A/B or split testing is the most common way to boost the conversion rates of online businesses. According to a survey, 97.6% of marketers said they use A/B tests in their companies. In addition, the A/B testing tools provide a plethora of data from the users’ perspective.
However, A/B testing is not as easy as some may think. It’s a whole different statistics and long-term process which includes continuous testing. Plus, you must know how A/B tests boost business conversions of online businesses.
This article reveals six effective tactics to boost your e-commerce business and get users’ feedback regarding your website.
6 A/B Testing Tips to Boost Your Business
Before you invest in e-commerce A/B testing, experts suggest learning the process and grasping the calculations. After that, you can better understand the helpful A/B testing tips, which are as follows.
1. Make a Sound Plan
Planning is essential for e-commerce A/B testing. Without a sound testing plan, you can’t properly measure the outcomes. In addition, testing without a plan means blindly running test cases on your e-commerce website, which wastes resources.
Therefore, planning should be your first step before using the A/B testing tools. But how to plan for an e-commerce website using TridentAB? Is there a standard to follow? Let’s find out.
The following structure is the most common A/B testing structure:
Company’s Goals
First, you must completely grasp the company’s goals and vision. Then, understand how your company is following its primary goals and discuss the progress with the senior management.
When you get clarity about the company’s main objective, you get a direction on measuring business performance through e-commerce A/B testing.
Secondary’s Goals
Your company’s secondary goals come next in the A/B testing structure, which supports the primary goals. Also, the secondary goals help you achieve the milestones and establish a UVP (Unique Value Proposition) for your clientele.
Website’s Purpose
Since you are starting or running an e-commerce business, you must clearly understand the website’s purpose. Why did you need a website? Is it to market and sell products? Is it to help customers? Ask questions to yourself and share the answers with other decision-makers.
KPIs
Set KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) while using the A/B testing tools. Without KPIs, you can run test cases on your websites, but you wouldn’t get any useful results.
Besides, some common Shopify e-commerce website KPIs includes:
- Conversion rate
- Organic traffic
- Signups
- Views
- Feedback
Having KPIs during A/B testing is necessary as they help you complete the website’s purpose and company’s goals.
Target Metrics
Finally, set a realistic set of target metrics to achieve the milestones. For example, your target is 300 views with an average reading time on your latest blog. That target determines the results of A/B testing are doing good.
2. Implement Data-Driven A/B Testing
Using A/B testing tools is not enough to get profitable insights. First, you must analyze the problem causing low business performance, such as low conversion rates.
That’s why you must use business analytics tools to get useful data and integrate it during e-commerce A/B testing. Doing so will help you detect the bottlenecks in the business model.
Once you realize the problem, use that data to take the necessary actions.
Example
Assume your old customers are placing orders, but the new visitors are spending below-average time on your website. That increases the bounce rate, negatively affecting the website’s ranking on SERP.
Running A/B tests in that situation might not be a good idea because you don’t know what your new visitors want. Are they looking to buy your products? Are they visiting your e-commerce website for price comparison? You won’t know until you realize the problem.
Using the analytics tool, you can find the loophole in the workflow from the user’s perspective. In your case, your website’s navigation is not guiding enough. Visitors land on the website’s homepage but can’t easily find the required information or product.
The analytics tool then gives you data and suggests what changes you should make. After making the changes, you can use TridentAB to execute split tests and satisfy new visitors with remarkable e-commerce website user experience (UX).
3. Know Your User’s Behavior
Do you know that 83% of online customers find convenience a priority? Yet, although users click on your e-commerce website, you still don’t know what they think while surfing.
You can create a questionnaire and ask the users the following questions:
- Did they find what they were looking for?
- Is the website convenient enough for them?
- Is navigating easy throughout the website?
- How was the overall experience?
No doubt, these questions are really helpful when it comes to the user’s perspective. But not every user will provide feedback. So even though many users answer those questions, you never know what they were thinking while scrolling on your website.
Unfortunately, the users also didn’t know what they were thinking at that moment. So what are you going to do?
User Testing Tools
Use the user testing tools and improve the results of e-commerce A/B testing. These tools track users’ activity with their consent. In addition, the user testing tools analyze the user’s behavior on your website.
This user’s data is helpful for spotting problems in your e-commerce website. Using that data, you can execute testing and improve test cases to get better results.
4. Invest More Time in A/B Testing
Quickly ending split tests is one of the common A/B testing mistakes the technical team makes. Unfortunately, many A/B testing tools perform fast and give results even before the test is 100% complete.
Although this hastiness looks efficient as it saves time and money, those particular tools have a bad performance. Why?
These tools give results just before the critical stage is tested, which means you apparently get a positive outcome without any negative remarks. But, unfortunately, if you observe that test report, you might not find any suggestions regarding changes to your website. As a result, you keep on suffering business loss.
In addition, not getting true testing results during e-commerce A/B testing might lower the conversion rate. So how long should a test run in A/B testing?
You should run A/B testing for at least two weeks but not more than 6-8 weeks. It’s an average time when new visitors and retained customers visit your website and experience change. In the meantime, various tools can gather enough data and improve A/B testing results to boost your e-commerce business.
5. Reach Maximum Statistical Significance
Statistical significance determines that a relationship between two or more elements is caused by something other than probability. It’s an important factor while implementing A/B testing because even if your testing criteria are met, not reaching at least 95% statistical significance means test failure.
Example
You can set the value to 0.05. This number denotes that there is only a 5% chance of finding the mistake type-A in two particular website elements. Therefore, the value is known as “>95% Confidence”.
Increasing statistical significance up to 95% means you will not end A/B testing while the variation is still dissatisfying.
However, you should not completely run on the statistical significance. Why?
First, you must understand how A/B testing tools work. Get knowledge of A/B testing from a reliable source and learn how the statistics work.
Second, critically analyze the sample size if you want positive results and see growth in your online business. For example, if your sample size is 300, variation A for 150 visitors and variation B for other 150 visitors, the testing results might end and show statistical significance of over 95%.
But that doesn’t mean you should conclude the A/B testing. Instead, the testing tools might not have run all the test cases because of a larger sample size. Such huge samples need weeks to get tested.
Therefore, calculate statistical significance on your own while running A/B testing to avoid the complete reliability of the test results.
6. Get User Feedback
After completing e-commerce A/B testing on your website, get feedback from the visitors. Unfortunately, no analytics tool can generate true results regarding how the users felt using your website.
Many technical teams use complex techniques to hint at what their users experience while visiting the website. But their efforts go in vain.
The simplest approach to getting users’ feedback is to ask them. Use different marketing tools and technologies like:
- Chatbot
- Survey
- Email marketing
Getting the users’ responses to your implemented changes can help you improve your business. You can identify the areas of improvement in your website through their feedback. Additionally, you can be a trendsetter by gathering maximum feedback from your visitors.
Besides, you can target specific users to share their experiences if they request a particular change to your website. These changes might uniquely upgrade your website and keep you a step ahead of your competitors.
Final Words
A/B testing for Shopify websites is important to diagnose loopholes in your online business. You can split test versions and target different visitors using the right tools.
Furthermore, once you are done with the tests, go for another spell for better optimization. Running A/B testing multiple times can provide better insights to give your visitors the best value.
Therefore, never stop testing only after the first or second round. Keep giving your visitors a seamless website experience and boost the profitability of your business.