How to A/B Test a Landing Page

13
May 2022

a_b test landing pageA landing page is a key element in the success of a digital marketing campaign. Seeing as your website is the hub of all your marketing, your landing page is a central location you can direct users to to learn more information about your campaign and take action. Although the process sounds simple, it’s crucial that your landing page converts. It’s ideal to perform an A/B test on your landing page designs to ensure you are getting the best results for your campaign. Discover below how to A/B test your landing pages and which metrics matter in these tests.

Create Duplicate a Landing Page

A/B testing is simply creating alternative versions of landing pages and testing them with a portion of your audience. Version one may lead with a video and a button that anchors to a form at the bottom of the page. Version two may lead with an image and have a form at the top of the page. When creating your alternative designs, you can mix and match elements that you think will help capture your audience’s attention.

Once you’ve created these pages and are ready to share with a segment of your audience, it’s time to install some tracking and monitor the page’s performance.

Install Heatmaps

Heatmaps are a great way to see your website users behavior. As part of your A/B testing, install a heatmap on each of the versions of your landing page. This will help you see the hot spots of your pages – which buttons people are clicking, how far they are scrolling down the page, and areas where you may want to add buttons. This will help you determine which landing page has the right structure and content.

For example, if version one has a form on the bottom and the heatmap shows that only 20% of users make it to the bottom of the page to complete the form, you want to add an anchor button to the top or move the form up. If version two shows that people are clicking on non hyperlinked photos or titles, it’s saying users need more information about your subject matter before taking action.

In addition to your heatmaps, you also want to look at some additional metrics to truly understand your website visitors’ behavior.

Monitor Performance with Google Analytics

Looking deeper at performance within Google Analytics will truly help you see which landing page best supports your marketing campaign. When comparing the performance of your landing pages, you want to look for a few metrics:

  • Conversions
  • Time on Site
  • Bounce Rate
  • Sessions

Conversions

On each of your pages, you will want to track your main call to actions. This could be a form fill, a phone call, or even a download. Healthy landing pages should be receiving conversions of some form. When A/B testing your pages, ensure you have separate forms installed on each page or tracking phone numbers to compare the number of conversions you are getting.

Time on Site and Bounce Rate

The more time users spend on your site, the more likely they are reading your information and taking action. In conjunction with time on site, you also want to look at the overall bounce rate of the page. This is the percentage of people immediately leaving your site without taking any action. If either of your pages has low time on site or a high bounce rate, it’s a good indicator that users are not finding the information they are looking for on your landing page.

Sessions

Sessions are another metric to take into account. This is the number of people coming to your page. During A/B testing, you will be sharing your alternative web pages with the same audience. If you are seeing more traffic to one version versus the other, it’s a sign that one of your landing pages is not resonating with your audience. Take a look at the landing page with the most traffic and also see how long people are staying and if they are converting. If no action is happening, you may want to do some rearranging on this top-trafficked page.

A/B testing is a great way to test a few different elements on your landing page and share the best-performing content in your marketing campaign. Don’t forget to look at all the metrics and the page’s behaviors as a whole before determining which page is the winner. Just because a page has a lot of traffic doesn’t mean it’s meeting the lead generation goals of your campaign.

The average landing page conversion rate across all industries is 9.7%.

Do you need help creating your landing page for a campaign?

CLICK HERE for a complimentary 30-minute digital marketing audit.

Brianna's signature

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fill out the form below to start your conversation with KWSM.

Core Values at KWSM a digital marketing agency