend checking out the article on how to build your online store by Hostinger. It will show you six actionable steps to make a successful eCommerce business.

However, once you launch the online store, you’ll need to apply various tactics to improve the eCommerce performance. One of the best options is using an A/B testing marketing strategy. It enables you to evaluate your campaigns and experiment with key elements to see which works best.

In this article, we’ll explain the A/B testing model in more detail, share four reasons why it is beneficial, and show you how to do it for your eCommerce site.

What Is A/B Testing?

A/B testing, or split testing, is a conversion rate optimization (CRO) technique where you compare two versions of a variable – like a web page, landing page, or email campaign. For example, show version A of your marketing content to half of your audience and version B to another.

Doing this helps you identify which variation performs better, enabling you to create an effective marketing campaign more suitable to your target audience.

For example, if you want to increase website traffic, perform A/B testing using two different web page headlines. From the results, you can see which version receives more clicks.

4 Reasons Why You Need A/B Testing for eCommerce

Since A/B tests reveal valuable insights into customer behavior, they can bring many benefits to your business.

Here are the main reasons for using A/B testing, especially for eCommerce businesses.

1. Increase Conversion Rates

Through an A/B test, you can better understand site visitors, like what kind of content they enjoy or which payment gateways they prefer. According to Invespcro, 60% of companies find A/B testing to be highly valuable for conversion optimization.

Performing A/B tests enables you to implement the best option that attracts potential customers. As a result, it can increase your website click-through rate (CTR) and eventually drive a higher conversion rate.

For example, analyze whether a call-to-action (CTA) button with an arrow icon performs better than one without it. Remember that minor changes in A/B testing can bring significant results.

2. Reduce Bounce Rates

The bounce rate reflects the percentage of visitors who enter and leave your site without taking further action. It is one of the most important metrics to measure website performance. 

A high bounce rate means your website has low performance, which can be caused by anything from poor navigation to unattractive design, negatively affecting browsing time and conversions. However, running A/B testing can help you to overcome this issue. 

For instance, through structured analysis and a strong hypothesis, Userlutions successfully reduced their site’s bounce rate by 31% using A/B tests.

3. Enhance Customer Experience

Understanding what customers like allows you to build engaging content via marketing assets, such as blog posts, videos, and product pages. Using A/B testing to enhance the customer experience can positively impact overall engagement.

For example, Humana, a health insurance provider, received a 433% increase in click-through rates on a website banner by simply changing the image, CTA button, and colors.

If you consistently test different versions and elements of your marketing content, you can make incremental improvements to your content over time. As a result, it will become easier to create relevant content for your target audience.

4. Minimize Risks

A/B testing helps you avoid inefficient and costly ad spending, minimizing risks that may disrupt your cash flow. It enables you to safely experiment with a new campaign on your eCommerce store and see how customers react to the changes.

That way, you can make a better decision to grow your business based on real data. As Alex Birkett, former Growth Marketing Manager at HubSpot, says: 

“Statistics isn’t a magic number of conversions or a binary ‘Success!’ or ‘Failure’ thing. It’s a process used to make decisions under uncertainty and to reduce risk by trying to reduce the fogginess on what the outcome of a given decision will be.”

What’s more, there are free tools like Google Optimize and Google Analytics to help you conduct A/B testing. They provide valuable performance reports about your eCommerce website so you can implement better marketing strategies.

How to Do A/B Testing?

Now that you know how A/B testing can bring many advantages to your business, it’s time to try it out for your own eCommerce site and make data-driven decisions.

Here are the five simple steps to run effective A/B testing.

1. Define The Goals

Before conducting the test, it’s vital to set clear goals by identifying what you want to improve. Then, select metrics to track your success and avoid non-specific objectives. We recommend setting SMART goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. 

This method gives you a clear direction and an organized way to measure results. For example, instead of simply increasing your customer base, your goal can be to boost conversion rates by 15% at the end of the calendar year. 

2. Choose One Variable to Test

After identifying your goals, determine what variable you want to test and how to test it. Here are some common variables used in eCommerce split testing:

• CTA buttons – test the button’s placement on the page. You can also alter the color and button size in a separate test to identify which performs better.
• Product descriptions – try using different wording to explain the features of your product and its benefits. A better description will drive more clicks and conversions.
• Headlines – use different copies to test which one attracts more visitors.
• Social proof – present user testimonials in your marketing emails, landing pages, and web pages to determine where they resonate most with potential customers.
• Subject lines – consider testing email subject lines by experimenting with emojis, questions, and statistics.

Remember to take note of the variable’s current performance metrics before implementing changes. This will help you evaluate the effectiveness of the variable after the A/B test. 

3. Create Two Variations Of The Variable

To test your hypothesis, you’ll need to create two variations – the control and the challenger. In split testing, version A plays the role of control, while version B is the challenger – or the one being experimented on. 

For example, if you’re testing a landing page design, variation A will be the one with the original design. In contrast, variation B will be the landing page with the altered design. 

To avoid confusion about which elements impacted the results, ensure to test variables one at a time. Multivariate testing makes it difficult to determine which exact change led to favorable outcomes.

4. Run The A/B Test

Once you’ve set up your variations and identified one variable, it is time to run the A/B test. Present both versions simultaneously to limit any external factors that may impact the result. 

Aside from that, remember these tips to optimize your split testing:

• Don’t make any changes while the test runs. Giving the A/B test enough time to generate insightful data without disrupting the process is vital. Otherwise, it will be difficult to see whether there’s statistical significance between the two variations.
• Maximize the sample size. Testing with a larger number of users will drive more reliable results and reduces the likelihood of numbers occurring by chance.
• Conduct the test more than once. This minimizes statistical errors and ensures that your results are accurate.

If you are unsure how to determine the optimal time frame for your test, use an A/B test duration calculator, which is available with tools like NotifyVisitors.

5. Analyze Results

Once the data is collected, it’s time to analyze the results. It will reveal how many impressions each variant receives and enables you to study the tested variable’s goal metrics. This also helps you to validate your hypothesis.

After knowing which variation gains more conversions, implement the changes on your eCommerce site. Make sure to continue A/B testing when launching a new web page, campaign, or product, to drive more sales and boost your eCommerce business.

Conclusion

A/B testing or split testing is one of the most effective ways to gain valuable insights into customer preferences and behaviors. That’s why many businesses use this method to establish an effective marketing strategy.

Here are four key reasons why using split testing is beneficial for eCommerce stores:

1. Increase conversions – it enables you to identify elements that drive sales.
2. Minimize bounce rates – it helps you identify elements that can keep visitors engaged.
3. Improve customer experience – it helps you create better content and email marketing campaigns for customers.
4. Reduce risks – it minimizes unnecessary budget spending on costly ad campaigns.

This article also shared how to conduct A/B testing in five simple steps, from identifying your goals to analyzing the results. We hope these insights help you to run successful split testing for your online store.