Optimizing App Performance and User Engagement with A/B Testing and Data Analysis

Photo by Onur Binay on Unsplash

Making your small digital creations stand out is quite an ongoing pursuit, especially in the realm of app development frameworks. However, it is something that everyone desires these days. I mean, you have probably worked for hours and hours hoping to grab the attention of the prospects and trying hard to keep the trust intact by offering a unique user interface. And this is where A/B Testing comes into play.

Commonly known as Split testing or bucket testing, A/B testing is more like a methodology used to compare two versions of a webpage. So that one gets a clear idea regarding which one performs better. So if simply put, A/B Testing is more kind of an experiment where two or more variants are being compared at once.

Testing your website is extremely important these days. Also, A/B testing tends to offer accurate information and ensure that data-driven decisions are made in no time. One can feel rest assured because any changes made will have an overall positive impact.

Why consider A/B Testing?

• It ensures better user engagement
• Reduce bounce rate
• Enhanced conversion rates
• Minimized Risks
• Effective Content
• Quick and proper analysis
• Less cart abandonment
• Increased sales

With A/B Testing on board, all the guesswork seems to have been eliminated and accurate data-backed decisions can be made. If you take a look around you will find more and more disappointment, especially in regards to the high cart abandonment rate. To avoid such a situation, A/B Testing is highly recommendable.

What happens when you conduct proper A/B Testing?

• All the pain points of the visitor can be well taken care of
• Improved content engagement
• Better ROI due to High Traffic
• Less bounce rate
• Increase conversion rates
• Redesign website

When A/B testing can be used? Any given point of time. Right from emails to webpages, Facebook ads, social media posts, blog titles, calls to action and so more. Every website has a conversion funnel and this is responsible for whether your business will rise or fail. And that’s why it is important to ensure that digital content reaching the target audience is highly optimized. And this is what the following post is all about, here you will learn how to optimize an app’s performance and user engagement with A/B Testing.

But before that, let us understand the overall working of A/B Testing

When you conduct A/B Tests what happens is, you take a webpage and modify it well and come up with a second version of the same page. Now you can make any kind of change from a single headline to a complete redesign of the page. So half the traffic will be seen on the original page while the other half on the modified version of the page.

With the visitors coming by, their experience will be measured seamlessly and collected in a dashboard (gathering all the relevant information) and analyzing with the help of a statistical engine. In the end, you can determine which one of the pages received the more positive response. It’s more like having a fierce face-off.

How to Conduct A/B Testing Successfully?

Well, whenever a successful app development is said when you can understand the behind-the-scene procedures pretty well. And A/B testing is no exception. Everything is required to be precise and on par, from primary research to analyzing results, executing all the strategies and so more. If everything goes right then you will be guaranteed with a successful app.

Step 1 — Perform a thorough research

First and foremost you need to perform thorough research. You see by doing so you are creating a proper base or should I say laying an extremely strong foundation for your app development project. Also, conducting such research makes you more likely to understand your target audience well. Also, you can seek assistance from tools such as Google Analytics to scrutinize existing data and then work on enhancing the app’s performance.

At the same time, you can even think of focusing on the market trends and competitor’s success and then test the right elements. Sometimes you get to learn from others’ mistakes pretty well.

Now there are tons of procedures that an end user has to perform while interacting with a mobile app, whether it is a sign-up or looking around for a specific product or service. Overall, you need to make sure that the developed mobile app has the potential to enhance user engagement.

Step 2 — Come up with an Evidence-based Hypothesis

The next step is to come up with an evidence-based hypothesis. Try creating a situation based on real facts and figures. For example, you are willing to create a video streaming app. And to make it more successful what could be done? Well, how about enhancing the personalization system? As soon as your users will be able to find more content, you will tick the box of customer satisfaction right away. And of course, the bounce rate and customer retention automatically reduce.

Now here is something you have to be more cautious about. A/B testing cannot be conducted simply on mere assumptions. You must conduct some thorough research and digging to come up with different ideas that are worth testing. Here is how to do so.

• Can you explain the problem well?
• Come up with an appropriate solution
• Can you predict the outcome beforehand?
• Expected results are possible with appropriate reasoning

Top Tools to consider:

• Google Optimize
• Optimize
• SEMrush
• Omni convert
• Google Analytics
• HotJar
• Google Search Console

Step 3 — Choose the Correct Sample Size

Now this step is extremely important. You see what sample size you choose can have quite a larger impact on the end results. It can be either positive or negative. One of the major mistakes made by mobile app testers is that they choose smaller sizes that ultimately skew the result. So the sample size has to be large enough, you can even seek help from a sample size calculator. Best results are guaranteed here.

To attain the most significant and reliable results, conduct a sound split test. So those who have this misconception that A/B tests can be conducted in random situations, better have a clear understanding right away. Apart from these, you can even use tools such as Convertize’s AB Test Significance Calculator, Here you simply need to plug in traffic data and determine the conversion rates of all the variables. Here’s an additional tip, just make sure that the data is statistically significant. Fortunately, you have a wide range of tools and technologies as well you can even consider hiring reliable mobile app development companies who have a proven track record of offering well-optimized mobile applications.

Step 4 — Testing one campaign at a time

Now this point is extremely important. You see running more than one campaign can be a major goof up or complicate results. For example, let’s say you are A/B testing an email campaign which redirects to a landing page as well as you are testing the landing page, how will you figure out what is the main cause for the increase or decrease in leads?

Here accurate time management is extremely important. Whether you are testing during the daytime or any particular day of the week or month of the year. For example, if you are running tests for the first version for one month and version B for the month later on, will you be able to figure out what caused the change in performance?

So when running tests run two variants simultaneously; i.e. two versions of the same web page. Again successful A/B testing quite relies on what your mobile app is and who are your subscribers.

Do not forget to ask for regular feedback from the end users. Of course, A/B testing might require lots and lots of quantitative data but will that be of any help? Of course not! You need to understand why people take certain kinds of actions and that’s when qualitative data is needed.

Here’s what you can do, incorporate an exit survey as well. Yes, be direct with your visitors. Ask them, why they did not click on a specific button or criteria or filled the form. This can give you a lot of insights about the end users.

Conclusion

This is what it looks like optimizing your webpage or app’s performance using A/B Testing. On and all, A/B Testing comprises of a lot and lot potential. So when used constantly and effectively, the overall user experience can be improved for a significant time being.

So this is it, I hope you enjoyed reading the following post. Keep watching the space to learn about A/B Testing and different ways to optimize your website or mobile app. I hope you find the following post of some help. If yes, do not hesitate to share among your peers.