First things first: digital marketing campaigns can have a large impact on your business goals, for example by increasing website traffic, generating leads or sales. In digital campaigns it is often the case that much time and money is spent on the creation and set-up of campaigns.
These processes usually aim to create the perfect approach for communicating a particular topic or benefit, yet the effectiveness of the resulting campaign for the overall business goal is quite low or even non-transparent. For two reasons, this is a one-way street that companies can circumvent:
- Firstly, it is not really customer centric to follow a predefined approach without constantly integrating (customer) feedback
- Secondly, it is much more effective to try different approaches against each other to identify the most suitable way that serves a company’s purposes.
Therefore, A/B testing can help in finding the appropriate way to reach your business goals.
Find the right combination of content, target group and placement with digital communication
Seen from this angle, digital communication provides opportunities that are often missed. There are a multitude of options that help you find the most effective approach for your business, but let’s illustrate the possibilities of digital campaigns by way of example. For our first scenario, let’s take a look at campaigns in analog communication. When promoting a product using classic campaigns, the parameters, especially media buying, have to be predefined and cannot be changed or adjusted at short notice. In other words, once it is clear where the billboards should stand and what it is printed on them, everything is determined. It is neither possible to measure the concrete impact of the campaign on your business goals, nor to adjust the campaign in almost real time should it not have the calculated effect.
In the second scenario, a digital one-way street as mentioned above, the situation is similar to analog campaigns with the parameters are predefined. With the difference that the parameters can be defined much more precisely so it is possible to set up a targeting for your campaign and to measure the results.
However, the parameters are still mostly based on one particular approach. Even if the route is defined more precisely, once a campaign gets started it follows the predefined route without turning (or even indicating).
The third and final scenario is a digital crossroad (of possibilities). The most effective way of campaigning in digital communication is based on structured experimentation working with A/B tests. This means that you can test different parameters against each other and define the ones that make the strongest impact for your business. Here, you have to predefine the parameters you want to test, the difference being that it is not only the one perfect approach that works as the fundamental element of the campaign; it is the testing of a multitude of parameters that leads to success.
A/B test even your strategic approach
A/B testing allows you to access digital crossroads, trying different ways and directions leading you to the desired result in the most effective way.
A/B testing is commonly known for website content. But besides this, A/B testing is crucial for all kinds of digital communication. By applying A/B testing in social media, for example, you are able to influence the success of your campaigns by steering different variables. Utilizing the settings of different social media platforms, it is possible to test nearly everything that is of interest to you. In this way you can find out what it is that makes your campaigns most successful. Is it a particular topic, an asset type or the length of a video? Maybe it is even your strategic approach that needs to be tested.
Even though the number of options you can test is unlimited, it is recommended to choose a set of options that you are able to analyze and that serves its purpose. It is not advisable to test twenty different topics against each other if you are not able to work with the results.
A/B testing in digital communication is an effective method to get a multitude of insights for campaigns of any size. Particularly crucial for A/B testing is a solid data analysis. Moreover, it is not only the campaign itself which benefits from your insights; it is the development of new campaigns that your insights are really valuable for.
Therefore, mix and match the individual stages of your journey and let your business profit from your experiments. In other words: try different routes and invest in the one that gets you to your business goals in the most effective way.