How A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s

Conversion Rates

Slide 1

How A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s Conversion Rates

How A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s

Conversion Rates

Slide 2

1) Testing your Plan B

2) Generate More Leads with Your Tested Landing Page

3) Tailor CTAs to Appeal to Student Personas

4) A/B Testing CTAs: Anyone Can Do It

5) Create Irresistible Email Campaigns with A/B Testing

6) Don’t Stop at Plan B!

Overview

Source: 3 Ways A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s Conversion Rates

How A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s

Conversion Rates

Slide 3

Higher education marketers spend a lot of time speculating

about untried tactics in their search for reliable ways to

connect with leads.

Deciding which landing page design will perform better can

be difficult, and running comparative campaigns can become

costly.

The solution: simultaneously track the results of both

choices, plan A and B, by running simple A/B tests

1. Testing your Plan B

Source: 3 Ways A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s Conversion Rates

How A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s

Conversion Rates

Slide 4

The 2013 Econsultancy Report identified A/B testing as one

of the top seven tools marketers should focus on to increase

website conversion.

According to Hubspot, A/B testing your landing pages can

help generate up to 40% more leads for your business - or

college

A/B testing is effective because it allows schools to collect

input from leads, track what they do and don’t respond to,

and customize accordingly

2. Generate More Leads with Your Tested Landing Page

Source: 3 Ways A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s Conversion Rates

How A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s

Conversion Rates

Slide 5

Start by creating two different versions of the same landing

page, so you can test how leads respond to both formats.

One at a time, make changes to colour, layout, image

selection, text, the number of fields in sign-up form, etc. –

tracking response rates with each adjustment

Test big changes first, like a background colour or image,

and then make finer tweaks as you go.

Source: 3 Ways A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s Conversion Rates

Testing the Page:

How A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s

Conversion Rates

Slide 6

Here is an example of two landing pages, ready for testing to

find out which version generates more leads with A/B

testing:

Source: 3 Ways A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s Conversion Rates

How A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s

Conversion Rates

Slide 7

Easily track the conversion results of your test landing pages

using an analytics software like this one from Google:

Source: 3 Ways A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s Conversion Rates

How A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s

Conversion Rates

Slide 8

During the early days of President Obama’s run for office,

his marketing team ran A/B tests on several campaign

webpage CTAs, including their “Sign Up” and “Learn More”

buttons

The A/B tests revealed that “Learn More” got 18.6% more

signups than it’s competitors: Obama’s subscriber persona

preferred an invitation to learn more, as opposed to a

demand to “sign up”

Does your admissions office understand the preferences of

your school’s personas and test CTA’s to determine if they’re

the best match?

3. Tailor CTAs to Appeal to Student Lead Personas

Source: 3 Ways A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s Conversion Rates

How A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s

Conversion Rates

Slide 9

Here is an example of a higher ed CTA from Trebas Institute:

If Trebas wanted to A/B test this CTA to assess the

preference of their lead personas, they might try stripping it

down to only two offers—Request Information and Apply

Online.

Source: 3 Ways A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s Conversion Rates

3. Tailor CTAs to Appeal to Student Lead Personas

How A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s

Conversion Rates

Slide 10

With all of the software and resources available today, you

don’t have to be a big data expert or coder to interpret A/B

test analytics

Optimizley, Visual Website Optimizer and Unbounce are all

great tools that will demonstrate the comparative

performance of two CTAs

Even a simple change in phrasing, colour or format can

incite users to click, and to convert

4. A/B Testing CTAs: Anyone Can Do It

Source: 3 Ways A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s Conversion Rates

How A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s

Conversion Rates

Slide 11

A great way to reach out to

leads and directly market your

school’s programs, is through

email campaigns– as long as

your emails are actually

getting opened and read!

Increase the probability of

your recipients opening your

messages by evaluating a

range of email variables, using

A/B testing.

5. A/B Test Your Way to Irresistible Email Campaigns

Source: 3 Ways A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s Conversion Rates

How A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s

Conversion Rates

Slide 12

Email analytics tools like MailChimp and Campaign Monitor run A/B

tests on a sample of recipients, and send the winning version of the

email to all subsequent recipients

Here is an example of Campaign Monitor allows users to define the

parameters of an A/B email test:

Source: 3 Ways A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s Conversion Rates

How A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s

Conversion Rates

Slide 13

Due to its potential to achieve an unprecedented level of

customization, A/B testing is now considered a must have

for higher education lead generation

With all of the testing tools available, you don’t have to stop

after testing plan B– test plans C, D and E too!

Optimize your campaigns and gain insight into your

programs’ lead personas all at the same time

6. Don’t Stop at Plan B!

Source: 3 Ways A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s Conversion Rates

How A/B Testing Can Boost Your School’s

Conversion Rates

Slide 14

Questions? 1.514.312.3968

info@higher-education-marketing.com

Visit our Website: Higher Education Marketing

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