Email Marketing

Champion
HubSpot Employee
HubSpot Employee

How would you go about conducting an email experiment?

Consider this: Your manager asks you to improve the click-through rate of your monthly newsletter. How would you go about conducting an experiment? What would you be looking to improve (and why)?

 

*To learn more about this, check out the Testing Your Marketing Emails lesson via HubSpot Academy. 

366 Replies 366
Arpitha
Member

How would you go about conducting an email experiment?

I will focus on subject line ,preview text and body copy and send a test email to two version of my company email to two sample size of our company contacts. And after checking which email get highest click through rate I will send that winner email to rest of my company contacts.

LizKenyon
Member

How would you go about conducting an email experiment?

Open rates, and unsubscribed rates, and of course conversions most importantly

0 Upvotes
JeffSyblik
Contributor

How would you go about conducting an email experiment?

Champion, 

Great question.

Improving Click-through rates first has to be filtered down to what you want to specifically test.

  • You first have to eliminate what you aren't going to test. 

 You are not going to test preview text, sender line, or email subject line.  This will have to do with open rates for example.

 

What you will want to test is either the email layout/design, the relevance of the language, the engagement level of the language,  call to action, white space (easy to read the email), images used in the email, or the email signature. 

  • Pick one of these you wish to test the click-through rate on.
  • Design two emails exactly the same, except for one thing that is different, the element of the email you want to test.   
  • Determine sample size to send to.  If it is at 1K, you send 278 people the email as you originally created it.
  • Send 278 the new improved version. 
  • Look at click-through rates. 
  • Decide on the winning design. 
  • Send this out to the rest of the sample size.   

 

I would be looking to improve these methods because they have a direct relationship to why the email is read and not acted upon.  

0 Upvotes
SuzanneHorrocks
Member

How would you go about conducting an email experiment?

I would start by testing the CTA - the button or style and/or the requested action. 

0 Upvotes
CLinsmeier
Member

How would you go about conducting an email experiment?

I would do an A/B test and determine the number of people I want to send each version of the test to. I would look to improve any of the following: the email body copy, design, body image, CTA, or email signature.

0 Upvotes
JKujeKayJohnson
Participant

How would you go about conducting an email experiment?

I will use the A/B testing to design two emails with a tweak in the Header and body, colors and fonts.
0 Upvotes
JGassner
Member

How would you go about conducting an email experiment?

I would A/B test the CTA

0 Upvotes
PBlessing2
Participant

How would you go about conducting an email experiment?

I would use A/B testing to test one email with more visual components directly in the email, and then one with more items for the reader to click on to see if the issue is that the content is not enticing readers to click, or if the action of clicking itself is the issue

0 Upvotes
vima
Member

How would you go about conducting an email experiment?

I would first try and revisit the goals and see if it the content of the email  resonates with the segment of recipents. test all the elements of the Improve the email body, copy, images , links etc.keeping the goals in mind and using the A/B testing. 

0 Upvotes
Dancedad
Contributor

How would you go about conducting an email experiment?

I would use testing to compare the affects of having a shorter, more direct body of text and a cta compared with a longer more descriptive body of text and a cta for example

0 Upvotes
MKumar0
Participant

How would you go about conducting an email experiment?

Adding right headline trigger
0 Upvotes
CSq
Participant

How would you go about conducting an email experiment?

I would conduct multiple A/B testing, one per email characteristic I want to change. It is important to change one thing at a time because otherwise you don't know which specific change was impactful and which was not.

nmonroe
Participant

How would you go about conducting an email experiment?

a/b testing would be great with handling this situation because I would have a purpose in creatingthe test and an idea on how to design it.

0 Upvotes
LMcLean
Contributor

How would you go about conducting an email experiment?

Using A/B testing, I would create 2 versions of the newsletter with different subject line and preview text. Since the newsletter is monthly, I would test over a 2-3 month period to analyze the click-through rates with the intent to improve contact engagement levels.

Jainfinity
Member

How would you go about conducting an email experiment?

I will be A/B testing with version A as traditional approach 

  • Heading will be same 
  • Body of version B will include some bold and italic words
  • body text will be more in version B 
  • CTA will be changing.
JUpton
Member

How would you go about conducting an email experiment?

We need to understand what is causing the click-through rate to remain at unsatisfactory levels. This would require multiple tests with each requiring different versions. By the end of the test period (say two quarters), we need to know if it's the copy, the visual design, the images used, the call to action, the email signature, or a combination of these elements that requires improvement. Each test would need at least two versions, so this whole batch of testing needs at least 10 emails to be sent out, and for the open rate to be monitored to make sure you weren't sending out too many in a short space of time. More emails might be required, but by the end of the intitial test period, it's hoped you should have at least some idea of what might need further testing or further work.

abhijeetgaurav5
Member

How would you go about conducting an email experiment?

I would have a specific purpose for why I am testing and what I hope to get out of it. Next, I would design the test. I would test for elements for click rates by focusing on one goal at a time.

StephC
Participant

How would you go about conducting an email experiment?

Use A/B testing- which I now totally get, thanks Courtney!

GNecastro
Member

How would you go about conducting an email experiment?

I would create a new edition of the email and send that to half of my clients while the other half received the original. 

CCrisler
Member

How would you go about conducting an email experiment?

I would use A/B testing  

Rebecca10
Member

How would you go about conducting an email experiment?

To address anemic open rates, test the subject line (as a start). Create 2 emails with different subject lines but all other elements the same. Deploy and analyze results. If the test results are statisically significant, and one population has better open rates than the other, use it to inform subject line best practices in the future.