A/B Testing Best Practices

William Harper Updated by William Harper

Once you have a baseline of referral performance, you can use A/B testing to fine tune your offer and continue to optimize your referral program. You can learn the logistics of creating an A/B test in Friendbuy here. 

Testing Referral Strategy Overview

In Friendbuy, you will select one of the following options for the test:

Advocate Reward, Friend Offer or Advocate Reward + Friend Offer

If you are trying to drive higher shares, test the advocate reward. If you are trying to increase conversions, test the friend offer. If you want to impact both, then we recommend testing the reward + offer in combination. 

To measure success, you will look at shares (for the reward) and conversions (for the offer). It is possible to see mixed results when testing both reward and offer. For example, when testing “give $5, get $5” versus “give 5% off, get 5% off,” you may see advocates share more for the set $5 reward whereas the 5% off is more appealing to friends.

Friendbuy will track both advocates and friends when they use the same device or return using a share link so that when they are on your site and see a referral widget, they will continue to see the same offer for the duration of the test. 

What if I don't see a relevant option to select for testing?
We’re still working on adding additional variables for you to select from, but in the meantime, you may select any of the above 3 options and edit the relevant assets for your test as needed, such as the Settings, Widgets, Emails, etc.

Potential Additional Assets Needed for a Referral Strategy Test

1. Coupon codes for the new reward/offer 

2. Updated images for when the offer is built into the image. Examples include:

  • Background images within referral widgets
  • Hero images in referral emails
  • CTA images in referral emails

Marketing During a Referral Strategy Test

During the test, use more generic copy when promoting referral, such as “refer a friend for a special discount and you get rewarded too.” 

We recommend testing for all website visitors so for mobile hamburger or footer CTAs, if possible, change the CTA copy to something generic such as “Refer a Friend” or “Refer for Rewards” for the duration of the test.

Questions? Reach out to your dedicated Customer Success Manager or email us at support@friendbuy.com.

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