A/B testing is pretty straightforward. An A/B test consists of a “control” element (like an image, a form, a button, or a layout) and variations of that element. The goal is to beat the performance of the control version. To do this, you test variations of this element and compare their performances.
It’s Easy to Get Carried Away
Modern tools make it a snap to set up A/B testing framework. Just decide what you want to test, create a variation or variations, and then release them into the wild. That’s why It’s tempting to quickly create A/B test after A/B test with little to no actual vision behind it, just because you can.
The Context
Reality hits when you log in to your A/B testing tool and try to review past A/B tests. You are left with a bunch of incomplete trails to past A/B tests without context, and if you are archiving your tests will anyone learn from them? This is where our template comes in handy. It helps you keep a proper, detailed log of every A/B test you did, meaning you have all the information you’ll need now or later about that test in one centralized location.
But…Why?
Why bother tracking your AB testing history at all? Before we answer that, let’s look at some questions you’d generally need to answer when conducting a proper A/B test:
- Why are you doing the test?
- What are you hoping to achieve?
- When did the test start and end?
- What are the metrics you’re using to judge the variations against the control?
- What each variation is and how it looks.
- Resulting metrics for each variation and a comparison between them.
- The decision or action you took after the test has concluded based on its results.
Some of these questions can be answered directly through your testing tool, others can also be answered but are not easily visible inside the tool, and some cannot be answered within your tool at all.
Our A/B test tracking sheet template helps you keep answers to all of these questions and more in a single, centralized testing knowledge base. So now that you know what the spreadsheet does, let’s go back to the “why”? In other words, what good do answers to the above questions aggregated in one place do?
We can summarize that into a few points:
- Allows you to conduct data-driven tests and stay focused on your testing goals by having a predefined, “checklist-like” fields to fill in for every test.
- Keeps all the critical data in one place—no jumping between tools or trying to remember context and scenarios pertaining to specific tests.
- Simplifies future testing by allowing you to check similar tests conducted before and whether they succeeded or failed.
- Helps you easily generate client reports.
Using our spreadsheet template will not only help you stay organized and make finding relevant data about specific A/B tests a breeze, but it will also make your whole A/B testing framework a lot more fun (or at least tolerable, if you hate it that much).
Simply fill in your details to on the form to the right for instant access.