Figuring out what works best for your email campaigns takes some time and preparation. Anyone can send out a quick email campaign, but how can you make sure it’s effective? How do you know if you’re engaging your recipients? There’s no magical formula for creating the ideal email campaign, but there are steps you can take to ensure you build the best one possible for your company. Here are 4 tips for split testing your email campaigns so that they’re as strong as possible.
Subject Lines
When email marketers split test their campaigns, most of them will try different subject lines. You don’t have much time to convince your email recipients to open your emails, so constructing the right headline is extremely important. According to Active Campaign, “Adding certain keywords or re-phrasing the subject lines of your messages can often increase the number of subscribers who open your campaign.” If a subject line performs much better than another during testing, clearly you should continue using the better-performing one for the rest of your campaign. If your emails don’t get opened, your entire email campaign will be a bust.
Call-to-Actions
When it comes to crafting your call-to-action, location and language make a big difference. Try testing how different wording performs with different segments of your audience. For example, Learn More compared to Register Now. It also helps to experiment with the location of your call-to-action. It should be kept near the top of your email, but see what variation draws in more click-throughs. Determine if these simple changes make a difference in your campaign and implement them when sending your emails out to your larger audience.
Days and Times
When it comes to email campaigns, many industry experts will have an opinion on when you should send out your emails. However, this all depends on factors such as your industry, audience, message, etc. If you split test when to send out your emails, you might figure out what the best time and day is for your email campaign. Keep in mind that many people now check their emails throughout the day due to the increased use of smart phones over the years, so it doesn’t necessarily have to be during work hours. Testing these variations might give your greater insight about your audience.
Landing Pages
The success of your landing pages will most likely depend on your offer and your call-to-actions. You can test your landing pages by figuring out which one led to the most conversions. For example, if on one landing page your audience made more purchases or had the most form submissions, use that one. Testing landing pages can be a little more difficult, but can help you improve web traffic, sign-ups, subscriptions, and more. If you’re getting your recipients to click-through to your landing pages, you want to make sure they are compelled to take action once they’re there.
Split testing your email campaigns can help drastically improve your marketing efforts. Do you split test your email campaigns? What parts of your email do you test? Share with us in the comments!