The Ultimate Guide To A/B Testing (Series 2 of 5)

Have you ever been puzzled as to why one of your emails received a higher open rate than expected? Let me start off by saying you're not the only one. Most of the time we will consider a number of causes; was the subject line more enticing? Maybe it was the time that it was sent out? Or was it the preview pane in Outlook that helped to entice subscribers?

All of these are valid reasons so you may think that all you can do is look at the reports and speculate the reasons but that's not true. A/B testing can help you to pinpoint what works and more importantly what doesn't.

What is A/B Testing and why is it useful?

A/B testing allows you to experiment with different subject lines, or even email designs, to increase the open rate and click-through rate of your email campaigns with a simple click of a button.

Within GraphicMail you can test up to eight subject lines or newsletters in a single A/B test, and it is as simple as deciding which newsletters or subject lines you wish to test, and then selecting which percentage of your mailing list you would like the test to be performed on.

Testing two subject lines against 10% of the mailing list.

After the A/B test has is complete, the ‘winning’ subject line or email design will be sent out to the remaining percentage of your list, it’s that simple!

This isn’t something that you should only do once either, A/B testing should be an integral part of your marketing strategy as it will allow you to pick up on subscriber trends over time, improve the interaction with your emails and make sure that all of your hard work isn’t going to waste.

Examples of what you can test

Okay so now you know all about A/B testing and how it can be a fundamental part of your email marketing, here's some ideas of what you can test within the subject line and email design.

Subject line
1. Try asking a question in the subject line.
2. Add personalisation.
3. Shorten the subject line with keywords at the front.


Email design
1. Change content.
2. Change the email design.
3. Change the email layout.
4. Change the use of buttons and hyperlinked text.
5. Change the pre-header/email snippet text

Another well deserved mention for A/B testing is to test your email pre-header (also known as snippet text). This will display in most email clients and give you the ability to have text displayed next to your subject line which can be used to entice your subscriber to open it.
Pre-header text is shown as grey font in the screenshot above, "send up to..."

Why not start a free no-obligation trial at; graphicmail.co.uk/get-your-free-trial, and try out A/B testing for yourself?

Did you miss series one our 'Email Marketing Overview'? view it here.