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[Day 19/30: Product Manager to CEO 30 Day Challenge] It's easy to get caught up in the excitement of launching a new feature or product, but it's important to remember that you won't know if it works until after it's out there in the wild. A/B testing allows you to test new features and products before they launch so you can see which ones are working best for your users.
A/B testing is a great way to figure out what your customers want. It's also an easy way to get real-time feedback on what you're doing right, and where you can make changes.
The first thing you need to do is decide what kind of experiment you want to run. The most common kinds are:
* Headline experiment: You change the headline of your landing page or email without changing any other part of it. This lets you see which headline works best for attracting traffic.
* Copy experiment: You change one thing about the copy on your landing page or email, like the amount of text or a particular word choice. Then, you compare how much more people click through on each version of the copy. This gives you data on which parts of your message resonate best with readers.
* Design experiment: You change one thing about the design of your landing page or email—like adding an image or removing a button—and then measure how many more people click through after each change has been made. This gives you data on whether the changes were good ones or not.
There are many ways to do A/B testing—you can use Google Analytics, Optimizely, or CrazyEgg (or any number of other tools) to test different versions of your website and determine which one works best for your audience.
When you're doing A/B testing with a website, you'll want to set up two versions: one that contains the original design or content and another version with some kind of change in design or content. You can test different elements like colors and typography, but also consider testing changes in copy and layout—even if it's just changing from a horizontal layout to a vertical one.
