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15 Must-Try Split Tests

Split testing can be used for more than just testing subject lines. Here are 15 tests you should perform to optimize your email marketing ROI.

1. Delivery days and times – Every email marketer has questioned when is the best time to deploy his or her messages. Do more people open your e-newsletter Monday morning if you send it Sunday evening or Monday at 10:00 am? Do you get higher click-through rates on your promotional emails if you send them on Saturday morning than you do on Thursday afternoon? Should you segment your lists by time zone so you're sure to reach every subscriber at the right time? Instead of relying on industry data to answer those questions, and instead of just guessing what the right answer is, do a split test to test the results your campaigns generate at different times. It's an easy test to perform and what you learn might surprise you!
2. Frequency – Another question every email marketer has wondered about is the right number of emails to send to his or her audience. Once a day, week, month – how much is too much? Split testing lets you define test groups to receive messages at different intervals so you can figure out the schedule that works best for your subscribers.
3. From names – Are emails sent from your CEO's name opened more than the messages sent from your company's name? Split testing lets you monitor this important, yet often overlooked, factor of your messages. It's definitely worth testing as this small change can make a big difference in the performance of your campaigns.
4. Subject lines – A previous best practice dictated the messages should be kept under 70 characters; however, recent studies have shown that longer subject lines have higher open rates. Do you know what your audience prefers? Should you include your company name? Split tests will show you without a doubt what works best for your subscribers.
5. Headlines – When your emails are opened, you have a matter of seconds to attract the reader's attention so he or she keeps reading. Are your headlines powerful enough to grab your readers? Split testing allows you to test different headlines so you find what will compel your audience to read your messages.
6. Content – You spend a lot of time copywriting and perfecting the relevancy of your messages, but how certain are you that your audience is reading and retaining your information? Are you sure that you're sending enough information in each email? Afraid that you're sending too much? Split testing allows you to test different content so you can figure out how much your audience will read and if they prefer a short, conversational tone or if they'd rather be given more information in a technical, educational matter up front.
7. Graphics – Does your audience respond better to images of people that look like them or to screen shots of your products? Would they rather see static or animated images, or no images at all? Are you using Alt Tags effectively? Split testing takes all the guess work out of the design process so you deliver messages that appeal to your audiences.
8. Layout - You already know that the most important information belongs above the fold but are you sure that the information you qualified as the most important is really what your audience is most interested in reading? Sometimes the items that are most important to your company are the least important to your readers so you must adjust your messages accordingly. Split testing allows you to move the text, graphics, and calls-to-action so you can find out what works best for your audience. Brilliant!
9. Creative Design – The design of your message is more than just the graphics and layout. Your designer should test different colors and fonts as well to see what your audience prefers. Split tests can be used to test every design aspect so you're sure to find the winning combination.
10. Personalization – Do you have higher open rates if you include the recipients' names in the subject line? How much extra revenue is generated when you target your audience with relevant messages and segment your lists? Split testing proves the power of customized messages while giving you an easy way to optimize the email that each segment will receive.
11. Offers – Will an email offering free shipping generate more sales than an email offering 15 percent off the total order? Which offer brings in more revenue? Split testing lets you test different offers so you can see what offer will bring in the most money for the highest return on investment.
12. Calls-to-action – What generates the most clicks – "Click Here" or "Register Now" ? "Learn More" or "Review Product Information" ? Your calls-to-action must be clear, visible above the fold, and kept to a minimum. Every email must have one obvious call-to-action. After all, if you give your audience too many choices, chances are, they won't do anything. Split testing allows you to try different phrases, different locations, different buttons, and different actions to measure how your audience responds.
13. Landing pages – What happens after your subscribers click on your emails? Do they convert by completing a goal or are they lost? If your emails have high click-through rates by low conversion rates you're sending your subscribers to the wrong landing page. You can set up your split tests to try out different landing pages to see which one converts the most clicks into sales.
14. Advertisements – Have you considered selling ad space in your e-newsletters? Do you know how your audience will respond if you do? If they click-through the ads you can sell the space at a higher rate. However, you will distract your audience from your own messaging. The only way to know if selling ad space in your e-newsletters if worthwhile is to test your audience and split testing is the perfect tool to use for this.
15. Everything! – Split testing isn't just for small changes. You can test two completely different emails to see what your audience prefers. Try doing a text only (using the HTML editor as plain text messages aren't trackable) versus one that uses a lot of graphics and images. Or test different headlines, copy, and graphics all at once.

Split testing can be used for every aspect of your email messages. For more information, or to see how Listrak's experts can help you achieve even greater results for your email campaigns, contact us today.