The secret to successful email marketing campaigns

If you’re wondering how effective your email marketing campaign will be, why not test it to determine how it might be optimized? Multivariate (or more basic A/B) testing can help you ascertain optimal conversion and click-through rates for your website, landing page, banner ad or email campaign.

Let’s say you want to determine which of two versions of an email has the more effective subject line. Variations can be dramatic or subtle, have completely different subject lines or only a one-word difference. By testing all the fundamentals of a prospecting email, you can land upon the ideal combination of variables.

With multivariate testing, you can use only a small portion of your email contact list (say, 10 percent) to gather results. If campaign A were to yield an open rate of 20 percent and 10 clicks, while campaign B yielded an open rate of 25 percent and 14 clicks, you could select the superior version to send to the remaining 90 percent of your email list.