With A/B testing an email, you test what works best. Is it a blue button, or a green button? Does a clear subject work best or does a teasing subject generate more opens? You'll learn with an A/B test.
An A/B test always consists of two versions of the same e-mail: a version A and a version B. Both versions differ slightly from each other, depending on the part you want to test. At the end of the A/B test, the winning version (the best performing e-mail) is sent to the remaining group.
You can test on three metrics:
Open ratio
Click ratio
Unsubscribes
Tip: test one element at a time. If you want to test all three degree measures, weigh them all equally important. So each measure weighs 1/3. Are you testing two measures at the same time? Then also weigh them equally against each other by 50/50.
A/B test grade tips
We would like to give you some tips on what to test for:
Open ratio. To test your open ratio let the sender name, email subject or pre-header differ from each other. Always test one of the three. Otherwise, you'll never know which change was the deciding factor in picking the winner.
Click Ratio. We measure the number of clicks in your newsletter. Your click ratio is about the content of your newsletter. Make the content of variant A different from variant B. Change only a button, hero image or text. Which variant gets the most clicks? Test it and make your content match your target audience.
Unsubscribes. We measure the number of unsubscribes per newsletter. Many people unsubscribe from the newsletter because the content is not interesting. Try to put yourself in your customer's shoes: why would you unsubscribe from a newsletter? Are there no interesting offers in your newsletter? Or is it because of the articles themselves? Test why your customers unsubscribe from the newsletter.