In an ultra-competitive market where fine margins matter, data is the key to giving yourself the upper hand — and the world of online promotions is no different. But too often, promotion strategies are based on retailer intuition rather than data-driven insights.
Such promotion strategies miss the mark because they aren’t targeted or convincing enough to drive conversions. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Businesses today have access to a vast range of tools and techniques designed to drive smarter promotion campaigns, with A/B testing a prime example.
With the right sample size, and when informed by a comprehensive, data-driven understanding of customer behaviour, A/B testing can help you implement promotion strategies that target the right customers at the right time. And the results speak for themselves.
In this article, we’ll shine a light on some of the key ways that A/B testing (also known as split testing or multivariate testing) can transform your promotional strategy, helping you to increase eCommerce conversions and drive sales.📈
Suggested reading: Check out our eBook, What Winning Your Promotional Strategy Looks Like, to see how the best retailers in the game optimised their promotions for success.
Promotion strategies become more personalised
Promotions often end up feeling impersonal and disconnected from the needs and wants of the target customer. If you take a step back, promotions are gift-like offers that help consumers save money. At their core, they’re fun and exciting. So, why are they often delivered in such a mundane fashion? Well, for most retailers, it’s because they:
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Don’t understand their customer base
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Aren’t able to effectively target the right people
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Lack the expertise to deliver effective promotion strategies
Another huge hurdle to implementing personalised promotions is a lack of control. Many retailers leverage generic codes that are easily leaked, resulting in over-discounting and a loss of revenue for the retailer. By offering promotions through unique, single-use codes, or ones that are offered through a tailored promotion experience platform, you can ensure your promotions are personalised and controlled.
A/B testing is one of the best ways to drive more personalised promotion strategies across your online store. By testing ideas against each other, retailers are able to see how different strategies drive conversions across their customer base.
Armed with insights based on real-world data, retailers are then able to fine-tune their promotion strategies to become more targeted. For the first time, they can see how different demographics engage with different strategies and pick the ones that work best, driving conversions and boosting revenue.
How a leading hospitality chain used code tracking to deliver more personalised promotions
Challenge: Well-known hotel chain Travel Client X had been using discount voucher codes for years. But with codes available in multiple online locations, it was too easy for customers to pass them around without limits.
As a result, codes were being abused, and Travel Client X was losing money. To make matters worse, Travel Client X wasn’t able to track results for specific campaigns. That’s when they turned to Uniqodo.
Solution: With our help, Travel Client X launched a new system that enabled them to track every code and deliver exclusive offers. Through unique, single-use codes, Travel Client X now has a secure, variable-free platform on which they can accurately A/B test. Not only did this eliminate the problem of repeatedly used codes, but it also gave Travel Client X a clearer picture of its customer base, enabling them to deliver more personalised campaigns, fine-tune offerings, and test changes instantly.
Results: Travel Client X enjoyed an increase in organisational efficiency, with their team saving up to three hours per day on analysis and reporting. They are now equipped with the tools they need to A/B test new promotional strategies and create personalised campaigns. For more insights, you can read the full Travel Client X case study here.
Your strategies can support your business as you grow
Another common issue that retailers face is that their promotion strategies aren’t able to evolve and scale as their business grows. This results in strategies that are stagnant, boring, and ultimately ineffective at capturing the imagination of a growing customer base. This results in cart abandonment and a lack of customer loyalty, an ever-present threat in today’s competitive landscape.
As your business grows, you’ll find yourself needing to test more advanced promotional tactics in order to stay relevant and develop a loyal customer base. The best way to do this is through A/B testing, as this gives you the ability to compare your current promotional tactics with alternatives to see the scale of improvements. This is also a capability that your business can carry forward, regularly testing newer and more advanced promotions to ensure you’re always providing the best customer experience.
A/B testing allows you to sidestep these issues. By implementing A/B testing, you gain a deep understanding of what tactics work best, allowing you to assess how effectively your promotion strategies are driving conversions as you grow.
Pro tip: You can learn more about driving consumer loyalty in our blog 5 Ways to Optimise Your eCommerce Customer Retention.
You can also continue to test strategies as your customer base grows. Your target demographic may have responded well to limited-time codes sent to their emails, but they might now prefer ‘buy one, get one free’ deals. Continuous testing and data analysis will ensure you’re constantly meeting the demands of your customer base, improving loyalty and driving revenue.
How Jacamo enticed customers with a spooky mystery code offer
Challenge: When fashion retailer Jacamo wanted to breathe new life into its email promotion strategy, they turned to Uniqodo for help.
Solution: Together, we launched a Halloween-themed campaign focused around a mystery offer. Instead of the standard 10% discount, customers had the chance to claim a range of discount values in a lottery-style offer.
Results: The mystery element really sparked customers’ imagination, resulting in an increased open rate and reduced bounce rate, with a response of over 42%. Jacamo now had a new promotional tactic under its belt, reducing the cart abandonment rate and ensuring they felt looked after. This gave them the tools they need to continue to provide advanced promotions, utilising A/B testing to ensure every promotion, discount and offer is driving maximum conversions. The mystery code offer proved that regularly testing whether your promotions are optimised allows you to target wider customer bases and improve consumer loyalty. You can read the full story in our Jacamo case study.
You’re able to implement a wide range of promotional tactics
When retailers fail to run A/B testing, they continue to implement the same tired promotional tactics, whether they are successful or not. By getting stuck in a promotional rut, they miss out on a huge opportunity to spark interest and drive conversions.
But by using A/B testing to understand which promotional strategies work best, retailers open themselves up to a wider range of powerful tactics, including:
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Targeted discounts
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Exit intent overlays
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Loyalty points schemes
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Buy-one-get-one (BOGO) offers
That said, it can be daunting for retailers to move away from what they’ve always done and jump head first into new tactics. Often, businesses can’t attribute promotions at a SKU level or offer incentives based on basket contents. This keeps promotions generic and makes it harder to grow. This is why it helps to work with a promotion experience platform such as Uniqodo, that has the capability and expertise to make these promotional strategies a success. Uniqodo’s technology can seamlessly integrate into in-house promotional tools. With a simple JavaScript or API integration, all of Uniqodo’s capabilities are augmented to fit the retailer’s requirements, creating a zero-IT development requirement (when integrated via JavaScript) and a rapid yet robust solution for commercial and marketing teams.
How Samsung drove leads with a Black Friday early bird offer
Challenge: In the run-up to Black Friday, Samsung had two key goals: Generate leads and shift overstocked products. Uniqodo helped them achieve both.
Solution: Samsung worked with Uniqodo to ensure any potential new promotions were successfully A/B tested against their old promotional tactics. We then delivered an early bird offering via PPC and social media that rewarded engaged and loyal customers, while creating a custom landing page displaying eligible product descriptions across four different discount tiers. Customers with an early bird code were then able to buy one product from each tier and shop the sale up to five times.
Results: Through this campaign, we were able to help Samsung target and retarget a specific group of customers, presenting them with a more exciting deal. Samsung could feel confident in their new promotions as they’d been A/B tested, proving their increased efficacy. To find out more, check out the full Samsung case study.
How to utilise A/B testing
As you can see, A/B testing is a powerful tactic that allows you to transform the way you design and implement promotion strategies. Ultimately, it allows you to generate more leads and drive increased revenue. But implementing A/B testing isn’t always straightforward. To effectively utilise it, you need to know how to:
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Segregate your customer base.
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Utilise API integrations and testing tools.
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Analyse the results.
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Offer a range of promotional tactics in accordance with those results.
Without the right expertise, it can be challenging or even impossible to get these processes right.
One surefire way to utilise A/B testing — and maximise the opportunities it provides — is to work with an expert partner, like Uniqodo. We take the guesswork out of A/B testing, providing the results you need to deliver smarter promotion campaigns and drive more conversions.
How A/B testing helped EE deliver more successful promotions
Challenge: EE wanted to measure conversion rate uplift for a new promotional strategy against their standard model. They were also struggling with the administration behind managing promotions and code distributions.
Solution: After enhancing mobile network provider EE’s promotional messaging to increase performance, we were able to utilise A/B testing to show the impact of the enhanced customer journey compared to the original.
Results: With a 23% increase in orders, a 19% increase in conversion rate, and a superior customer experience, EE was able to see the impact that this change in messaging brought about, giving them the data they needed to roll out their new promotion strategy to 100% of their student traffic.
Take the first step to eCommerce success with Uniqodo
If you want to take first the step towards smarter promotion strategies, it helps to work with a partner that truly understands the eCommerce industry and the needs of your organisation.
With almost a decade of experience building tools designed to help online retailers maximise the potential of their promotions, Uniqodo has the experience and expertise you need to deliver smarter, more effective promotion strategies.
Our groundbreaking Promotion Experience platform has helped companies generate over £2.2 billion in revenue, with over 7.7 million unique code redemptions just last year.
So, if you’d like to join the likes of Samsung, Jacamo and EE, in implementing a data–driven promotion strategy that captures the imagination of your customer base and improves conversions, get in touch today and book a discovery call with one of our experts.
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