Sins To Avoid During A/B Testing Process (Part 2)

Sins To Avoid During A/B Testing Process (Part 2)

Although, A/B testing has touched new horizons and areas of application but still its complete utilization has been hampered due to the common mistakes that are committed by the user during the A/B testing process. Let us move forward from where we have left in the previous installment of this article- Sins to avoid during A/B testing process (Part 1).

Here are the other common mistakes that can cost you heavily if not handled seriously and carefully.

Giving unnecessary and over the top importance to A/B testing of old websitesBusiness entities should always keep in mind that they are testing for making improvements in the conversion rates, site traffic and product sales, so test only what is relevant and not just anything. Furthermore, it is to be ensured that you are not wasting your time, money and efforts by performing A/B testing on an old site that is not of much value to you.

Double check that the website you are selecting for performing A/B testing is getting adequate number of site traffic so that you don't have to face the disappointment later on.

This timely introspection will save your split testing results from getting wasted and will increase the productivity of your website that matters a lot to your business and not any random unnecessary website.

Focusing your observation and energies on only particular elements of a website-

It is good to perform A/B testing keeping in mind the selected key performance metrics like site traffic, conversion rate, product sales and such others, however don't just restrict your efforts to one or two site elements like call- to- action buttons, landing page or forms. You need to have a clear picture of all those elements that are having a tremendous impact on the performance, usability and productivity of your business through the help of an effective heat map tool like Mocking Fish. This wonderful web analytics tool has features like click heat map, scroll heat map, insight heat map and such others that can provide a complete detailed information about the onsite customer activity, mouse click and scrolling behavior, customer related information (device used, time of browsing, customer interest, etc) and much more for improving your website usability and conversion ability.

Apart from this, there are tools like Google Analytics that can provide you diverse range of information about your incoming site traffic for making substantial improvements in your conversion rates and product sales. These tools will help you in focusing your energy, efforts and money in the right direction for making your A/B testing highly successful.

You are not checking the progress of your test after it has been started- It would not be logical on your part to not check the progress of your A/B testing results on a regular basis to ensure if everything is working as per your expectations. Do ensure that your changes are effectively reflected on your variation page to your select group of audience for analyzing their opinion about the changes done on your variation page. Apart from this, it is important to check that your website is proper loading or not, CTA buttons are performing effectively or not and to ensure that your variations are working effectively or not. For checking the variations of your A/B testing experiment, you need to perform the following steps: - Open the “variation page” of your experiment in the “incognito” mode of your browser.

- If you have got the original version of your website in the “incognito” mode of your browser, close that browser window. Then, open a new incognito browser window for opening your test variation and if you fail this time also, keep on doing this until you get the test variation of your website in the “incognito” mode.

But, you can avoid all this repetitive process by checking the variation page of your website on the “preview mode” of the platforms like Pagewiz.

You are not having a well planned strategy for your A/B testing experiment-

It is not a hyperbole that “Great battles are won not by force only but more due to exceptional planning and strategy�. In the same way, if you want to take the best out of your A/B testing efforts, it is important to carry out your tests in a well planned manner along with proper background research and strategy. Don't just jump into the conclusion without analyzing all the aspects along with the pros and cons of your A/B testing experiments. Here is what you all need to understand before finally starting off your A/B testing process.

- What are the possible loopholes in your site that is hampering the growth and effective usability of your website?

- What are the possible A/B testing approaches that can be implemented for handling a particular problem?

- What can be the limiting factors that can hamper the success of your A/B testing results?

- What is the possible time duration for your A/B testing experiment that can provide you results with the required level of statistical significance?

- Which elements of your website are given maximum priority based on their possible effects on the productivity and usability of your website?

Once, you have the satisfactory answers of all these questions, you can be quite sure about the success of your A/B testing experiment.

Not following the realistic time duration for your A/B testing results- Don't plan your split testing results on some unrealistic and hypothetical time duration which is difficult to be achieved by your business entity and can affect the long term interests of your business drastically. Ensure that you are following an effective time duration for your A/B testing experiments that are not too small and not too large which makes it impossible to be achieved in a short span of time. Following an unrealistic testing time duration will not help you in realizing the full potential of your A/B testing process and will not add any value to your eCommerce conversion rate optimization efforts. Without having a proper insight about the time duration of your split testing results, it would not do any good to your business as you would not be able to analyze the results of your proposed changes and their final implementation onto your website.

You are implementing too many tests at a single time-

For the starters in the field of A/B testing, it would be advisable not to fall into the trap of “multiple tests” at a given instance of time. Although, there are various A/B testing tool like Mocking Fish that also provide the facility of multi- variate testing so that various variations of a particular testing element can be analyzed at a particular instance of time. However, handling multiple tests at a time will not give you a fair idea about which element actually made a significant impact on the conversion rates, site traffic and product sales of your online business. Without this crucial knowledge, it would be much difficult for any business entity to make a drastic change in its business fortunes.

So, it is the need of the hour to pay attention to all these limiting factors that can affect the performance and productivity of your online business to a great extent. If the required efforts are not initiated now, it will be too late for you to take corrective steps for getting optimum results in terms of conversion rates and product sales. Further, do remember that “A stitch in time saves nine”, so don't ignore these crucial A/B testing mistakes for the growth of your business.