A/B testing
In short
A/B testing means showing two versions of a page or ad to different visitors and measuring which one brings in the most results.
Half your visitors see version A, the other half see version B. Everything is the same except one thing, such as the headline or the text on a button. After a while you see which one brought in more enquiries, and keep it.
Numbers instead of opinions, if you have the traffic
A/B testing replaces opinions with numbers. But it needs traffic. With 50 visits a week and the odd enquiry, it takes months before the difference means anything, and chance can easily fool you. On small websites it often pays more to fix the obvious mistakes first: an unclear headline, a CTA that is hard to find or a form with too many fields.
Google Optimize, which many used for such tests, was shut down on 30 September 2023. Google Ads and Meta both have their own testing features for ads.
What you can do today
Test your ads before you test your website. Ads get many impressions faster than a small website gets visits. Write two versions of the ad copy with different promises and run them side by side for two weeks. The one with the better click-through rate and more enquiries wins, and you can use the winning message in the headline on your website.
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