A/B Email Split Test

While at this stage we don’t have the option to see the results of your email split test after the campaign has been sent, there is still great value in using this facility.

With ShinePages this is all automated and you get the benefit of the better performing emails going out to the majority of your list, which is super valuable. And it’s not hard to figure out which email performed best because the majority of your replies will come from the winning email.

How it works..

The portion of the list that will receive the A/B test emails is determined when setting up the A/B split test, for example 20% of the audience will receive either A or B. The emails are sent out immediately. You will also set up a time window which is used to track the performance of the sent emails and once passed the winner will be elected and that version will be automatically sent to the rest of the audience (80% of the emails, for example) which is sent out right away.

There are 2 options to split test your emails:

What do you want to test?

1) Email Subject Line - this is the most popular to split test as it’s the 1st thing your recipients will see.

2) Email Content - (Design A / Design B) split test changes are usually with the header of the email or the main (hero) image of the email content. Make sure to only make 1 or max 2 split test changes to the email content so you can best target which split element is making it work or not for that matter. If you make too many changes to the split test content, it won’t be easy to discern what aspect is successful and what aspect is not.

There are 2 options to set the winner:

Winner will be based on: 

1) Open rate - the winner will be selected based on the click rate opening of your email.

2) Click rate - the winner will be selected based on the click rate of your email EG. If you have buttons or hyperlinks to go to your page / download etc. in your email.

HOW TO CREATE A SPLIT TEST CAMPAIGN

Create your campaign and name your campaign.

OPTION 1) - Email Subject

- In the Campaign Type window: Select the A/B Split Campaign

Click on “Email Subject”

Click on your selection “Open rate” or “Click rate”

Winner is decided after - select on 1 hour (recommended)

Click on the “Next” button

- Select your template.

- In the "Select Your Audience" window - add your list (minimum 10 subscribers in a list required to run a split test) and click “NEXT”

______________

- In the “Campaign Settings” window

Subject A - Enter your subject line (1st option)

Subject B - Enter your subject line (2nd option) for the split test

Complete the rest of the fields and click “NEXT”

See FINAL STEP “SEND CAMPAIGN” below:

OPTION 2) - Email Content

- In the Campaign Type window: Select the A/B Split Campaign

Click on “Email Content” (please see recommended notes above)

Winner will be decided on “Click rate”

Winner is decided after - toggle on 1 hour (recommended)

Click on the “Next” button 

- Select the template that you have already designed for this campaign and saved in “My Templates”.

- This will be Design A

- Click on Design B - you will be prompted to save in a popup - hit SAVE

- Select the same template as you did for Design A

- This is where you will make changes to the content to test with. Please see above 2) Email Content - (Design A / Design B) for important notes!

Click on the “Next” button.

- In the "Select Your Audience" window - add your list (minimum 10 subscribers in a list required to run a split test) and click “NEXT”

_______________

- In the “Campaign Settings” window - Complete the rest of the fields and click “NEXT”

FINAL STEP “SEND CAMPAIGN”

- Here you will have the option to select the percentage of the audience that will receive either A or B. We recommend setting it at 20%. Once 20% of the audience have received emails, our automation will immediately send the winning split test to the rest (80%) of the recipients (see above for more info).

"SEND CAMPAIGN"