In today’s digital marketing era, a recent success mantra being adopted by modern marketers is “Test. Optimise. Test Again”. Unlike traditional marketing, digital marketing offers ample opportunities to experiment in multiple ways, so why not make the most of it?!
In the digital marketing dictionary, experimentation is almost synonymous with split testing. Now that mobile apps have become critical revenue-drivers along with a web or physical presence, brands are now investing a huge chunk of their marketing budget in mobile marketing.
And, to optimise your outcomes, experimentation in mobile marketing campaigns is more crucial than ever.
Smartech recently introduced mobile A/B testing for push notifications to power up your mobile marketing strategy. Extending the power of experimentation, Smartech now offers split testing in push notification campaigns as well!
What is Split Testing?
Split testing is sending multiple variants (up to 3) of a campaign to a certain percentage of your user base.
Here is an example of how can you distribute 3 variants of a campaign to run an effective split campaign test:
Let’s suppose you are a travel app looking to promote discounts on air tickets for the upcoming holiday season. If your entire user base size is 10,000, and you want to send 3 different variants of your campaign, you can simply create three designs with different content, images, or CTAs and choose the user segment size for each variant as 3000, 4500, and 2500 each.
As you can see, in the APN variants you experiment with different titles, body content, CTAs, images, rich elements, personalisation – in-short anything that can be changed, can be experimented with.
How is Split Testing Helpful?
Split Testing can become the soul of your optimisation exercises. By tracking the performance of the variants, you can derive correlations between the kind of content and the results it achieves.
Also, this feature can be particularly useful when you don’t have the bandwidth to carry out comprehensive mobile A/B tests, but still intend to reap the benefits of experimentation.
How is Split Campaign Testing Different from Mobile A/B Testing?
Here are some highlights of split campaign testing that distinguish it from mobile A/B testing:
- In mobile A/B tests, the test variants are sent to user segments of equal size and the winner is triggered automatically to the rest of your users. In split campaign testing you are free to choose the user segment size for each variant
- In mobile A/B tests where the winning campaign is decided automatically by the platform, depending on the response of your test audiences. In split campaign testing, the different variants are sent to your entire user base. There is no concept of a winning campaign. You can gauge the performance of each variant targeted at user segment sizes decided by you
- You need to set a winning criteria to choose the winning campaign, e.g. conversions, CTRs, etc. But, split campaign testing is purely data-driven experimentation, the results of which feed your future mobile marketing strategies.
What are Some Key Points to Remember when Running Split Campaign Testing?
- Perform experiments as experiments. Take the risks without assumptions. Play with varieties in terms of content, rich elements, emojis, subject lines, etc. Let data-rich insights on campaign performance direct your mobile marketing strategy
- Have a good sample size to achieve statistical significance. Without a large enough user segment, the metrics will not be comparable
- Keep testing regularly since the effectiveness of any element changes over time. Don’t adopt a set-it-and-forget-it approach!
- Test one variable at a time and give each test sufficient time to run. Too many variables and insufficient time would throw up inaccurate results that can produce more confusion rather than clarity
Split testing is a powerful approach and can help you know what works and what doesn’t, and have experimental data to back it up. This eases decision-making and aids in creating more effective mobile marketing content from the outset.
It may seem complicated but really isn’t! Mastering this approach will be worth it, especially when your experimentation efforts are focused on pivotal KPIs such as conversions, CTRs, user engagement, monetisation, and retention.
Kick-start your data-driven mobile marketing experimentation by scheduling a demo today!
