The power of A/B testing: real-life website personalisation examples

If you take a B2B marketer to Vegas, it’s highly unlikely they’ll bet it all on black. Why? B2B marketers aren’t gamblers – they like to see clear value for money and ROI and feel secure knowing every investment is worth it. Fortunately, it’s easy to see the value of website personalization campaigns through A/B testing. Before you launch your first experiment, let’s take a look at the key components of A/B testing and why it is an impactful strategy.

A/B testing: The ultimate decision maker

A/B testing is a powerful method for verifying the effectiveness of your website personalization. Executing testing is a four-step process:

• Create variations: Develop two or more versions of a webpage element (headline, call-to-action, layout, etc.). The most common choice is personalized vs non-personalized webpages.
• Split the audience: You can also divide the target audience into segments based on industry, roles, behavior, and company size to deliver the tester experiences to each.
• Measure and analyze: Track how each version performs against your goals (such as clicks, conversions, or time on page).
• Choose the winner: The version with the best results becomes the new standard.

Putting your personalization to the test removes the guesswork from your messaging and design choices, helping you determine what resonates with each audience and what works best. A/B testing is an ongoing process, and you can constantly test new ideas to keep personalization efforts fresh and effective.

Above all, testing provides clear data and demonstrates the ROI of your personalization campaigns. You’ll get concrete evidence of how well personalization performs against generic webpages, making it easier to justify personalization strategies and investments.

Tracking is as critical as testing

The tracking stage of testing is the most important. Otherwise, you won’t gain any insights from your well-thought-out experiments.

The exact metrics to track will vary depending on your business goals and website personalization strategies. If you partner with a third-party vendor like Webeo for your personalization campaigns, they can guide you on which metrics to use, including:

• Click-through rate (CTR): The percentage of users who click on a specific link or CTA. This is essential for assessing the effectiveness of your personalized CTAs, navigation elements, or banner ads.
• Conversion rate: The percentage of users who complete a desired action (e.g., form submission, demo request, purchase). This is the ultimate measure of success for most B2B website personalization efforts.
• Bounce rate: The percentage of users who leave your site after viewing only one page. A high bounce rate could indicate that your personalized content isn’t resonating or relevant to the visitor.
• Time on page/site: How long users spend on a specific page or your website overall. This can reveal how engaging your personalized content is. Longer time on the page/site often correlates with increased interest and conversion.

Use case examples from Webeo concierge

Wondering what A/B testing looks like in practice?

Ontotext’s story

Data interrogation software company Ontotext recently launched a website personalization campaign to target the Government and public sector industry.

Before diving in head-first, Ontotext ran a 50/50 trial over two months to test personalized vs non-personalized website conversions. When the personalized option achieved a 301% conversion uplift compared to the non-personalized, Ontotext felt confident enough to roll out the campaign to 100% of Government visitors.

Ultimately, the A/B test helped Ontotext better understand the value of website personalization for the Government and public sector audience. This experimentation gave Ontotext a proof of concept they can use as the foundation for future website personalization campaigns.

(Read the full use case here!)

Nativo’s story

Advertising services leader Nativo identified an opportunity to target returning visitors with a website personalization campaign.

Together with Webeo, Nativo ran a campaign experiment for 8 weeks across multiple pages, with the goal of testing copy and element positioning. The experiment confirmed that the campaign direction successfully matched Nativo’s vision, so they rolled out the personalization to 100% of returning visitor traffic.

The result? 9 extra conversions captured in only 6 weeks.

Temenos’ story

As a leader in enterprise banking and financial services software, Temenos hosts several events globally each year to share their industry expertise. They aimed to drive additional event sign ups by bringing the most relevant event to the homepage for each unique visitor.

Temenos ran an A/B test to put personalized vs non-personalized experiences head-to-head. After experiencing a 125% increase in conversions in only 10 days with the personalized experiment, they rolled this version out to 100% of relevant traffic.

The personalized experience generated 115 additional conversions, proving that it was the right choice.

(Read the full use case here!)

Never stop testing

A/B testing isn’t a one-and-done task. It requires continuous refinement and optimization based on the experiment results. With the right expert guidance and reporting capabilities, you can make the best decisions for your website personalization campaigns.

At Webeo, we believe in the power of experimentation to help you get the best out of your campaigns. Our CSM team guides you in launching A/B tests and analyzing the results, ensuring you can move forward and launch website personalization campaigns with confidence.

Get in touch today to discover how we can help you launch your first campaign.