People often overlook experimentation in marketing since it takes time. However, learning how to test email campaigns might be the only way to guarantee their success.
After all, you’re creating emails for your customers. They’re the people you want to convince and engage through your messages. So, why not involve them to make sure your email marketing strategy reaps the desired results?
If you want to learn how to initiate this process, you’ve arrived at the perfect starting point. Let’s explore the basics of email testing in three of the most popular tools, along with the benefits.
Understanding the Importance of Testing Email Campaigns
Effective email marketing is all about understanding your target audience’s preferences and interests. No matter how good your email content is, it won’t bring much results if it doesn’t resonate with your audience.
But how do you know what type of content your customers will most likely react to? That’s where testing comes in, allowing you to experiment with different email elements to find what truly engages your readers.
If you know the basics of email marketing, you must already be familiar with its metrics. Your goal should be to optimize these numbers. For example, high open rates will interest your customers, while good conversion rates bring you more sales.
Sending test emails to a small group of customers and judging their reactions is the best way to do this.
You’ll learn what type of offers and promotional content your customers like. Instead of wasting time on ineffective strategies, you can build on testing results to ensure every email hits its mark.
As a result, you’ll be able to send interactive emails for more customer engagement. Remember, engaged customers become loyal to your brand, spending more with every transaction. They even market your brand to others, encouraging them to try your offerings. This increases your sales through them and their referrals.
Moreover, testing your email performance brings you actionable insights into your customers. These insights allow you to segment your customers in a way that aligns with your marketing goals. The more precise your segments are, the better your personalization will be.
You can also run quality assurance tests, like spam tests, to ensure your emails land in the right folder. This will increase your email deliverability, which is as important as the content.
How To Create an A/B Test Email Campaign in 3 Steps
Email testing is quite extensive, with multiple types of tests you can run. However, you can categorize all these tests into two categories: quality assurance testing and split testing or A/B testing. We’ll focus our discussion on the latter type since it requires more planning and effort.
With quality tests, you already know what to test. All you need to do is use tools to run these tests. However, A/B testing involves three steps that you need to perform on a regular basis for the best results. So, let’s dive right in.
1. Choose What, How, and Who To Test
Email marketing campaigns have multiple variables that play a role in determining their success. Some elements hold more value than others in achieving specific goals.
For example, optimizing subject lines will lead to higher open rates. On the other hand, better CTAs will improve your click-through rate (CTR.) Other elements you can test include layouts, offers, delivery times, and even the length of your emails.
So, the first step to creating an A/B testing campaign is to decide what you want to test. Consider the campaigns’ goals and choose the elements accordingly. You can test multiple variables with the same campaign or use multiple test campaigns for each element.
Once you know what you want to test, move on to decide how you’ll measure the results. What metric will determine whether email A is the winner or email B? Remember, not all emails will get responses, so you must check the key performance indicators (KPIs) to choose the winner.
For instance, lifecycle emails focus on engaging the customer instead of conversions. So, testing these campaigns through an open rate is a better strategy.
Next, choose your sample size. An email management tool will help you pick out the best groups for your tests. You can even use an email list builder and divide it into groups to run these tests. This will be better if you have a small list since you need substantial numbers.
2. Create the Different Email Versions
With the execution of the previous steps, we’ve completed the planning stage. All you have to do now is create the email versions.
However, you’ll have to approach this step carefully. Creating multiple versions that are too similar won’t bring you many insights into customer behavior, preferences, and interests. Instead, you must make them substantially different.
For example, let’s say you’re testing subject lines. Instead of making light tweaks, try completely different approaches. One version could say, “Get 20% off on your next order,” while the other can say, “A big surprise inside.”
As you can see, the first version is straightforward and leaves no space for confusion. On the other hand, the second version sparks curiosity, encouraging customers to open the email. This way, you’ll know whether your customers like direct language or prefer mysterious, attention-grabbing subject lines.
Once you have the versions, simply send them to the determined groups and wait for the results.
3. Implement the Findings
The whole reason why you’re testing your email campaigns is to improve your efforts. So, after you have the results, you must implement them in your email marketing strategy. Let’s extend the previous example to understand this better.
If more people open the second email, it means your audience likes the element of mystery and curiosity. Another thing that this test shows is that your customers prefer shorter subject lines. You can also look at the other metrics to extract even more insights.
Instead of limiting these findings to subject lines, you can use them to optimize other email elements as well. However, you need to be extra careful with this since the results might not always apply to all elements. For example, the element of curiosity won’t work for the email body, while a shorter length will.
Business emails are nothing like the emails you send to our friends and family. For that, you normally use Gmail and send the messages to your recipient’s Gmail address.
But for business emails, you need a proper email marketing tool. These tools have features to help you plan your strategy, write the content, and track your results. As a result, you can constantly optimize your strategy and make your emails more effective. But for that, you need to learn how to test email campaigns using these tools. So, let’s discuss the process for three of the most popular tools.
1. How To Send Test Email Active Campaign
If email automation is your main goal, you might have chosen Active Campaign as your email marketing tool. After all, it’s the best option for automated emails and even allows you to test your campaigns in multiple ways.
You can even preview how the email will look on desktop and mobile. Using this information, you can optimize the layout to fit different screens.
Another factor that can affect your email marketing’s success is how your customers preview your message. Most email clients only show a few words and truncate the rest of the message.
This is another test you can perform using Active Campaign. Knowing how your email appears in the inbox can help you choose your words wisely.
If you don’t catch your customer’s attention at first glance, they might not even open your email. So, this feature is quite useful.
Lastly, you can A/B test your email campaigns by going to the Campaigns Overview page. There, click the down arrow for the campaign you want to test before clicking Duplicate. Then, click Continue.
The next step is to switch to the Campaign Summary page and check the list you want to use. After that, click on Send Now, and you’ll have sent the test campaign.
2. How To Send a Test Email in Campaign Monitor
Campaign Monitor is another popular email marketing tool. If this is the software you’re currently using, keep reading to learn how to test an email campaign with it.
Like Active Campaign, this tool also helps you test your campaigns in multiple ways. First, there’s the inbox test, which you can initiate by clicking on Run inbox tests before clicking Yes; start now.
Secondly, you can run a quick test by sending the emails to fifteen contacts. Simply click Send a test from the top of the campaign checklist page before scheduling your campaign. Enter the email addresses you want to use and click Send.
Moreover, Campaign Monitor lets you preview how your campaigns will look on different screens. You can even preview personalization by testing your dynamic content.
Lastly, Campaign Monitor allows you to A/B test your emails by clicking the A/B toggle. Next, choose your campaign’s goal, recipients, and test elements.
When you’ve chosen everything and created the campaign, click Test and define delivery. Next, click Prepare to send, define a test size and wait times before clicking Send now or Schedule for later.
3. How To Send a Test Email Through Mailchimp
Anyone who has even the slightest idea of email marketing probably knows about Mailchimp. It is the industry leader in managing email campaigns with multiple advanced features, including testing.
If you’re using this tool, you can test your emails using the new builder or the classic builder. Mailchimp also lets you check your links using the classic builder.
You can even preview the emails for quick analysis. Click on Preview for the first option and Enter preview mode from the Preview dropdown for the second option.
Test Your Email Campaigns To Improve Their Effectiveness
Learning how to test email campaigns is like having a blueprint of what your customers like. As a result, you’ll increase engagement, improve metrics, and boost conversions. An email campaign without testing can bring major repercussions to your strategy. You might end up wasting your time, effort, and money.
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Frequently Asked Questions About Testing Email Campaigns
As mentioned, email testing is a vast subject. So, let’s answer some frequently asked questions to clarify any remaining uncertainties.
Why is it important to test email campaigns?
It’s important to test email campaigns because they allow you to see what your target audience responds to. Using that information, you can optimize your subject lines, layouts, and content to achieve better results.
Basically, email testing makes it easy to boost engagement and increase the chance of turning readers into customers.
What can I test in my emails?
You can test different aspects of your emails, like subject lines, layouts, and content. For example, you can change the email send times or the wording in your call-to-action (CTA) buttons.
These tests help you see what your audience likes best, allowing you to improve customer engagement and boost your results.
What is A/B testing in email marketing?
A/B testing in email marketing refers to sending two versions of an email to different groups. This allows you to see which one gets a better response.
By comparing subject lines, images, or calls to action, you can learn what your audience prefers. This helps you make your emails more effective.
