If you want to sell more wine online with your email campaigns, you only need to remember three letters: ABT. Always Be Testing.
Winery email A/B testing can improve everything from deliverability to clicks to the amount of traffic you’re sending to your website. With so many things that you could test, it actually gets a little overwhelming and difficult to narrow it down to the tests that will actually move the needle for your winery and help you sell more wine. Good news! It’s time to KISS. Keep It Simple, Silly!
Today, we’re teaching you three A/B tests your winery can start to experiment with right away to increase your conversion rates.
First, Science Class
Before we dig into the three A/B tests that will increase your winery’s conversion rates, we’ve got to take you to science class.
Even if your least favorite subject in school was science, we believe you can fall in love with the scientific method now that you’re older. We use the scientific method to design all of our A/B tests. We start with a hypothesis, we design our tests to prove said hypothesis, and then we apply what we know so that we can continue testing.
Every test below follows the same three questions:
- Hypothesis: what do we think will happen, and why?
- How will we know if we’re right? Which number decides it?
- What will we do with what we learn? The decision before the data.
Okay, so now that we’re all on the same page about how to do an A/B test using the scientific method, it’s time for us to talk about the elements that you should test to increase your winery’s conversion rates.
1. Test Your Offers
How you position what you offer to your customers matters. Your customers are motivated by different things, but identifying which kinds of offers appeal to the majority of your customers can help you refine your strategy down the road. You don’t have to set up totally different offers to A/B test this. You could position the same offer as sitewide savings or member-for-a-week benefits, offer a percentage off on a bundle versus dollars off on a bundle, 72-hour shipping sale versus long weekend shipping sale. You catching our drift? You don’t have to do a bunch of backend different offer stuff. Keep it simple.
So in this example, let’s start with the hypothesis.
- HYPOTHESIS: Member-for-a-week benefits is going to convert more online sales because it’s time-bound, creates urgency, and implies status acceptance.
- HOW WILL WE KNOW IF WE’RE RIGHT? Conversions attributed to the campaign creative with member-for-a-week as the hook will be higher than the conversions attributed to the sitewide savings email.
- WHAT WILL WE DO WITH WHAT WE LEARN? If we’re correct, we will pilot a biannual member-for-a-week promotion on our calendar with a time-bound incentive to join membership for anybody who buys from the promotion.
See how we did that? Booya!
2. Test Your Calls to Action
The way you send traffic to your website to buy can impact if they actually do it. Test the words that go on your button, the format of your calls to action (buttons versus plain text), the color on your buttons or links, and where your buttons actually send people. (Where the logo and header links go is its own argument; we settled it in the winery email template design debates.)
All right, so let’s apply our scientific method to these A/B tests.
- HYPOTHESIS: “Save Now” will convert higher than “Shop Now” because “save” will lean on financial gain as the motivator, and our customers have been proven to be motivated by financial gain.
- HOW WILL WE KNOW IF WE’RE RIGHT? The click-through to conversion rates on “Save Now” will be higher.
- WHAT WILL WE DO WITH WHAT WE LEARN? Well, I’ll use “Save Now” more frequently and then maybe even test adding the percentage or dollar savings to see if specificity on the savings works better.
Whammy! We just scientific method-ed that so hard.
3. Test Your Email Layout
How much information you choose to share with your customers to inspire action can impact your customer’s propensity to buy. Test visual storytelling with multiple selling blocks versus a simple straightforward postcard, test technical details versus seasonal inspiration, test featuring multiple products versus just one hero product, and test a plain text letter with no branding versus a more image-based marketing email. (If you need the layouts to test against each other, start with the three winery email templates that sell.)
All right, we’re going to do the scientific method on this one too.
- HYPOTHESIS: Having featured products in our spring shipping promotional email will generate more sales than a single hero product because showing them options will make them click to view.
- HOW WILL WE KNOW IF WE’RE RIGHT? Our creative with the featured product block that has multiple offerings will have higher overall sales than the single featured product.
- WHAT WILL WE DO WITH WHAT WE LEARN? Assuming we’re right, we will test featured products that we select vs featured products that are dynamically populated based on our customers’ previous purchases.
All right, we did it. We went to science class and we know what to test.
Where to Start
Now that you know the three most powerful A/B tests for increasing email conversions, where do you want to start? Pinky promise that you will use one of these strategies in your next email campaign. Start simple, work your way up, and you will become a scientific method hero!
Want three tests you can set up this week without designing a new offer? That’s three email tests to run this month. And if the thing you want to test is the subject line, there’s a whole post on winery email subject lines.
Make Testing Part of the System
At Email Mavens, we believe that every winery can sell more wine online by sending better marketing emails, and the tests you learned today are 100% going to help you sell more wine online every time you press send.
Testing sticks when it’s built into how you plan, write, and send. That’s what PRESS SEND Foundations teaches: the full winery email system, from list growth to campaign planning, with testing baked into the rhythm instead of bolted on when you remember.
Explore PRESS SEND Foundations
So until next week, do some A/B testing (ABT) and keep pressing send on your next best email.
Winery Email A/B Testing FAQs
What should a winery A/B test first?
The offer. How you position the same deal (sitewide savings versus member-for-a-week, percentage off versus dollars off) changes conversion more than button color ever will, and you don’t need a new offer on the backend to test it.
How many things can I test in one email?
One. Change the subject line, or the button, or the layout, never two at once. If both change and results move, you can’t tell which one did it, and the test taught you nothing.
Which metric decides an A/B test for a winery?
The one closest to revenue that the test can actually influence. Subject line tests use clicks (opens are unreliable since Apple Mail Privacy). Offer, CTA, and layout tests use click-to-conversion or attributed sales.
How big does my list need to be to A/B test?
Big enough that the difference isn’t noise. A few thousand engaged subscribers is plenty for subject line and CTA tests. On smaller lists, run the same test across three or four sends before trusting the result.
What is a champion-based A/B test?
Your platform sends A and B to small slices of the list, waits a set time, then sends the winner to everyone else. Most of your subscribers get the better version, and you still learn something. Klaviyo and Mailchimp both offer it.
