"Can you test 3 different versions of the banner at the bottom of the homepage please?” No.
AB testing is a powerful technique, but it's not an excuse to test everything and anything on your website. The key to an effective AB testing strategy lies in prioritizing your tests, so as to maximize your results with minimum effort. Testing every element indiscriminately dilutes your resources and prevents you from achieving significant results.
This article aims to show you why it's essential to prioritize your tests, and how to focus your efforts on what really counts for your conversions.
Why not test it all?
It may seem tempting to want to test every aspect of your site, from the add-to-cart button to the color of the banner at the bottom of the home page. However, testing without a strategy will waste time and traffic without providing any real value. Testing without a strategy is a bit like trying to reorganize your entire closet in the middle of the night: it takes time, it's exhausting, and in the end, you can't even find your socks. For example, testing the shape of the shadows on a button or the color of the corner of a banner is unlikely to change your conversions, but it will mobilize precious resources. That's why it's crucial to ask yourself: will this test have a direct impact on my visitors' purchasing decisions? If the answer is no, it's best to save your efforts for what really matters.
Every test you carry out consumes resources, be it traffic or analysis time. Testing insignificant elements that have no direct impact on conversion is a waste of time. What you need to do is prioritize the tests that have the greatest potential to influence your users' purchasing decisions.
Tests priorization with the PIE framework
A simple and effective approach to determining which tests should be carried out first is the PIE framework. This model evaluates each page or element according to three criteria:
Potential: How much room for improvement does this page or element have?
Importance: Is this page essential to achieving your business objectives?
Ease: How easy is it to implement the test?
Exemple of a simple PIE framwork with 4 tests
By scoring your pages and elements according to these three criteria, you can focus your efforts on the tests that will deliver the greatest gains with the least complexity.
Test critical pages
Not all the pages on your site are created equal. Some play a central role in the purchasing process, and have a direct influence on conversions. Here are the three pages to prioritize for your AB tests:
- Product page: This is where the visitor decides whether or not to go ahead with the purchase. Testing elements such as product presentation, descriptions, or calls to action can have an immediate impact on your sales.
- Cart: Often underestimated, the shopping basket is a critical point in the customer journey. A poor experience here can drive away a buyer just a few clicks away from conversion. Optimizing display options, quantity updates and shipping costs can reduce cart abandonment.
- Shipping: The delivery page is often a major source of friction, especially if it is poorly optimized. Testing delivery options, speed assurances or cost transparency can directly influence the decision to finalize a purchase.
These pages are essential because they directly affect the conversion process. Testing them as a priority will enable you to achieve concrete results quickly.
Don't waste (too much) time with the home page
On many sites, the home page has become an obsession. Yet its impact on conversions is often overestimated. However, it's a well-established fact that, these days, far fewer visitors pass through the home page, due in part to SEO strategies and marketing campaigns redirecting users to specific pages (products, categories, etc.). Some reports estimate that only 30% of visitors arrive via the home page.
While the home page is important for your brand image, it's generally not critical for conversion. It's therefore wiser to concentrate your efforts on the pages that really influence purchasing behavior, such as the product page, shopping cart and delivery.
Test prioritization must be data-driven
It's essential to analyze the most visited pages, bounce rates and conversion rates to identify the greatest opportunities for improvement. In addition, heatmaps and scrollmaps are valuable tools that offer a clear view of user behavior. They enable you to visualize where users click, as well as how far they scroll down the page. This information helps you detect areas that capture attention or, on the contrary, those that create friction. Thanks to this data, you can prioritize the most relevant tests objectively and effectively, rather than relying on hunches.
The 80/20 rule: focus on the essentials
In conversion optimization, the 80/20 rule applies perfectly: 80% of the results will come from 20% of the effort. This means that it's more effective to focus your testing on the most critical areas of the user journey, such as the above the fold (the part of the page visible without having to scroll).
Elements located above the fold line immediately capture users' attention and play a crucial role in their decision whether or not to stay on the page. Therefore, testing key elements visible without scrolling (such as headlines, main images, CTAs) can have a much greater impact than testing elements buried at the bottom of the page.
Knowing when to stop a test
Not all tests will produce positive results, and that's perfectly normal. One of the key skills in CRO is knowing when to stop a test. If after a significant period of time you don't see any statistically significant results, it's time to move on to another test.
Every test, win or lose, provides valuable data. An unsuccessful test teaches you what doesn't work and allows you to adjust your assumptions for the future.
In short, don't test everything, but test well
Testing every element of your site is like trying to make 50 recipes in one evening - exhausting and ineffective. To maximize the impact of your tests, it's essential to focus your efforts on the critical pages and elements that directly influence conversions. Don't be distracted by testing the home page or minor elements with no real added value. Use the data provided by Webyn to guide your decisions, and concentrate your efforts where they will have the greatest effect.
By focusing on the 20% of elements that will produce 80% of the results, you'll achieve significant improvements, without wasting your resources.