You’ve probably heard of AB testing in email marketing, but have you heard of A, B, C, D and E testing?

Well with Campaignmaster you can create five different versions of your email and test to see which version works best and resonates with your audience.

Small changes can have a significant impact on the results of your email campaigns. You never know how a simple word change can affect perception.

The most obvious choices to test are the from name, the from address and the subject line. Quick and easy to do for a start!

So, here’s an example of a simple from name test:

From Name = Campaignmaster

From Name = Aran at Campaignmaster

Some recipients may be more receptive to seeing a name in the from name, it’s definitely more personable.

But how could you change a from address? Below is some food for thought:

From Address = team@e.campaignmaster.co.uk

From Address = aran@e.campaignmaster.co.uk

From Address = hintsandtips@e.campaignmaster.co.uk

Which one would encourage you to open the email?

Moving on to the all-important subject line. Below are five different subject lines. 

So, from these subject lines for a security content campaign, which one would you say worked best in encouraging engagement?

  1. Do everything you can to avoid data breaches
  2. Avoid data breaches – advanced security measures as standard
  3. Protect your data from hackers as standard with our security features
  4. Is your email service provider keeping your data safe?
  5. Following the recent data breach to a large email service provider…

The results below are kind of similar but version E definitely won for most opens.

As this campaign was sent to email marketers, we felt it definitely resonated with our audience.

In our next example, we offered a download to a beginners guide to email marketing. This time we only conducted a two way split test, so just an A B test.

  1. [Download] The Beginners Guide to Email Automation
  2. The Beginners Guide to Email Automation

Which one do you think worked better? These results were interesting as there wasn’t a significant difference, but still there was a difference. Recipients who received version B opened more, however recipients who received version A clicked more. Perhaps the word ‘Download’ drove people to go straight to the call-to-action button?

With our last example, we wanted to advertise a video of our services. Which one was best received from the following subject lines?

  1. Concerned about your email security? Compliant with UK data protection laws, we can help.
  2. Are you using a reputable email service provider? Our video will provide a good indication.
  3. Are you only 80% GDPR compliant?

This campaign had a stand out winner when it came to opens, and this being version C.  Perhaps this subject line raised some concerns with the reader?

We hope we’ve given you some real insight into the world of multivariate email testing.

Of course, you don’t need to just stick with the from name, subject line and from address but as it’s the first thing your user will read, we highly recommend you should start here.

Additionally, using our email marketing platform you can also test pre-header text and actual campaign content too.

If you need help with any element of your email marketing, please do get in touch at info@campaignmaster.co.uk or call 0208 863 5334.