A/B Testing in HubSpot: Stop Guessing with Your Buyers, Start Winning
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Liz Moorehead:But howdy howdy folks. How y'all do today?
Max Cohen:I'm just so good.
Max Cohen:You have no idea.
Liz Moorehead:Wow. Everyone calm down. I mean got a fifteen. I'm gonna need you to be in at seven.
George B. Thomas:That that was some energy right there.
Max Cohen:Wow. What?
George B. Thomas:Oh, let's go.
Max Cohen:I have all the energy in the world. No one can stop me.
Chad Hohn:Okay.
Max Cohen:I'm all
George B. Thomas:the way up. All the way up. Isn't there, like,
Max Cohen:a song? Way up.
Liz Moorehead:Nothing can stop me. I'm all the way up. Hey.
George B. Thomas:It's exactly It's it's almost like we're trying to get Giga Chad going this morning first thing.
Liz Moorehead:Hello?
George B. Thomas:Oh god. Jeez.
Liz Moorehead:Okay.
Max Cohen:It's amazing. Wow.
Max Cohen:Don't worry about it.
Liz Moorehead:Giga Chad. It was so close. It was so know. It makes me so happy, but I feel like it just withholds it from me now. It depresses me.
Liz Moorehead:Wait.
Max Cohen:It's here when you need it.
Liz Moorehead:The
George B. Thomas:Max, have you not heard
Liz Moorehead:of Giga Chat before?
Max Cohen:No. I have, but it's
George B. Thomas:just It
Max Cohen:just gets
Liz Moorehead:better every time. It gets better every time.
George B. Thomas:Gentlemen, we have lot testing gets better every time.
Max Cohen:Oh, Lord.
Chad Hohn:Does it or doesn't it?
George B. Thomas:I don't know. It depends how human you are when she's AB testing.
Liz Moorehead:George has let the proverbial HubSpot kitty cat out of the bag because this week we are in fact talking about AB testing. So over the last two episodes, we've been talking about landing pages, right? And we were so surprised that we had never done any conversations about landing pages whatsoever. But then we also realized we hadn't talked about AB testing either. Like, guys, we're really we're killing it, guys.
Liz Moorehead:Just absolutely killing it.
Max Cohen:We're trying
George B. Thomas:to have all the conversations. I'm just saying.
Liz Moorehead:Trying to
George B. Thomas:have to
Chad Hohn:I came in late to the game, so I can't be responsible for
George B. Thomas:Chad and Chad was Chad's basically saying, if I would have been here, that would have been the third of the show.
Liz Moorehead:Recall Chad being in every single audience of every single recording.
George B. Thomas:Right?
Liz Moorehead:And neither Chad nor Giga Chad ever made the point of, hey. Have you guys considered AB testing? You consider talking about it?
Chad Hohn:Oh, Chad. No. I did say, can we talk
Max Cohen:about help desk, though? I love help desk.
Max Cohen:Oh, we
George B. Thomas:we need to make that a future episode. So so Liz
Max Cohen:It's a lot of updates.
George B. Thomas:The listeners, the viewers know, I definitely wanna talk about campaigns because Mhmm. Everything's changing and it's all new.
Chad Hohn:Putting some reports.
George B. Thomas:We need to talk about help desk at a deeper level. Yeah.
Max Cohen:Mhmm.
George B. Thomas:Those are two future future episodes.
Chad Hohn:Yeah. I love the help desk team. They're so good.
Max Cohen:Help desk.
Liz Moorehead:Whoop whoop. So this is gonna be a very special episode of Hub Heroes. I can already feel it deep in my brain. So originally, we were gonna be talking about AB testing as a part of landing pages, but then we realized, obviously, AB testing is not something that is anywhere near landing page specific. It is something that touches so many parts of the HubSpot platform and ecosystem.
Liz Moorehead:It needed its own episode. So what we're going to be doing is grounding ourselves today in what AB testing is at its core, despite all the in automation. Quite frankly, the fundamental purpose of why it exists has never changed. But then we are going to start digging into a bit about what has changed, where businesses and marketers are still getting it wrong, and how to get the most out of AB testing inside of HubSpot. Gentlemen, are we ready?
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Yeah. Let's go.
Liz Moorehead:Oh my god. I got max claps. I know I'm scared or happy. Love max claps. Alright.
Liz Moorehead:Dracie.
Max Cohen:I'm excited.
Liz Moorehead:I actually wanna turn to you for the first question. Yep. So AB testing has been around forever, but its core value, even with all of the advancements we've seen, has never changed. So what is AB testing at its simplest definition? And why is it still such a critical tool today?
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Well, it is a critical tool today, which blows my mind how many people aren't actually doing it when they're paying for it inside their HubSpot portal. See how Chad just shook his head. If you're watching this, Chad went, because he's been in portals, I've been in portals. It's there.
George B. Thomas:It sits there quietly. Top left hand side of your email or top left hand side of your website pages or landing pages. Where is it quietly waits. Oh my god. Don't don't steal my thunder.
George B. Thomas:Don't steal my thunder. Because, because when I think about, oh, you can steal my thunder. I love you, Chad. Okay. So here's the deal.
George B. Thomas:When I think about AB testing, first of all, it's usually like, it's a marketing action. Historically, it's a marketing action. Okay. And it's about optimization and it's about experimentation. You're doing an experiment so that you can optimize the thing that you're trying to, whether it's to get them to click on a button, to get them to fill out a form, to get them to watch a video, whatever it is, you're AB testing, you're experimenting to optimize the thing that you're trying to get them to do.
George B. Thomas:So fundamentally, that's what it is. Now, Chad kind of let the cat out of the bag like I did earlier. There's a whole lot of things in HubSpot that used to be just about marketing. They're no longer just about marketing. Marketing and sales.
George B. Thomas:By the way, this is one of the key fundamental reasons I want to talk about campaigns in the future. Because campaigns used to be about your marketing campaigns. And it's different now. But we'll stick on AB testing because in HubSpot now, can do AB testing in sales sequences, which means the revenue driving motion of your organization. I don't care if the button's red or black.
George B. Thomas:I do, actually. I don't care if it's a video or a photo. Actually, I do. I don't care if it's a longer form or a shorter form. I I really actually do.
George B. Thomas:But the fact that I can look at the templates that are at the bottom of the funnel, the decision stage and AB test those to optimize cash flow. Oh, Okay. Now we're getting somewhere. Anyway, I'll shut up. We'll get everybody else's thoughts.
Liz Moorehead:Well, actually, you're heading down the exact path that I want us to be walking down here, right? Which is how has AB testing evolved? You started right there with this concept of some of these, whether we want to call them tools, practices, like AB testing is not something that's actually HubSpot specific. You could literally AB test in an offline world with different things, right? But what I find fascinating about what you just stated is that there are so many practices and best practices that have typically been considered tools in the marketers toolbox.
Liz Moorehead:And now their capabilities and who they're for has expanded. So I think that's a really great place for us to start. And, Chad and Max, I'd love to get your thoughts on this. Where where we see AB testing having grown and expanded and changed.
Max Cohen:I mean, grown and expanded and changed. I mean, you've definitely seen it, like, expand in the in the HubSpot, like, tool itself, like, not only from, like, a technological level. You got the we had a b testing, and then we have adaptive testing. And then isn't there some sort of new AI one, right, which is kind of like adaptive testing, but, like, with AI. Right?
Max Cohen:But I also like how there's there's
Chad Hohn:testing.
Max Cohen:I mean, what George said about how they're expanding it to, like, give other people, right, the ability to, like, do AB testing and not just have it so isolated isolated to the marketers, is nice. Right? But, you know, I I mean, AB testing was one of those things where, like, I I can't confidently say that, like, when I was a implementation specialist, I ever had anyone in onboarding, like, run an actual legitimate AB test. Right? It was one of those things where it's like, yeah, you could do this thing and, like, you should do this thing because this teaches you how to be, one, a better marketer, but two, how to optimize, you know, your high traffic situations that you have, right, for conversions and all that kind of fun stuff.
Max Cohen:But, like, I don't necessarily know if I ever saw anyone, like, take advantage of it. Not because it's a bad tool. It's just because I don't think it's something that, like, people so actively think about using all the time, and I wish they did more. Right? But, yeah, it's it's interesting.
Max Cohen:But I think most of the stuff that we've kind of seen has really just been more on, like, the technology side and less on the, I don't know, what is the Strandest four side because it's really, like, when it comes down to it, like, it's all in the name. A, b, testing. Which works whether? A or b? Like, it's just yeah.
Max Cohen:I don't know how much more it could expand outside of the strategy, but I'm sure there's, like, different things people do that are way more, you know, into it than I am.
George B. Thomas:Well, fun thing so I want to I want to jump in your chat, then I'm going to be quiet and you can jump in here. The fun thing is before they changed the CTA tool to the new CTA tool, back when it was the legacy CTA tool, I actually used to talk about multivariate testing because you could do an A, B and C version. Right? And so, like, I kind of wish that there was a little bit more of that that could start to happen because, again, the CTA tool, it'll get there. It'll get there.
George B. Thomas:I mean, you can, you can do it now, but we might get back to where we were, and especially with smart content. I digress. I digress. But but here's the thing. Here's the thing.
George B. Thomas:I want to get back to something that you just kind of breezed over real quick. No pun intended for a while. Got them.
Liz Moorehead:The three
George B. Thomas:types of AB testing, because you're right, Max, and hopefully people understand this. One, AB testing if you're in a pro account. Then there's the, you can do five tests at one time, right? Which is in the enterprise level. But there's also this where it'll try to find the next AB test for you, which is the AI powered version of this, you basically, I think it's landing pages, you set it up and you do your AB test, but then you've got this stuff that spits out and said, the next test you might want to do is, and that's pretty dang dope because it's looking at all the historical information to make suggestions to which now we get past or help with the strategy portion of like orange button versus black button or this headline versus that headline, because it's looking at how people are interacting with it along the way.
George B. Thomas:So just know if you're like, oh, wait, wait, you can do that in HubSpot? Just go do some research on all the different ways of AB testing that you could be pulling off in your portal right now.
Chad Hohn:Yeah. And the sales sequences, you can do ABCDE testing all the way up to five variants per sales sequence.
George B. Thomas:Jeez. That's a lot of variants.
Max Cohen:Reasons, man.
Chad Hohn:Yeah. Seems like a lot. And I think that's where my brain goes when it comes to, like, AB testing in general, regardless of HubSpot, is pretty much irrelevant and less measured. Right? Sometimes people just like to throw a little spaghett at the wall and then see what sticks.
Chad Hohn:You know?
Liz Moorehead:We love a good spaghett.
Max Cohen:Yeah. A
Chad Hohn:little spaghett splat, and they like to just chuck that sucker at the wall, and they're like, ah, there's, like, two noodles left. That must have worked. Maybe.
Max Cohen:Oh, jeez.
Chad Hohn:But I don't know what noodles those were. I just chucked a bunch of spaghett at the wall.
George B. Thomas:Spaghett.
Chad Hohn:I have a question. Sorry.
George B. Thomas:Do I say do I say that a lot? Throw spaghetti at the
Max Cohen:wall. Spaghett?
Liz Moorehead:Oh. Yeah. No. It's a very just a common phrase in general.
Max Cohen:Oh, okay.
George B. Thomas:I was curious.
Liz Moorehead:I was just really happy that he
Max Cohen:said real estate.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. I I like that too. I like
Liz Moorehead:I may forgive, but I'll never forget. Speaking of mistakes
George B. Thomas:the wall. Oh, god.
Liz Moorehead:Yeah. You're welcome. Thank you.
Chad Hohn:Was that a mistake?
Liz Moorehead:I'm not the only one who can make really bad dad jokes, George.
George B. Thomas:See, see, you reminded me of this text I sent to my friend over the weekend. It was like two pictures of bees. One was a Canadian bee and one was a US bee in it anyway. Hey.
Liz Moorehead:Speaking of AB testing, Chad, I wanna keep pulling on the thread that you were talking about here because we are not already off the rails at only twelve minutes into the show. We're doing great. This is called deep focus. Chad, you started
George B. Thomas:talking about
Liz Moorehead:the spaghett Yes. Spaghett
Chad Hohn:Zevolve.
Liz Moorehead:Okay. You know what? We'll reset this. Can I get a good gig of Chad saying never spaghett?
Max Cohen:Never spaghet.
Liz Moorehead:I'm real. That's what's up. I loved it. So anyway, I wanna talk about the ways in which we're seeing people still make mistakes with it. Chad, I want you to pull a little bit more deeply on what you were talking about there.
Liz Moorehead:And then George and Max, I wanna hear from you. Because again, we have a lot of potential with AB testing. We have some expansiveness in terms of the abilities and places and context in which it can be used. But we're not always good with our toys. And sometimes this is why we can't have nice things.
Liz Moorehead:So where are people messing up?
Chad Hohn:Well, I mean, yeah. I think, a lot of times, you know, people will try and not test something before they try and take it live. Right? And I think that leads back into like, when in in terms of HubSpot. Right?
Chad Hohn:Because, obviously, we're we're joking about the spaghetti on the wall, but it's it's nice that in HubSpot and in the context of HubSpot that they bake in the reporting because it's baked into the tool doing the variant creation will measure the variant success. Right? And so it's super helpful that you have a little bit of analysis. But if you're doing an AB test, you have to like make a test plan and define how long it should run and then go look at the success after that and then make tweaks as necessary. If you're not going to think about it from a bit of an analytical perspective, then you're just should just make tweaks when you feel like your audience is changing.
Chad Hohn:I don't know. You know? Like or don't make tweaks. But you need to, like, actually come at it with analysis in in some capacity. And the other thing that I think is interesting and I think people might forget about is workflows have a random percentage branch now.
Chad Hohn:You can a b test just about anything you want with as many variants as you might want. Well, however many branches you could put in a random. But you can say, like, do three branches, 33, 33, 33, flip property so you can report on, you know, custom property that reports on which branch of the workflow that thing went down. And you can make a custom a b c whatever, right, that you want using workflows and report on it yourself. So the world of customization with the ability to create your own custom reports is not out of the question.
Chad Hohn:You don't only have to use the baked in goodness of the HubSpot spigot.
Max Cohen:Yeah. I don't know why you said
Liz Moorehead:spaghett. Hubspaghett.
Max Cohen:If it's to me to ask, like, where people are getting it wrong, I think that was the question.
George B. Thomas:It was.
Max Cohen:Correct. Okay. Cool. Just making sure.
Liz Moorehead:Was Max, real tight. I could've dialed in today.
Max Cohen:No. I am dialed in.
Max Cohen:I just
Max Cohen:wanted to make sure I wasn't imagining things. Because Spaghett threw me way off. Yeah. Now I can't stop thinking of it. Alright.
Max Cohen:Anyway.
Max Cohen:Dulps. Dulps. Yep.
Max Cohen:Yep. Okay. Cool. So I think the the the big thing is is like, don't forget about what it is you can learn through AB testing, right? It's almost never just about, oh, how can I get this like one page to perform better?
Max Cohen:Like, sure, sometimes it is, but also like you gotta think about what am
George B. Thomas:I learning that I can
Max Cohen:apply to other stuff that I'm doing from this specific example that I'm AB testing, right? So it's like, you're AB testing like an email. Right? And you're like, oh, it has this subject line versus this subject line. Right?
Max Cohen:Well, it's what you learn shouldn't end there. Right? And be like, oh, yeah. I made it so, you know, eventually more of the better subject line went out. Right?
Max Cohen:It's like, no, no, What what was it about that subject line that you think worked and that you proved in your experiment? Right? Because, again, every single time you do an AB test, you're doing an experiment. Right? Typically, any good experiment has a what hypothesis, right, that you're trying to test.
Max Cohen:Sure. Are there situations where you have like evergreen pages or things that live there for a long time and have a super high volume of traffic and you're trying to optimize it over time? Absolutely. Just make sure you're carrying those, you know, things that you're learning and that hypothesis that you tested and applying it to other things that you're doing. Right?
Max Cohen:Don't just kind of leave don't walk away from AB test without any sort of, like, knowledge that you can apply to other things. Right? The second thing too is if you're not getting a lot of traffic or a high volume of anything that's gonna give you any sort of good data about an AB test, either don't run it because it's probably not worth it, or don't put that much stock in the results. Right? So for example, if if you're like just starting out your blog, okay, and you're getting no traffic and you're like, oh, I'm gonna test I'm gonna I'm gonna AB test this CTA at the end of the blog post.
Max Cohen:Probably not worth your time. Right? Because if you're not getting traffic there, there's really nothing that you're going to learn from an AB test. Right? So like I'd say, if you haven't already focused on getting a high volume of traffic or an high engagement rate with your emails, right, it's probably not worth AB testing things there.
Max Cohen:Right? And put that effort and time and mental calories towards what can we do to get better traffic. So if we are going to do an AB test later on, right? We're actually getting a lot of at bats to get some good data at a higher volume and at larger sample size. Right?
George B. Thomas:Yeah. So I think there's Liz, I think there's some great stuff that both Chad and Max said. Just wanna bullet point this a little bit so that people have the breadcrumbs that they can chase down later after the episode. So we talked in here, you know, testing too many variables at once. That's a big issue.
George B. Thomas:We talked about not running the test long enough, meaning if you aren't getting a lot of traffic, just know that you're going to have to run the test longer to get something that's actually going to be valuable. Also ignoring the sample size. Max literally just said, I think Chad said it in a way where you have to have enough humans for it to make sense. The other thing is when you're testing something, it needs to be important. So another bullet point is don't be AB testing vanity metrics.
George B. Thomas:Make sure that it's relevant to conversion or cash flow. And then the last one is, Yeah, I do that AB testing. Meaning they set it up, but they never went back and they didn't learn from the results of it. Yeah, it's running in HubSpot. Check.
George B. Thomas:Done. Those are the five things that I would say run those bullet points and kind of think about those at a deeper level with everything that Chad and Max said kind of in those directions.
Liz Moorehead:Can I come at this from the content strategist point of view? Because it's a little less No. No.
George B. Thomas:No. You're lying. You're lying.
Liz Moorehead:I'm just kidding.
George B. Thomas:I'm I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Go ahead.
Liz Moorehead:Ahead. Forget for you. No. I'm just kidding. Fuck it.
Liz Moorehead:I'm back. One noodle. I think about this in a maybe a grossly oversimplified way. But when I think about what makes a great AB test, it reminds me of what actually makes a great piece of content. In that you are very specific about exactly what it is you're testing and who you're testing it with.
Liz Moorehead:Because too often I have sat in working sessions and brainstorming where it's, well, we just want to see which one performs better. What performs better how? What are the precise differences that you have between each? Why did you make those choices? To your point, what have you hypothesized, Max?
Liz Moorehead:Right? Like, what are the specific hypotheses that you are trying to test? And I think sometimes people think that takes like, oh, we gotta move fast. We gotta break things quickly. It's like, nope.
Liz Moorehead:If you're gonna test, actually test something. Don't just
Max Cohen:Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:Throw something out there and go, well, we'll see how it performs. Because here's the thing. If it doesn't perform, you won't know why. If it does perform, you won't know why. So you won't you will either not be able to avoid the mistakes that you made or replicate the successes that you have if your testing is just arbitrary.
Liz Moorehead:That's my two cents. Brilliant.
Chad Hohn:Agreed. Thanks, guys.
Max Cohen:Agreed. So
Liz Moorehead:let's keep moving on. What are some of the best ways to use AB testing within HubSpot? Now, George and Chad and Max, I know you've already gotten into some nerdy stuff, but I want us to go another nerd layer deeper. Take us on a journey. George, do you want us to kick us off?
George B. Thomas:I'll pick two so that I'm not taking like everything from everybody. One, I think that and then when we don't talk a lot about this on this podcast, which we probably should actually, I don't know if we've ever done an episode on HubSpot ads. With But that being said, like you should definitely be AB testing your ads, different headlines, images, the offer that you're actually putting out there to see like what gets the most clicks and conversions. So definitely HubSpot ads and AB testing should be a thing that you're leaning into. The other one I'll say is emails.
George B. Thomas:It's just a no brainer to me to be AB testing emails. The preview text, the subject line, the image versus video, the black button versus orange button, the personalization versus no personalization, like see what your audience actually engages with from an email perspective. Because again, I'm a firm believer that email is still a viable and very powerful channel when done properly. So emails and ads, I must have had the vowels on my mind today. E and A is what you should be paying attention to.
George B. Thomas:Well, it's a standoff. Chad or Max, which one of you are going next? Go ahead, Chad. Sure.
Chad Hohn:Yeah. I mean, for me, one of the things that sorry. It was super anticlimactic there. Yeah. One of the things that I think is not really easily able to be AB tested would be SMS messages inside of a sales sequence, because sequences don't offer the ability to send a message.
Chad Hohn:However, workflows can be aware of what step a sequence is on, or how many emails have been sent, or whatever. So you can of could jigger your way into understanding where you are in the sequence and what sequence that a contact is enrolled in and fire off SMS messages and do a little bit of AB testing as mentioned using the random percentage branches, that I was talking about that can be particularly helpful for like, actually, hey, we have this particular, you know, engagement sequence for leads coming in, and we want to throw SMS messages in there and, you know, go from there. Right? And be able to measure that. So that's like technically one of the things that I think you can do that can be particularly helpful that people probably wouldn't natively try and go out of their way to do.
Chad Hohn:If if SMS is a big part of your messaging channel that doesn't Like because here's the thing. I love that HubSpot has marketing SMS, but it's not in line with sales sequences because it's not from the rep. It's from a HubSpot SMS number that can do the super marketing SMS and is approved for that or whatever. But your team is gonna call them if if phone is another one of your channels. Again, we kinda have, like, a bit of a specialized channel set, I suppose, in the industry that I'm in.
Chad Hohn:But calling and SMS messaging from the same phone number is, like, very helpful because it builds trust with the person that you're trying to reach out to, which is where marketing SMS really, I feel like, loses a lot of steam.
Max Cohen:I'd say, like, start by testing the things that you can most broadly apply to all the stuff that you're doing. Right? Like so for example, figuring out, like, what CTA style resonates the best and gets people to click on it. Right? Because that's something that you can easily apply to, like, a million other things you do on your site or, like, any other place that you're, like, putting a CTA.
Max Cohen:Right? It's like, hey, we're starting to get some traffic. Let's like really nail down which like, you know, color gets clicks, which, you know, what sort of verbiage gets clicks, what sort of placement gets clicks. Right. Because then every time you're using a, you know, CTA on like a different page that you build and you've run that test a couple of times and got some really good data, you can be like, you know what?
Max Cohen:Like, I just know that I need to put the CTA above the fold and have it be bright red and in this font. Right. Instead of, like, having to retest that theory every single time. Right? And try to find, like, the most, you know, sort of, like, common things first that you can apply most often, right, and and get those tests under your belt is probably the best sort of, like, piece of advice I can give.
Max Cohen:Right? And then, of course, I think the classic thing, and I don't I don't know how much we've actually, like, said it, but, like, that's one thing. That's one thing. That's one thing. Don't don't change don't, like, don't change the subject line and the CTA in the email.
Max Cohen:Just change one thing. Right? But also, be very, you know, specific about what it is that you're testing and understand, okay. If I change this thing, I'm looking for this specific metric to change. Right?
Max Cohen:So for example, the body of your email isn't affecting the open rate. That's just a subject line. Right? So, like, if you wanna say, I wanna see how the open rate changes, just change the subject line. Right?
Max Cohen:Yeah. You know, it's just so be very precise. Do not change a bunch of shit because if you do, you don't know what it is that changed the metric.
George B. Thomas:Right? Max, I love that you're like, guys, gals, have a strategy, understand what your goal is, and do AB testing, not AB guessing. AB guessing.
Max Cohen:Like guessing. That's
George B. Thomas:what you're not trying to do. Yeah. The title of this episode is AB testing, not AB guessing. Also, here's something that came to my mind while you guys were talking. And I may or may have not thought of this before, but with the new multi step forms tool, I started to think, wouldn't it be interesting if I actually created somewhat of what would be the same form, although I had the steps in different orders to see if it mattered in the order in which I'm actually asking questions to how far because you can now see on multi step forms how far in the step that they made it or steps that they made it.
George B. Thomas:So maybe you see everybody's falling off at number three, step three. And so now you clone that form and you move the steps around to where step three becomes step six. And now all a sudden you see that you get everybody to complete that form more because you created a different flow of steps that you could AB test. And the goal was to try to get more conversions.
Liz Moorehead:Like, that
George B. Thomas:gets real interesting to me.
Max Cohen:The big thing I'm wondering, right, is what you what what can you actually like, like, what are you specifically testing in sequences? Is it, like, entire branches, or is it just, like, different templates?
Chad Hohn:Email. Each individual email template can be a b c d e tested.
Max Cohen:So it's not like you can test the time difference? No. Ah, so you can't say
Chad Hohn:The delay can't change.
Max Cohen:You can't change the delay.
Chad Hohn:It's just the content of the email or the body or or the subject or something.
George B. Thomas:And I love that Chad said just, because by the way, that could be a lot.
Chad Hohn:Yes, it
George B. Thomas:is it is the templates that you're able to Yep. Got
Max Cohen:it. Okay. So it's not a whole it's
George B. Thomas:not like you can take seven days versus eight
Max Cohen:days versus Okay. Six Got it.
George B. Thomas:Alright. Although, HubSpot, if you're listening
Max Cohen:Oh, please listen to us. Just saying.
Chad Hohn:It I mean, the sequences themselves give you could dupe dupe the sequence and change the time frames with the same content and report on each sequence over the same time frame yourself. And that's just an AB test in and of itself. It's just not a baked in, you know, baked in baker, right, for a baked in spaghett thrower.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. So so I heard Chad say, and this is Chad saying to every HubSpot user, clone your sequence and send 501 day and 500 the next day and see No, I'm just kidding. That's not what That's not what Chad said. Do not do I'm just joking.
Max Cohen:Okay.
Liz Moorehead:Gentlemen, how are we doing?
Chad Hohn:Max is great.
Liz Moorehead:Spooky. Fantastic. I wanna look to you, George, to help us kinda rein it in, but I also know that is
George B. Thomas:We're in trouble then, but go ahead.
Liz Moorehead:Well, actually, I think I might be able to get you dialed in because we're about to talk about one of your favorite topics, which is
George B. Thomas:We're talking about cheesecake?
Max Cohen:Woah.
Liz Moorehead:Now I'm hungry, man.
George B. Thomas:Right. Well, that's what I usually get when I go to, like, a place where I get spaghetti, isn't
Liz Moorehead:We're talking about the cheesecake of the inbound world, and that's mindsets. Oh. About mindsets. Right?
Chad Hohn:Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:We're talking about all of these different ways you can use AB testing. We're talking about mistakes. We're talking about recommendations. We're talking about different teams who should be con considering using AB testing. Right?
Liz Moorehead:But none of it works unless you're approaching these tools with the correct mindset. So I'd love to hear from you. What are the right ways to approach AB testing strategically? How should teams decide what's worth testing versus what's just a distraction?
George B. Thomas:Well, it all comes down to the humans. Right? And what you're trying to do is you're trying to create a better experience. Like AB testing is part of the experience engine. And so if it touches a human, if they have to go through it, if they have to read it, if they have to click on it, if you truly believe in your heart of hearts that the product, the service, the solution that you provide is going to make their life better, than AB testing the flow, the journey along the way is you're doing it because you're doing it from a human love caring perspective, not this like cold mathematical sales and marketing measurement.
George B. Thomas:Right. And so that right there, that mindset just dictates the way that you do this differently. And I think that if I think about mindsets, two things come out of this is one, you've got to be ultimately curious, right? I've already talked about caring. You're caring about the journey and creating the best experience possible.
George B. Thomas:Now you're curious about what you can tweak and how that changes the experience that they're having. And then I think the third mindset that I'll end with here is just being a learn it all and taking the time to actually look at what you've been delivered based on the tests that you've gotten, so that you can take action on the insights to again make that experience better as they move forward. So that's where my brain goes with that. Actually, I did get kind of serious with that. So
Chad Hohn:Maybe deserves some cheesecake now.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Wow. Cheesecake Factory it is tonight. Let's go party.
Liz Moorehead:Max and Chad, what about you guys? What do you think?
George B. Thomas:Uh-oh. He's been walking away. No. Like, I'm trying like, I'm tryna I'm tryna, like, re like, I I
Max Cohen:don't wanna sound repetitive. Right? Because I think AB testing is inherently this, like well, I say it's a simple thing, but, like, you can build some pretty complicated AB test.
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Max Cohen:It's it's I think it's one of those things that is very easy to obsess over it and also waste a lot of time on it too. Right? So just be careful. You know what I mean? Like, you like, you know, there's some things that you just spend way too much time on in HubSpot that don't that don't yield you a
Chad Hohn:lot or that you take,
Max Cohen:like, way too seriously. Right? You know, it's don't don't let AB testing consume you, if there's other things that you should be focusing on. Right? I think AB testing is somewhat of a of a luxury that if you're doing really, really well with other stuff, then it kind of opens up the door for AB testing to become relevant to you.
Max Cohen:Right? But I feel like there's a lot of things you should probably nail down first before you get hyper obsessive over AB testing. Right? Mhmm. Such as creating content that people actually like and get to your site.
Max Cohen:If you've done that and you have a lot of traffic, then you've like unlocked the quest to go figure out AB testing. If you haven't, it's not relevant to you. Yeah. It's like, what's
Chad Hohn:the Yeah.
Max Cohen:And that's okay. Right? So even even what you test. Right? If your open rate sucks, why are you AB testing click rate on your emails?
Max Cohen:Right? Like, if you're sending your emails to garbage and no one's opening it, why are you doing a click through rate test, buddy? Right? So just just ask yourself, have I earned the right to AB test this yet?
George B. Thomas:Well, I I think, Max, you're spitting gold because everything in my brain when I hear you talk is about, like, you need to know your priorities.
Max Cohen:Mhmm.
Max Cohen:Mhmm.
George B. Thomas:Like, are you sitting there doing that AB testing and your sales pipeline stages suck Then probably go fix your sales pipeline stages
Liz Moorehead:Mhmm.
George B. Thomas:And AB test afterwards. Like but but priorities. Chad Yeah. Chad, what's your thoughts?
Chad Hohn:I just think.
Max Cohen:Don't fret and end up throwing spaghett.
Liz Moorehead:I don't Ginka Chad.
George B. Thomas:Long enough. It's long enough. It's never long enough. Don't know how to I
Chad Hohn:just gotta put the music on in the background, and we'll just do the show to the music. That might be
Max Cohen:It is a lot.
George B. Thomas:And annoying at the same time depending on who you are.
Chad Hohn:Right. I'd love it. Anyway, no. Just don't don't get all scared and start throwing spaghetti. You know?
Chad Hohn:Like, don't have
Max Cohen:a plan. Don't be scared.
Liz Moorehead:Don't be scared.
Max Cohen:Yeah. Just
Chad Hohn:have a plan. Be measured. Be ordered. When you've graduated and leveled up, when you're at the third quest in the quest chain, you know, and you finally can do that, there you go. People people will understand, George.
George B. Thomas:I'm old, cause I immediately went to Legends of Zelda for some reason, and I'm like, wait. That's probably not what we're talking about.
Liz Moorehead:I would say one thing I would throw out there in terms of a mindset to keep in mind is, like, you can have a high impact AB test where literally the difference between the two things that you're testing is maybe a phrase, maybe it's a line. You do not have to have two completely different contrasting things in order to run a test. So remember to be precise and be specific and understand that small changes can have very large outsized outcomes. That would be mine. George, George.
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:Buddy. How you doing?
George B. Thomas:I I How you doing? My my I'm doing great. My brain went to to so I don't know why my brain went there, but I literally was thinking about how I wish people understood this was not a pass fail. Yeah. Like, we come sharing historical baggage of the word testing or taking a test.
George B. Thomas:Like, and so then there's this like, well, that was a failure. No, it was a lesson learned. And like when it's AB testing, I think you have to fundamentally lean into, I'm not trying to pass or fail anything. I'm just trying to learn lessons and optimize along the way. And and I almost wanna say I wish more
Intro:humans
Liz Moorehead:would a Oh, yeah.
George B. Thomas:Test would a b test their life a little bit more?
Max Cohen:Oh, jeez, brother. That's just that's just means have accountability for yourself.
George B. Thomas:Well For A
Max Cohen:b test. Feel like
George B. Thomas:that could be taken about 17 different ways.
Liz Moorehead:Sure. This is why George never lets us live broadcast on LinkedIn. And once again, I want to point out it is not me, and I did not do this.
George B. Thomas:Ah, yes. Yes. Okay.
Liz Moorehead:Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
George B. Thomas:Go ahead and ask your last question. Noah, cut that out. George.
Max Cohen:Don't you dare.
Liz Moorehead:Yeah. Noah, remember, if you're ever laughing at this podcast, 99% of the time, just cut it out.
Max Cohen:This is why we don't do it live.
Liz Moorehead:Yep. We've tried.
Chad Hohn:We've tried.
Liz Moorehead:George, land the plane. Take this bus of crazies back home. If somebody listening to this episode only takes one thing away from it, what should it be and why? And watch this be the time now that you want to tell me 15 things. No.
Liz Moorehead:Are you following directions?
George B. Thomas:One thing. Yeah.
Chad Hohn:With a sub thing?
George B. Thomas:No. AB testing. Let
Liz Moorehead:me have this.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Right? AB testing is your secret weapon. It's your choice to pick it up and use it or not. Mhmm.
George B. Thomas:The amount that you can impact your organization, the amount that you can impact the users who are going through your flow, it it depends on if you're willing to pick up your secret weapon on a daily basis and just experiment and learn lessons. So why aren't you doing it? Okay, hub heroes. We've reached the end of another episode. Will Lord Lack continue to loom over the community or will we be able to defeat him in the next episode of the hub heroes podcast?
George B. Thomas:Make sure you tune in and find out in the next episode. Make sure you head over to the hubheroes.com to get the latest episodes and become part of the league of heroes. FYI, if you're part of the league of heroes, you'll get the show notes right in your inbox and they come with some hidden power up potential as well. Make sure you share this podcast with a friend. Leave a review if you like what you're listening to and use the hashtag hashtag hub heroes podcast on any of the socials and let us know what strategy conversation you'd like to listen into next.
George B. Thomas:Until next time, when we meet and combine our forces, remember to be a happy, helpful, humble human, and of course, always be looking for a way to be someone's hero.
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