Why you need a Shopify landing page for A/B testing

Knowing your customers is crucial to running a successful online shop. To understand what your target audience wants, you need to constantly test and optimize your website's design and content.

One of the most effective ways to do this is through A/B testing, which compares two different pages to see which one performs better.

But what is A/B testing? How does it work? And why do you need a Shopify landing page specifically for A/B testing?

In this article, we'll explain everything you need to know about native Shopify A/B testing!

We'll cover everything from picking the right A/B testing tool to building pages for your A/B tests, so you can discover how to increase the revenue of your online store.

What is A/B testing?

A/B testing, or split testing, involves showing two webpage versions to different groups of users and comparing their performance.

Different page versions could be anything from changing the color of a button to rearranging the layout of the entire page.

Through testing, your aim is to identify which version leads to more conversions, whether that's making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or any other desired action.

Now that you know the basics of what A/B testing is, let's dive into how this relates to your Shopify store!

Shopify A/B testing, explained

For Shopify store owners, A/B testing can be used as a means to improve your online store conversion rate.

The formula for calculating this is quite straightforward:

• Online store conversion rate = Orders/Shopify site visits

For Shopify store owners, key conversion metrics include:

• Sessions

• Added to cart

• Reached checkout

• Checkout completed

By tracking each of these metrics, you can analyze your conversion rate from the top to the bottom of the sales funnel.

After running an A/B testing experiment on pages within your store, you can see if one of the page variants produced significantly more session conversions than the other.

This is beneficial to merchants because it allows them to optimize their store, based on the winning test results.

Now that we've established the goal of A/B testing for your Shopify store, let's dive into how it works:

How does A/B testing work?

To conduct an effective A/B test, you need to have a clear hypothesis about what you want to improve or change on your webpage. This hypothesis could be based on your observations or data from analytics tools.

Then, you create two versions of your Shopify pages with one key difference. This could be a different call to action, a new headline, or even a change in font size.

Next, you need to divide your website traffic into two groups - one that will see version A and another that will see version B. The split should be random and equal for accurate results.

As users interact with the pages, their actions are tracked and compared between the two versions. After sufficient data has been collected, you can analyze the results and determine which version was more effective in achieving your goal.

What tools can you use for Shopify A/B testing?

To start A/B testing on Shopify, you need two things:

• An easy way to create page variants for your Shopify store

• An easy way to run an A/B test experiment on these two pages.

By running experiments on your store pages, you can determine which version converts more, ultimately improving your customer experience (and growing your revenue!).

A tool for building A/B test page variants

To get started, you'll need a tool to build your Shopify page variants.

That's where Instant, a no-code, Shopify page and section builder, can come in handy.

Here are three different use cases for using a page builder for building A/B test pages:

1. If you want a headstart on your design process: Customize pre-built templates & sections to match your brand, publish them to your Shopify store, and then test to see which performs best!

   
   

2. If you like to build from scratch: Drag-and-drop elements onto the visual canvas to build up your landing page(s).

   
   

3. If you like using Figma for your Shopify designs: Copy and paste your page designs from Figma into Instant Page Builder, then publish to Shopify using the Figma to Shopify plugin.

No matter how you choose to build, using a no-code builder is a fast and easy way to create page variations for your A/B tests.

A tool for free, native Shopify A/B testing

After you've created two pages to test against each other, you can run your tests using the free Instant A/B Testing app!

This app can test any page within a Shopify store (like product pages or landing pages!). 

Inside the app, users can track key conversion metrics, including page sessions, add-to-carts, reached checkouts, and completed checkouts.

This makes it easy to evaluate the results of your tests across the full sales funnel!

The Instant A/B Testing app was designed to give users complete control over their experiments by allowing them to: 

• Test any Shopify page with custom or existing URLs 

• Easily dictate the test size and distribution

• Run multiple experiments at once 

Here's how to get started:

Conclusion

The success of your online store hinges on your ability to adapt and optimize. Through A/B testing your Shopify landing pages, you can find out what your customers like, and what they don't like. This makes A/B testing your Shopify pages a powerful tactic for improving your customer journey. Once you start testing, you'll be equipped with knowledge that will help you to make data-driven decisions to improve your sales potential. This is how A/B testing can help you turn your online visitors into customers and increase your Shopify store revenue!

A/B testing FAQs:

How can I tell if my A/B test is significant?

To see if your A/B test was successful, you can use an A/B testing calculator to calculate the statistical significance.

Simply input the number of sessions and conversions per variant into the calculator, and you will see if the challenger page outperformed your control page.

Ideally, all A/B tests reach 95% statistical significance, or 90% at the very least.

How long should I run an A/B test for?

The best test duration depends on a number of factors, but as a general best practice, A/B tests should run at least 2 weeks, and ideally at least 4 weeks.

Where can I learn more about A/B testing?

On a recent episode of Click To Buy, we interviewed Deborah O'Malley, an A/B testing influencer and founder of GuessTheTest. In this episode, she explains everything you need to know to get started with A/B testing!