What To Know About A/B Testing Explainer Videos

A/B testing is a valuable concept for marketers and advertisers. It’s also called split or bucket testing, and it refers to a scenario where you’re comparing two different versions of something to see which performs best.

Usually, A/B testing is used for landing pages and advertisements. With A/B testing there are two or more variants that are shown, and an analysis is done to see which option is going to offer better performance levels in terms of conversions.

Explainer videos and whiteboard animations aren’t something you might think to A/B test, but it can be extremely helpful.

The following are some general things to know about A/B testing specifically with regard to explainer videos.

Setting Up Tests

A lot of content management systems will let you create A/B tests pretty easily. You will have to make some specific decisions regarding how many test results you would need to see to call it statistically relevant.

This is dependent on individual factors like site traffic.

You’ll also have to decide what you’re going to test. If you just test one variable, it’s going to let you drill down to the details and get great accuracy because you don’t have to worry about other factors playing a role.

Know What You’re Looking For

Don’t just wing it. The most important thing with an A/B test is to be very clear on what it is you’re looking for and what you hope to determine from your test results.

You need to have a specific goal in mind—for example, increasing conversions is a good one for explainer video testing.

You should also be prepared to take the time to get significant results with measurable differences. It’s not something that’s going to happen instantly.

Testing Promotional Wording

While many of the factors you test may be within the video itself, don’t forget about what’s leading people to that video in the form of your promotional copy. You might want to test two versions of an introduction to your explainer on your landing page or in an email and see which one works best.

You can test things like your headlines and calls to action, and also subject lines if you’re sending out emails.

Other Factors To Test

There is a lot you can test when it comes to explainer videos, and below are some examples:

• The length of the video—even if there’s just a few seconds’ difference an A/B test may show major differences in the results
• A really good thing to test is your call to action within your video. You can experience with wording, visuals, and design to see what’s more compelling for your audience.
• If you include your explainer video on your website or a landing page, you can test which page it works best on or which spot on the page.

Finally, another place to A/B test is on social media. Facebook advertising lets you set up A/B testing pretty easily if you’re interested in paid advertising.