How would you go about conducting an email experiment?

[Champion]

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. 

[MOladunjoye]

Since it's a problem with the click-through rate, areas I will be looking to improve on would be the:

1) Email copy

2) Email design

3) Email images

4) CTA

The experiment will start with me knowing the goal, which is to increase the click through rate.

Then I will look into the segment who will be receiving the testing emails, if I have under 1000 list, then I will need to go for a 50/50 testing method. If it's 1000 list or more, then I can make use of software to evaluate my segment of recipents.

After that, I can design my emails, using A/B test strategy...

Then, review it and start the test. 

[JAyandokun]

I think the A/B test is the best 

[DubemEric]

There is only one way to conduct an email experiment, by the foolproof A/B test strategy

Define the goal of my test
Evaluating my segment of recipients
Design the test
Review and start my test

[Ibukun]

I will consider using the A/B test model and know which one fits in and works fine 

[Kartikt11]

I would probably go for A and B technique to analyze my open rate.

[AMoraes]

For conducting a test - I generally look out to eirther test the subject lines, email body copy and placement of CTA. Once I design the 2 emails I would either go for 50-50% A/B testing if the email is a behavioural automated email and analyze which email is performing better, else select the option wherein 40% of segment of A and B will receive the email & within 3 hours the high performing email is selected as winner and then it is sent to the rest userbase who did not recieve the emails. 

[Joo]

Divide the segments lets (Segment A and B), experiment with content on each of the segments and deduce a comprehensive list of where what you are getting wrong or right.

[ErickRezende]

I'll run experiments reducing the emails sent in a period of time, changing the subject line and body text.

[jmdiamond76]

I would use a version A with 500 subject lines, then another version B with 500 subject lines to see the difference.

[AnForero]

First of all, you would have to choose two segments from the same list or database to better understand their behavior separately. Then, I would do an A and B test of two different subjects with the complete Database, and finally, I would do two versions of the email, one longer and one shorter to know how much engagement or interest my BD has in the information that you I am giving and which call to action is the most effective.

[GreenV10]

1- Analyze the metrics.

2- Set a goal with the new inputs. 

3-Re-design the newsletter (content, design, CTA)

4- Run an A/B test. 

[VVettor]

Ideally, the first step will be to analyzed the previos behavior of the newsletter and identify what could get better, content, images, subject lines, CTA's, etc... From there, create the A/B testing, make sure content and images are aligned with the brand and newsletter's template, have a clear CTA, see which one has a better result and send that one

[ahmedsohail21]

Firstly I will Create a goal and then secondly I will use the A/B test Format.

[VUzoma]

Firstly I will create a goal and the secondly I will use the A/B test format

[AsherKabir]

If I'am to improve click through rate of an email, I'd first analyze the email copy; if it aligns with the subject line and provides the value to the recipients. After that, I'l also make sure to see whether our design is providing consistant experience to the recipients. Then factors likes images, CTA abd email signatures would also be taken into account to pick a goal in order to start working towartds improvement. 

[MCox6]

Rings true because keeping accurate records is vital to tracking money, customer behavior, and the areas of best ROI.  Many businesses gather information of their clients to determine the best strategies of lead nurturing. Some 

[OBola]

Define my goals, create content that aligns with my goals and run it.

[NCrickett-McG]

I would set the goal of improving the newsletter in a SMART format eg:

GOAL: increase the newsletter open rate from 15% - 20% within the first business quarter. 

I would then hypothesis what the cause might be.

HYPOTHESIS:  They are going straight to the spam folder 

I would then run A/B tests by creating variations to my subject line. I would concertate on the wording using best practices things like removing % or ! or words like 'free'

I would check past data to see the total number of opens I got in the past and then determine the time for my testing based on my findings. 

I would also see if we had more then a 1000 contacts and if we did use the calulator to see the sample size I would send each version and the winner would be sent to the rest of the contact. I would test a few different elements over mulitiple emails sends over multiple months before changing the email marketing strategy. 

[Irtazat]

I'll be creating a goal to improve the clickthrough rates of emails. Afterward, creating variations of emails by adjusting the CTA and body of content. In this situation, I'll be creating multiple variations and setting up a sample size, and running an A/B test to improve clickthrough rates. 

[AMuchoki]

To improve the click-through rate, I would conduct an A/B test to compare the two versions of the newsletter to see which one performs better. To conduct an A/B test, I would do the following:

1. Define the objective of the test which is to improve the click-through rate of the newsletter.
2. Determine the metric of the test which would be the click-through rate.
3. Next step is I create two versions of the newsletter. One version will be the control (A) and the other will be the variation (B).
4. Determine the sample size which is the number of people who will receive each version of the newsletter.
5. Run the test by sending the newsletters to the selected recipients.
6. Analyze which version had a better click-through rate. The version with the better click-through rate can then be implemented as the new newsletter going forward.

Other factors that can affect the results are the subject line and the audience segment.

[03379]

Better subject lines with preview text can improve open results.