How to A/B Test CTAs Like HubSpot Experts

The Call for action is a moment when curiosity can become a legitimate business opportunity. It is the bridge between visitors and leads – an entry point where you can use the web traffic you have generated.

Despite its potentially massive business impact, your average CTA is generally quite small and humble – possibly a button or a line of text. It seems that the blog post or the product page where the CTA is placed is all that matters when it comes to how many leads it ultimately generates

It is easy to believe that the copy, color, or placement of a call to action is not really important, but it is not. A lot is invested in creating an effective CTA. The best have been carefully worked out and rigorously tested. Here we focus on this process.

We’ll learn how to do it A / B test CTAs successful and get an insight into the topic from some experienced HubSpotters.

1. Decide on a specific factor that you want to test.

A / B testing should not be an indiscriminately applied process. In this context, it should help you optimize certain aspects of your CTAs. This means that you have to do a well-designed, effective A / B test to finally select the individual variables that you want to better understand.

Are you trying to find the best choice of words for your CTA? Are you looking for the optimal visual properties? Want to find out where the most effective placement is in your blog posts?

Try to grasp one factor – especially the other. You don’t want to A / B test multiple CTAs with different shapes, colors and copies at the same time.

2. Create several different CTAs.

There is a reason why A / B tests are called “A / B” tests – not just “A” tests. The concept itself is based on the comparison of several options. So if you want to do CTA’s A / B tests, you obviously need more than one.

There are a variety of variables that you can use to create unique, distinguishable CTAs, including color, position, size, shape, and wording. Here is an example of the components of an A / B test with multiple HubSpot variants that are used to test the effectiveness of some anchor text CTAs.

Similar CTAs were used in this A / B test, which provided the same information in a unique way. It used unique – but not outrageously different – options to improve the slight difference between the choices that blog readers would be most receptive to.

3. Measure your results

Identify a range of dates that you want to use as a reference point for your experiment. Once you’ve completed your tests over this period, take the time to analyze and understand your results.

Get an idea of ​​how your various choices have been made in terms of metrics such as overall views, clicks, and submissions to determine which of your CTAs get the most attention and convert the best. Here’s an example of what it looks like from HubSpot’s own experiment with inserting parentheses into anchor CTAs.

Once you get your results, you can identify the more effective aspects of each option and assemble CTAs that consistently deliver the results you want.

How to test CTAs like HubSpot marketers

Avoid testing multiple variables at the same time.

It is recommended not to use radically different variations of the same CTA in the A / B test. The hope of running these tests is to identify the specific factors that make your CTAs most effective.

If you compare CTAs with A / B testing against different aspects, your results may be mixed up. You have no clear idea of ​​which aspects are most effective – you lose the ability to identify the factors that are worth applying to your CTAs in the future.

Carly Stec, team manager for blog and academy acquisition at HubSpot, suggests “to avoid testing multiple variables at once”. She emphasizes the importance of keeping things simple.

She discussed a recent series of A / B tests her team had done for HubSpot’s thank you pages that changed the messaging, placement, and graphics of a CTA. She noticed a sharp increase in conversion, but didn’t have a clear picture of the key factor in the game: “While we saw a sharp increase in conversion, we wondered what exactly the trick was. Was it one of the elements or all three?”

Her team decided to subdivide the tests to see what made the difference. As she put it: “We repeated the test as three separate single-variable tests and found that placement really did have the greatest impact on conversion. The lesson? Keep it simple so that success is easier to track.”

Treat it as a marathon – not a sprint.

Slow and steady – that’s the name of the game when it comes to testing CTAs A / B. It’s a piece by piece process. Your most successful CTAs are the sum of several minor adjustments that are often made over a long period of time.

AJ Beltis, HubSpot Marketing Manager for Content and Capture, said: “Don’t be afraid to test incremental changes.” Minor changes in language, visual characteristics, placement and other factors result in the most effective CTAs. If every A / B test you do for your CTAs is based on a major overhaul, you can skip the aspects that worked best for you.

Beltis went on to discuss an experience with some of the tests he and his team conducted on the HubSpot blog: “For example, we did a number of tests to test our anchor text CTAs, while we saw slight increases in each test , This was the combination of These results resulted in the optimal version of this CTA, which has resulted in a significant increase in annual blog leads. “

What HubSpot learned from A / B tests by CTAs

When HubSpot takes a lesson out of A / B testing CTAs, there is always room for improvement. Testing A / B CTAs is an ongoing process. As Stec put it: “At HubSpot, we keep repeating our tests to make sure we’re not satisfied with the winner. Just because something won once doesn’t mean it can’t be beat. Keep going.”

A / B testing CTAs is about finding the perfect option – the limitation here is that perfection is not real. Always strive to consistently improve your CTAs, and A / B testing is central to this process.

It is important to keep focus and effort when it comes to this process, and Stec grasped the essence of this mindset when she said, “Don’t underestimate the importance of persistence in A / B testing.”