It is very complicated to have infused science and to directly set up perfect marketing assets with the highest conversion and/or engagement rate.
The most popular method for optimizing marketing efforts is A/B testing. A technique for improving content and marketing assets based on the comparison of two similar assets and the iterations of these comparisons.
HubSpot, being a leader in the Marketing industry, has obviously developed a whole fleet of A/B testing tools to allow us to constantly optimize our Marketing assets.
Concern ? Unfortunately, it is not possible to test two different versions of a Workflow.
Let’s take the example of a Nurturing Workflow. It will be possible to A/B test the different emails of your route but in no case to test two different routes.
By reflecting on this problem, I have developed a solution to workaround this limitation. By the end of this article, you will be able to A/B test 100% of your HubSpot automations.
Summary
- The Importance of A/B Testing in Our Marketing Efforts
- A/B testing possibilities native to HubSpot
- The One-Shot Method
- A/B test all your Workflows automatically
- Draw conclusions from the A/B test
- Endnotes
The Importance of A/B Testing in Our Marketing Efforts
The importance of A/B testing lies in its ability to help us understand the preferences and behaviors of our target audience. By testing different variables, such as text, images, colors, or calls to action, we can determine what works best to grab attention, generate interest, and convert our leads into customers. This allows us to optimize our campaigns and maximize our return on investment.
One of the great strengths of A/B testing is its ability to guide us in making informed decisions. Rather than relying on assumptions or subjective opinions, we rely on real data to determine the best marketing strategies. This allows us to avoid costly guesswork and focus our resources on what actually works.
It is an iterative approach to optimization. By performing regular testing, we can make incremental improvements to our campaigns and user experience. Each test gives us new insights into what works and what doesn't, allowing us to continuously improve and innovate.
To conduct effective A/B testing, it is important to define clear objectives, select meaningful variables to test, collect reliable data and analyze it rigorously. Moreover, it is important to test one variable at a time in order to be able to fully consider its performance.
A/B testing possibilities native to HubSpot
As mentioned in the introduction, HubSpot offers several A/B testing tools to optimize each of our Marketing assets. Whether directly or indirectly.
Among these tools are:
- Emails: Whether for “regular” or “automated” campaigns, HubSpot allows us to A/B test our email content by weighting the A/B distribution and setting a test time for regular emails. Thanks to this tool, we will be able to improve our opening rate (by modifying the subject), our engagement rate (by modifying the message) or the conversion rate (by modifying the Call to action).
- Web Pages and Landing Page: On the same basis as email, you will be able to create two different versions of a page on your site to offer to your visitor audience.
- Calls to action (CTA): Directly via HubSpot's CTA editor, you will be able to create several variations of the same CTA to measure its effectiveness.
- Lists: This is not an A/B testing tool strictly speaking, but this feature (still in Beta) allows us to distribute the leads of a list as desired into several static lists. This tool will be useful for the first “One Shot” method.
- Forms: Although not “A/B testable” directly, we can carry out our comparative tests by offering a different form on the A/B iterations of a page on our site.
Now that we have explored the A/B possibilities of HubSpot, we realize that testing workflow journeys is not possible. Now let's see two methods to work around this limitation.
The One-Shot Method
The first method applies if you want to carry out an automated campaign frozen in time (not continuous).
For example, a campaign promoting a webinar for the next month. This campaign concerns a fixed audience that will be determined upstream by a list.
Using the webinar example, you want to test two different promotion journeys. (For example one based only on email, and one based on a combination Email + WhatsApp, or even test a sequence of 3 weekly emails against a sequence of 5 daily).
All you have to do is create two separate workflows, each presenting one of the paths to test. The A/B test will be part of the registration criteria for these two Workflows.
To do this, we will “Split” the audience list you generated for your campaign.
Go to your list, click on “Actions” then on “Split List”.
Distribute your leads between the two lists as desired.
You will then obtain your two mailing lists which will serve as registration criteria for your two workflows.
All you have to do is create your two workflows by indicating, in the registration criteria, the list corresponding to the workflow.
Warning: Even if you use the same emails in your two journeys, it is essential to duplicate each email (by naming them “emailname - WFA” and “emailname - WFB” for example) to guarantee a follow-up of the results that we will discuss in the last part.
So you just have A/B tested two automated journeys.
A/B test all your Workflows automatically
Presentation of the automatic A/B testing system
Our first method has a limit, it only applies to automation with a pre-defined audience. You may want to A/B test continuous automations, such as a nurturing sequence for all new qualified leads entering your HubSpot database.
To do this we will use a technique that I had developed in my article on how to Automate lead assignment in HubSpot without Sales Hub Pro.
The idea is to take a value from HubSpot presenting a random generation (in my previous article: the Record ID property) to perform a random distribution with an If/Then branch in our Workflow.
In our example, we'll use the last digit of our leads' phone number. Indeed, according to the law of large numbers, out of 1000 contacts, you will have as many telephone numbers ending with the number 2 as the number 3. Based on this assumption, we can segment and weight our subscribers in a workflow through this last telephone number.
Once our leads are distributed according to their number, we can create the desired workflow path under each of the branches created.
Is it a bit confusing? We will do it step by step.
Workflow Building
Let's go back to our simple example of testing two nurturing paths for a new qualified lead:
- The first sends 5 daily emails (for 40% of our audience)
- The second sends 3 weekly emails (for 60% of our audience)
Our first step is to create the registration criteria. In our example: all leads qualified by the Marketing team (Lifecycle Stage = MQL)
Directly after our registration, we will divide our audience in two based on the criteria set out above.
A telephone number can equally end in 10 possibilities 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. Each possibility corresponds to 10% of the audience.
To obtain a 40/60 distribution, we will therefore create:
- A branch with the criteria: Telephone number ends with 0, 1, 2 or 3
- A branch with the criteria: Telephone number ends with 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9
Your Workflow is directly prepared for its A/B test.
All you have to do is configure each of the branches as if it were a workflow on its own. For our example, we end up with this result:
Once activated, the workflow will automatically distribute your leads to the two paths with the weighting you have defined.
Warning: Even if you use the same emails in your two journeys, it is essential to duplicate each email (by naming them “emailname - WFA” and “emailname - WFB” for example) to guarantee a follow-up of the results that we will discuss in the last part.
Draw conclusions from the A/B test
Now that we have seen how to create two workflow paths fairly distributed, it remains for us to analyze the results of this test.
To do so, you simply create one HubSpot campaign per route (WFA and WFB for example) and affiliate each of the assets that make up your routes to the corresponding campaign.
Then simply compare the results of both campaigns to determine a winning version.
Endnotes
If you want to deepen your HubSpot skills and find all the workflows created and presented by HS Simple, do not hesitate to request your free access to the workflow box. A private web page listing all the workflows requested by the community with an explanatory video and a simple action plan in the form of a “to-do list”.
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