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Salsa Weekly Highlight: Perfect your emails with A/B testing

 Submitted Wed Aug 04 2010 14:35:00 GMT-0400 (EDT) by Leslie Hall
Tags: salsa.weekyhighlight  |  Email

(From this week's Weekly Highlight email. Click here to sign up to receive it in your inbox every week!)

Greetings!

It's the "Salsa Weekly Highlight," your quick hit on what's new in Salsa to help get the most out of your online program. As always, you can find plenty more news, updates, and conversation throughout the week on SalsaCommons.org.

This week, I wanted to share a feature that isn't new to Salsa, but might be new to you.

Email A/B Testing

A/B Testing just means:

  • Sending slightly different versions of your emails to compare performance.

For instance, you might be wondering:

  • Will more people open an email with the subject "Please donate now" than "Help us reach our goal"?

Salsa's A/B testing makes it a snap to find the answer.

Step 1: Compose an Email as usual

Write up and target like you would any other email blast.

Step 2: Create A/B Split Blasts

When you reach the very last tab of the email blast builder ("Summary"), don't go straight to the big orange "send" button.

Instead, click the "Create A/B Split Blasts".

Screenshot: the Create A/B Split Blasts button

Now, your email has been cloned into two test panels plus one main blast, with random subsets of your target population to receive each of these three messages.

Step 3: Tweak your Test Panels

Each test message inherits the content of the main blast, and each can be edited individually. It's simply a matter of tweaking the one variable you want to test -- like the subject line, in my example.

(It's best to test only a single variable at a time. If you change both the subject line and the sender, you won't know which change caused the results.)

Screenshot: customizing and sending your A/B Split Blasts

Step 4: Compare, Contrast, and Send

Once your tests are sent, they'll start returning their own metrics right in that "Summary" tab.

When you're ready to launch the main blast, just use the handy menu to swap in the best-performing content, and send away!

Routinely taking the small extra step to test out elements of your email messages can really pay off, both short and long term. You'll get more from your list, and your list will get more from you.