Liz Moorehead
There’s a reason we didn’t cram A/B testing into last episode's conversation about landing pages: it deserves a conversation all its own. Because despite how long A/B testing has been around—and how many places you can now use it inside HubSpot—most teams still don’t know how to use it well.
This episode is about going way beyond the “test your subject lines” cliché. We’re digging into the strategy, the mindset, and yes, the math behind good A/B testing. What are you actually trying to learn? Are you testing too many variables at once? Are you measuring the right outcomes? Do you even have enough traffic to make that test worth running in the first place?
🔎 Go Deeper: Wait, We've NEVER Done an Episode on HubSpot Landing Pages?
And that’s where too many people go off the rails. They either start testing everything without a plan (hi, spaghetti on the wall), or they hyper-focus on vanity metrics without connecting those experiments back to broader goals.
We also dig into the power HubSpot gives you to run tests across multiple tools—from website pages and emails to sequences and workflows—and what changes when you use A/B testing strategically across teams, not just inside a marketing silo. Oh, and we have some strong words for the outdated “best practices” that people still cling to, despite having better options available in the tool today.
If you’re still treating A/B testing like an optional “extra” instead of what it actually is—a core part of optimizing how you communicate with your audience—you’ll want to listen in.
Keywords
A/B testing, marketing strategies, HubSpot, optimization, digital marketing, conversion rates, testing methodologies, data analysis, content strategy, marketing mistakes, email marketing, user experience, testing mindset, conversion optimization, marketing automation, data-driven decisions, marketing best practices
What We Cover
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The Fundamentals of A/B Testing: We start by grounding the conversation in what A/B testing is actually supposed to accomplish, regardless of tool or platform—experimentation and optimization rooted in curiosity and clarity.
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Where A/B Testing Lives Inside HubSpot: From landing pages and emails to sequences, CTAs, and workflows, we explore where A/B testing is available in HubSpot and how different teams (not just marketers) can be using it.
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The Most Common A/B Testing Mistakes: Testing too many variables at once. Not defining a clear hypothesis. Ignoring sample size. Never checking the results. We break down the bad habits that sabotage A/B testing before it even starts.
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Why A/B Testing Is About More Than Just Conversion Rates: A/B testing isn’t just about performance—it’s about learning. We talk about how to structure tests that generate actionable insights you can apply across campaigns and channels.
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How to Use A/B Testing in Sequences and Sales Tools: Sequences aren’t just for timing—they’re testable, too. We cover how to use A/B and multivariate testing in sequences, what you can and can’t test, and why sales teams need to care.
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Workflows, Random Branches, and Custom Experiments: With the ability to build logic and random splits into workflows, HubSpot gives you more flexibility than most people realize. Chad breaks down how to use these features to test just about anything you want.
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How to Create a Testing Plan That Doesn’t Waste Time: Testing for the sake of testing helps no one. We share how to decide what’s worth testing based on your business goals, traffic volume, and stage of growth.
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Smart Testing With Smart Content: George walks through how to use personalization, segmentation, and smart content to test messaging, structure, and delivery without creating duplicate assets.
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Mindset Matters: Are You Testing or Just Guessing?: A/B testing without intent is just guessing. We wrap the episode by digging into the mental frameworks that make A/B testing valuable—including curiosity, iteration, and a commitment to building better experiences for the humans on the other side.
And so much more ...
Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Liz Moorehead: Well, howdy, howdy folks. How are y'all doing today?
[00:00:02] Max Cohen: Ugh. Doing so good. You have no idea.
[00:00:05] Liz Moorehead: Wow, everyone calm down.
[00:00:07] George B. Thomas: I
[00:00:07] Liz Moorehead: all at about a 15. I'm gonna need you to
[00:00:08] George B. Thomas: that was That That was some energy right there.
[00:00:11] Liz Moorehead: Wow.
[00:00:13] Chad Hohn: Let's go.
[00:00:14] Max Cohen: I have all the energy in the world. No one can stop me. I'm all the way up.
[00:00:20] George B. Thomas: All the way up. Isn't there
[00:00:21] Max Cohen: All the way up. Yeah,
[00:00:23] Liz Moorehead: stop me. I'm all the way up. Yay.
[00:00:25] Max Cohen: that's exactly what it is.
[00:00:26] George B. Thomas: it's almost like we're trying to get giga Chad going this morning. First thing.
[00:00:30] Max Cohen: Oh.
[00:00:31] George B. Thomas: God. Oh my,
[00:00:33] Max Cohen: amazing
[00:00:34] George B. Thomas: Wow.
[00:00:35] Chad Hohn: Don't worry about it.
[00:00:38] Liz Moorehead: Giga Chad.
[00:00:39] George B. Thomas: so
[00:00:39] Liz Moorehead: Oh my God, it was so close. I know. It makes me so happy, but I feel like he just withholds it from me now. It just presses me. Wait,
[00:00:49] Chad Hohn: It's here when you need it.
[00:00:52] Max Cohen: what the,
[00:00:54] Liz Moorehead: max. Have you not heard Giga Chad before?
[00:00:57] Max Cohen: no, I have, but it is just really funny.
[00:00:59] Liz Moorehead: every time.
[00:01:00] Max Cohen: Yeah, it's so good.
[00:01:01] Liz Moorehead: Gentlemen. We have a lot of
[00:01:03] George B. Thomas: your AB testing gets better every time.
[00:01:05] Max Cohen: Oh Lord.
[00:01:06] Chad Hohn: does it or doesn't it? That's the question.
[00:01:09] George B. Thomas: It depends how human you are
[00:01:12] Max Cohen: Oh geez.
[00:01:13] George B. Thomas: AB testing.
[00:01:14] 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.
[00:01:35] But then we also realized we hadn't talked about AB testing either. Like guys we're really, we're killing it, guys. Just absolutely killing it. Good for us.
[00:01:43] George B. Thomas: the conversations. I'm just saying.
[00:01:45] Liz Moorehead: Trying
[00:01:46] Chad Hohn: just, I came in late to the game, so I can't be responsible for,
[00:01:50] George B. Thomas: Chad. Chad was Chad's basically saying if I would've been here, that would've been
[00:01:55] the third episode,
[00:01:57] Liz Moorehead: Chad being in every single audience of every single recording, and neither Chad nor gig a Chad ever made the point of, Hey, have you guys considered AB testing? You consider talking about it.
[00:02:09] Max Cohen: Oh chat.
[00:02:10] Chad Hohn: I did say Can we talk about help desk, though? I love help desk.
[00:02:14] George B. Thomas: Oh, we, we need to make that a future episode. So, So,
[00:02:17] Liz, so, so the listeners, the viewers know I definitely wanna talk about campaigns because everything's changing and it's all new. I.
[00:02:26] And, uh, we need to talk about help desk at a deeper level. Yeah, those are two future fu future episodes.
[00:02:34] Chad Hohn: Yeah, I love the help desk team. They're so good.
[00:02:37] Max Cohen: Help desk.
[00:02:38] George B. Thomas: Whoop, whoop.
[00:02:39] Liz Moorehead: So this is gonna be a very special episode of Hub Heroes. I can already feel it deep in my bones. 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, 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 AI advancements 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.
[00:03:28] Gentlemen, are we ready?
[00:03:29] Chad Hohn: Yeah.
[00:03:30] George B. Thomas: Yeah, let's go. Oh
[00:03:32] Liz Moorehead: Oh my God, I got Max Clap. I'm either scared or happy. I love Max Claps. All right, George. I actually wanna turn to you for the first question. 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?
[00:03:56] George B. Thomas: Yeah. Uh, 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, Hmm,
[00:04:08] because he's been in portals. I've been in portals. It's there, it sits there quietly. Let top left hand side of your email or top left hand side of your website, pages or landing pages, and,
[00:04:18] Chad Hohn: Or your sequence,
[00:04:20] George B. Thomas: waits. Oh my God, don't, don't steal my
[00:04:22] thunder. Don't steal my thunder. Because, because when I think about, well, you can steal my thunder. I love you, Chad. Okay, so here, here's the deal.
[00:04:29] 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, to get 'em to click on a button, to get 'em to fill out a form. To get 'em to watch a video, whatever it is, you're, you're ab testing, you're experimenting to optimize the thing that you're trying to get them to do. So fundamentally, that's what it is. Now, Chad, kind of let the cat out the bag like I did earlier. Uh, there's a whole lot of things in HubSpot that used to be just about marketing that are no longer just about marketing, marketing and sales.
[00:05:09] By the way, this is one of the key fundamental reasons I wanna talk about campaigns in the future, because campaigns used to be about your marketing campaigns. And it's different now, but, but we'll stick on AB testing because in hub in HubSpot now you 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. 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. 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. Ho Yeah. Okay. Now we're getting somewhere. Anyway. I'll shut up. We'll get everybody else's thoughts.
[00:06:04] 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 wanna call them tools. Practices like AB testing is not something that's actually HubSpot specific.
[00:06:24] 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 marketer's toolbox, and now their capabilities and who they're for has expanded.
[00:06:45] 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.
[00:06:55] 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 AB 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.
[00:07:16] Right. But I also like how they're, they're. 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, uh, is nice, right? Um, 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.
[00:07:46] It was one of those things where it's like, yeah, it can do this thing and like you should do this thing 'cause 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. But like, I don't necessarily know if I ever saw anyone like take advantage of it.
[00:08:03] Not 'cause it's a bad tool. It's just 'cause it's, 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. Uh, it's, uh, it's interesting but I think. Most of the stuff that we've kind of seen has really just been more on like the technology side, uh, and less on the, I don't know what it's used for side, because it's really like when it comes down to it, like it's all in the name A, b testing, which works better, A or B, like, it's just I, yeah.
[00:08:32] 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.
[00:08:38] George B. Thomas: Well the fun thing, so I wanna, I wanna jump in here, Chad, then I'm gonna 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 multi-variate testing because you could do an A, B, and C. C version.
[00:08:54] Max Cohen: Mm-hmm.
[00:08:54] George B. Thomas: And, and so like, I, I kind of wish that there was a little bit more of that that could start to happen because like, again on the, the CTA tool, it's, it, it'll get there. It'll get there. I mean, you can, you can do it now, but we, we might get back to where we were. And especially with smart content. I digress.
[00:09:10] I digress. But, but here's the thing. Here's the thing. Um, I wanna get back to something that you just kind of breezed over real quick. No pun intended
[00:09:18] for all of you AI lovers, Ha.
[00:09:19] Chad Hohn: Ooh. Got 'em.
[00:09:21] George B. Thomas: The the three types, the three types of AB testing. 'cause you're right, max, and hopefully people understand this one. Uh, AB testing, if you're in a pro account, um, then there's the, you can do five tests at one time, right?
[00:09:34] 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, where you basically, for, I think it's landing pages. You set it up and it's, you do your ab test, but then you've got this stuff that spits out and said, the the next test you might wanna 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, it's looking at how people are interacting with it along the way.
[00:10:12] So just, just know if you're, if you're like, oh wait. Wait, you can do that in HubSpot. Uh, just go do some research on all the different ways of AB testing that you could be pulling off in your portal right now.
[00:10:25] Chad Hohn: Mm-hmm. Yeah, in the sales sequences you can do A, B, C, D, E testing all the way up to five variants per sales sequence
[00:10:33] Max Cohen: Geez,
[00:10:34] George B. Thomas: that's.
[00:10:34] a lot
[00:10:35] Chad Hohn: because reasons. 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, uh, is pretty much irrelevant and less measured.
[00:10:47] Right? Sometimes people just like to throw a little spaghetti at the wall and
[00:10:53] Liz Moorehead: We love a
[00:10:53] Chad Hohn: sticks, you know? A little spaghetti 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, but I don't know what noodles those were.
[00:11:06] I just chucked a bunch of spaghetti at the
[00:11:08] Max Cohen: Spat
[00:11:10] George B. Thomas: I have a
[00:11:10] question. Do I say, do I say that a lot?
[00:11:13] Throw spaghetti at the wall?
[00:11:15] Max Cohen: Oh
[00:11:16] Liz Moorehead: it's a very just common phrase in general.
[00:11:18] George B. Thomas: oh, okay.
[00:11:18] was just curious.
[00:11:20] Liz Moorehead: I was just really happy that he said
[00:11:21] Max Cohen: free real estate.
[00:11:23] George B. Thomas: yeah, I, I like that too. I like
[00:11:25] Liz Moorehead: I may forgive, but I'll never forget. Speaking of
[00:11:28] George B. Thomas: Not on the wall. Oh god.
[00:11:30] Liz Moorehead: you're welcome. Thank you.
[00:11:32] Chad Hohn: Was that a mistake?
[00:11:33] Liz Moorehead: I'm not the only one who can make really bad dad jokes, George.
[00:11:35] George B. Thomas: See. See, you reminded me of this text I sent to my friend over the weekend.
[00:11:39] It was like two pictures of bees. One was a Canadian bee and one was A USB and it anyway.
[00:11:48] Max Cohen: Uh,
[00:11:48] Chad Hohn: A.
[00:11:49] 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 12 minutes into the show, we're doing great. This is called Deep Focus. Chad, you started talking about the spaghetti.
[00:12:07] Chad Hohn: Yes. On Evolve
[00:12:10] Liz Moorehead: Okay. You know what, we'll reset this. Can I get a good giga Chad saying Never forget.
[00:12:17] Chad Hohn: Never Spa.
[00:12:19] Liz Moorehead: Yeah, 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. And then George and Max, I wanna hear from you because again, we have a lot of potential with AB testing.
[00:12:36] 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. So where are people messing up?
[00:12:46] Chad Hohn: Well, I mean, yeah, I think, uh, 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? Because obviously we're, we're joking about the spaghetti on the wall, but it's, it's.
[00:13:09] 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 um, 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 kind of define how long it should run.
[00:13:36] And then go look at the success after that and then make tweaks as necessary. Like 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. 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.
[00:13:58] Um, and the other thing that I think is interesting, and I think people. Might forget about is workflows have a random percentage branch now. So you can AB 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 could say like, do three branches.
[00:14:20] 33. 33, 33. Flip a property so you can report on, you know, a custom property that reports on which branch of the workflow that thing went down. And you can make a custom ab 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.
[00:14:44] Uh, you don't only have to use the baked in goodness of the HubSpot spat.
[00:14:50] Max Cohen: I can, I don't know why you're saying. Uh, if it's to me to ask like where people are getting it wrong, I think that was the question. Um, right, Liz? Okay, cool. Just making sure. Um,
[00:15:04] Liz Moorehead: Max real dialed in today.
[00:15:07] Max Cohen: no, I am dialed in it. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't imagining things. Uh, 'cause baguette threw me way off.
[00:15:12] Um, yeah. Ugh. Now I can't stop thinking of it. All right. Anyway.
[00:15:17] Chad Hohn: don't, don't.
[00:15:18] Max Cohen: Yep. Yep. Okay, cool. So, uh, 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? Like, sure, sometimes it is, but also like, you gotta think about what am I, what am I learning that I can apply to other stuff that I'm doing from this specific example that I may be testing, right?
[00:15:44] So it's like, you know. Your AB testing like an email, right? And you're like, oh, it says this subject line versus this subject line. Right. Well, it it, 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? It's like, no, no, no.
[00:16:02] 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. 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?
[00:16:25] 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. Don't just kind of leave. Don't walk away from ab tests without any sort of like, knowledge that you can apply to other things.
[00:16:39] Right? The second thing too, uh, 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 'cause it's probably not worth it. Uh, or don't put that much stock in the results, right? So for example, if, if you're like just starting out your blog.
[00:17:02] 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. Probably not worth your time, right? Because if you're not getting traffic there, there's really nothing that you're gonna 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?
[00:17:28] It's probably not worth AB testing things there, right? And put that effort and time and mental calories towards what can we do to get better traffic. So if we are gonna do an AB test later on, right, we're actually getting a lot of at batch to get some good data at a higher volume and at larger sample size, right?
[00:17:46] So.
[00:17:47] George B. Thomas: so I, I think there's Liz. I think there's. Some great stuff that both Chad and Max said. I just wanna bullet point this a little bit so that people have the breadcrumbs that they can chase down later after the episode. Um, so we talked in here, uh, you know, testing too many variables at once. That's a big issue. Uh, we talked about not running the test long enough, meaning if you aren't getting a lot of traffic, just know that you're gonna have to run the test longer to get something that's actually gonna be valuable. Um, also ignoring the sample size. Max literally just said, I think Chad said it in a way where like you have to have enough humans for it to make sense.
[00:18:21] The other thing is when you're, when you're testing something, it needs to be important. So another bullet point is don't be ab testing vanity metrics, like, don't be,
[00:18:29] make sure that it's relevant to like conversion or cash flow. And then the last one is, yeah, I do that. AB testing, meaning they like set it up. But they never went back and they didn't learn from the results of it. Like they, they, yeah, it's running in HubSpot, check done. Like, 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, uh, kind of in those directions.
[00:18:56] Liz Moorehead: Can I come at this from the content strategist point of view? Because it's a little less
[00:19:01] Max Cohen: No,
[00:19:01] Liz Moorehead: No,
[00:19:02] George B. Thomas: No,
[00:19:02] you're allowed, you're allowed. I'm just kidding. I'm, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
[00:19:05] Liz Moorehead: no spa for you. No, I'm just kidding. Um, back one noodle. Um. 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.
[00:19:32] Because too often I have sat in working sessions and brainstorming where. Well, we just wanna see which one performs better, well 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? Right? Like what are the specific hypotheses that you are trying to test?
[00:19:57] And I think sometimes people think that takes like, oh, we gotta move fast. We gotta break things quickly. It's like, no, if you're gonna test, actually test something. Don't just 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.
[00:20:15] 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. That, that's my 2
[00:20:28] Chad Hohn: Brilliant.
[00:20:29] Max Cohen: Agreed,
[00:20:30] Liz Moorehead: Thanks guys. I
[00:20:32] Max Cohen: agreed.
[00:20:33] Liz Moorehead: So 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.
[00:20:47] Take us on a journey. George, do you want us kick us off?
[00:20:50] George B. Thomas: Uh, I'll pick two so that I'm not taking like everything from everybody. One. I think that, and I mean, 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, uh, on HubSpot ads. Um, but,
[00:21:09] Max Cohen: Oh
[00:21:09] George B. Thomas: with that, with that being said, like you should definitely be ab testing your ads, uh, different headlines, images, uh, the offer that you're actually putting out there to see like what gets the most clicks and conversions.
[00:21:21] So definitely. HubSpot ads and AB testing should be a thing that you're kind of leaning into. The other one I'll say is emails. It's just a no-brainer to me to be AB testing
[00:21:30] emails, uh, the preview text, the subject line, the image versus video, the, you know, black button versus orange button. The, uh, personalization versus no personalization.
[00:21:43] Like, see what your audience actually engages with. From an email perspective, because again, I'm a, I'm a firm believer that email is still a viable and very powerful channel when done properly. So emails and ads, uh, I must have had the, uh, the vows on my mind today. ENA is what you should, uh, be paying attention to. Well, it's a Texas
[00:22:06] standoff Chad or Max, which one of you're going next?
[00:22:11] Max Cohen: Go ahead, Chad.
[00:22:12] Chad Hohn: Sure. Uh, yeah. I mean, for me, one of the things that. Sorry, I have super anti-climactic there. Um, yeah. One of the things that I think is not really easily able to be ab tested would be SMS messages inside of like a sales sequence, because sequences don't offer the ability to like send a message. However, workflows can be aware of what step a sequence is on, or like how many emails have been sent or whatever.
[00:22:46] So you can kind of like could jiggle 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. Um, 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.
[00:23:22] 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 outta their way to do. And if, if SMS is a big part of your messaging channel that doesn't like, 'cause 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.
[00:23:55] Um, but your team. Is gonna call them if, if phone is another one of your channels. Again, we kind of have like a bit of a specialized channel set, I suppose, in the industry that I'm in. Um, but calling and SMS messaging from the same phone number is like very helpful 'cause 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.
[00:24:27] 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, uh, figuring out like what CTA style resonates the best and gets people to click on it, right? Because that's something that you could 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, right?
[00:24:53] 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? Um, because then every time you're using a, you know, CTM, like a different page that you build and you've run that test a couple of times and you got some really good data, you can be like.
[00:25:16] You know what, 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?
[00:25:32] And, and get those tests under your belt, uh, is probably the best sort of like piece of advice I can give. 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, test one thing, just one thing. Test one thing. Don't, don't change. Don't let, don't change the subject line and the CTA in the email, just change one thing, right?
[00:25:54] But also, uh, 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? 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 see, I wanna see how the open rate changes.
[00:26:15] Just change the subject line. Right. Um, you know, it is just silly. Be, 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.
[00:26:29] George B. Thomas: Max. I love that you're like, uh, guys, gals, have a strategy. Understand what your goal is and do ab testing, not ab guessing.
[00:26:38] Like, like, like
[00:26:39] Max Cohen: be,
[00:26:39] George B. Thomas: that's what you're not trying to do that. 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, um, 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
[00:27:05] see if it mattered in the order in which I'm actually asking the questions to how far? Because like you, you can now see on multi-step forms, like how far in the step that they made it or steps that they made it.
[00:27:18] So maybe you see like everybody's falling off at like number three, step three. So now you, uh, clone that form and you move the steps around to where step three becomes like step six, and now all of 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.
[00:27:38] And the goal was to try to get more conversions. Like
[00:27:41] that gets real interesting to me.
[00:27:43] Max Cohen: the big thing I'm wondering right, is what it, you what, what can you actually can, like what, what are you specifically testing in sequences? Is it like entire branches or is it just like.
[00:27:55] Different
[00:27:55] Chad Hohn: Each email, each individual email template can be A B, CD, E tested. So it.
[00:28:01] Max Cohen: can test the time difference.
[00:28:04] Chad Hohn: No,
[00:28:05] Max Cohen: Ah. So you can't say
[00:28:06] Chad Hohn: the delay can't change
[00:28:08] Max Cohen: you can't
[00:28:09] Chad Hohn: it's just the content of the email or the body or, or the subject or something.
[00:28:15] George B. Thomas: and I love that Chad said just 'cause by the way, that could be a lot,
[00:28:20] but yes, it is. It is. The templates that you're
[00:28:23] able to AB test. Yep.
[00:28:25] Max Cohen: Got it. Okay. So it's not a whole, um, it's not
[00:28:29] George B. Thomas: if
[00:28:29] Max Cohen: can be like, oh, test it
[00:28:31] George B. Thomas: versus eight
[00:28:32] Max Cohen: three days versus, okay. Got it. All
[00:28:35] George B. Thomas: Although HubSpot, if you're listening,
[00:28:38] Max Cohen: I know. Please listen to us.
[00:28:40] George B. Thomas: saying I.
[00:28:41] Chad Hohn: It, I mean, the sequences themselves. Give you could dupe dupe the sequence and change the timeframes with the same content and report on each sequence over the same timeframe 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 spaghetti thrower.
[00:29:04] George B. Thomas: Yeah, so, so I heard Chad say, and this is Chad saying to every HubSpot user, uh, clone your sequence and send 501 day and 500 the next day. And see, no, I'm just kidding. That's not what Chad said. That's
[00:29:18] not what Chad said. Do not
[00:29:19] Chad Hohn: say to throw that much. Spaghetti
[00:29:22] George B. Thomas: Don't, don't do that. I'm just joking.
[00:29:25] Max Cohen: I can't.
[00:29:26] Liz Moorehead: Gentlemen, how are we doing?
[00:29:29] Chad Hohn: Max is great.
[00:29:31] Liz Moorehead: Fantastic. I wanna look to you, George, to help us kind of rein it in, but I also know that
[00:29:37] George B. Thomas: We're in trouble then. But go
[00:29:39] Chad Hohn: Woo.
[00:29:40] Liz Moorehead: I think I might be able to get you dialed in because we're about to talk about one of your favorite topics, which
[00:29:44] George B. Thomas: We're talking about cheesecake.
[00:29:46] Max Cohen: Whoa.
[00:29:47] Liz Moorehead: now I'm hungry, man.
[00:29:48] George B. Thomas: Right. Well, that's what I used to get when I go to like a place where I get spaghetti
[00:29:52] Liz Moorehead: We're talking about the cheesecake of the inbound world, and that's mindset.
[00:29:56] George B. Thomas: Oh
[00:29:57] Liz Moorehead: Talking about mindsets, right? 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 CONT considering using AB testing, right?
[00:30:09] 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?
[00:30:25] 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, 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 gonna make their life better, then ab testing, the, the flow, the journey along the way is you're doing it because you're doing it from a, a human. Love caring perspective, not this like cold mathematical sales and marketing measurement, right? And so that right there, that mindset just dictates the way that you do this differently. And, and I think that if, if I think about mindsets, two things come out of this is one, you've gotta be ultimately curious, right?
[00:31:20] I've already talked about caring. You're caring about the journey and creating the best experience possible. 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, a learn it all and, and taking the time to actually look at what you've been delivered based on the test that you've gotten, so that you can take action on the insights to, again, make that experience better as they move forward.
[00:31:53] So that's, that's where my brain goes with that. And actually, I did get kind of serious, uh. So,
[00:31:58] Hmm.
[00:31:59] Chad Hohn: Maybe deserve some cheesecake now.
[00:32:01] George B. Thomas: Yeah. I'm gonna Cheesecake Factory. It is tonight. Let's go party
[00:32:06] Max Cohen: I
[00:32:06] Liz Moorehead: Max and Chad, what about you guys? What do you think?
[00:32:09] George B. Thomas: Uhoh.
[00:32:09] He's
[00:32:10] Max Cohen: walking away? No, like, I'm trying to, like, I'm trying to, I'm trying to like re like, I, I don't want to sound repetitive, right? Because I think AB testing is inherently this, like I say, it's this simple thing, but like you can build some pretty complicated ab tests. Um, it's, it's, I think it's one of those things, um, that is very easy to obsess over it and also waste a lot of time on it too, right?
[00:32:33] So just be careful. You know what I mean? Like, like, you know, there's some things that you can just spend way too much time on in HubSpot that don't, that don't yield you a lot, or that you take like way too seriously. Right. Um, you know, it, it, it's, don't, don't let ab testing consume you. Uh, if there's other things that you should be focusing on.
[00:32:53] Right. Um, 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. 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?
[00:33:17] Such as creating content that people actually like and get to your site. 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.
[00:33:33] Chad Hohn: Yeah. It's
[00:33:33] Max Cohen: And that's okay. And that's okay. Right? Uh, so even, even what you test, right, if you're open rate sucks, why are you ab testing click rate on your emails, right?
[00:33:50] 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, uh, have I earned the right to ab test this yet?
[00:34:02] 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.
[00:34:11] Max Cohen: Mm-hmm.
[00:34:11] George B. Thomas: Like, are you sitting there doing that AB testing and your sales pipeline stages suck? Then
[00:34:17] probably go fix your sales, uh, pipeline stages
[00:34:20] and ab test afterwards.
[00:34:22] Like, but, but priorities.
[00:34:24] Chad. Chad, what's your thoughts?
[00:34:26] Chad Hohn: I just think don't fret and end up throwing spa.
[00:34:31] Max Cohen: I don't,
[00:34:32] George B. Thomas: long enough. It's just never long
[00:34:34] Liz Moorehead: it's never long enough
[00:34:35] Max Cohen: I dunno
[00:34:36] Chad Hohn: I just gotta put the music on in the background and we'll just do the show to the music.
[00:34:41] George B. Thomas: That might be, uh,
[00:34:44] Max Cohen: that was a
[00:34:44] George B. Thomas: and annoying at the same time,
[00:34:46] depending upon who you are.
[00:34:48] Chad Hohn: right. Anyway. No, just don't, don't get all scared and start throwing spaghetti, you know, like have a plan.
[00:34:54] Max Cohen: scarred.
[00:34:55] Liz Moorehead: Don't bere.
[00:34:56] Chad Hohn: I.
[00:34:57] Max Cohen: Oh my
[00:34:58] Chad Hohn: just 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.
[00:35:09] George B. Thomas: I'm old 'cause I immediately went to Legends of Zelda for some reason and I'm like,
[00:35:13] wait, that's probably. Really not what we're talking about.
[00:35:15] 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.
[00:35:29] Chad Hohn: Mm-hmm.
[00:35:30] Liz Moorehead: do not have to have two completely different contrasting things in order to run a test.
[00:35:38] So remember to be precise and be specific and understand that small changes can have very large outsized outcomes. So that would be mine. George. George,
[00:35:49] George B. Thomas: Yeah.
[00:35:50] Liz Moorehead: buddy. How, how you doing?
[00:35:53] George B. Thomas: I,
[00:35:53] Liz Moorehead: How you.
[00:35:54] George B. Thomas: 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.
[00:36:07] Like we come bearing
[00:36:09] historical baggage of the word testing or taking a test. Like, and, and so then there's this like, well that was the failure.
[00:36:17] No, it was a lesson learned. Like when
[00:36:20] 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 humans would AB test, would AB test their life a little bit more?
[00:36:39] Max Cohen: Oh geez.
[00:36:41] Chad Hohn: brother,
[00:36:42] Max Cohen: that's just, that just means have accountability for yourself.
[00:36:46] Chad Hohn: For,
[00:36:47] Max Cohen: AB test that has
[00:36:49] George B. Thomas: be taken in about 17
[00:36:51] different
[00:36:51] Max Cohen: true.
[00:36:52] Liz Moorehead: 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
[00:36:58] George B. Thomas: Ah, yes. Yes. Okay.
[00:37:00] Go ahead and ask your last question, Noah. Cut that out.
[00:37:03] Liz Moorehead: George.
[00:37:04] Max Cohen: you dare.
[00:37:05] Liz Moorehead: Yeah. No. Remember if you're ever laughing at this podcast 99% of the time, just cut it out.
[00:37:09] Max Cohen: This is why we don't do it live.
[00:37:12] George B. Thomas: Yep.
[00:37:12] Chad Hohn: We're doing it live.
[00:37:14] Max Cohen: You've tried.
[00:37:15] Liz Moorehead: George land the plane.
[00:37:16] 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 wanna tell me 15 things.
[00:37:27] George B. Thomas: No, no.
[00:37:28] Liz Moorehead: Are you following directions,
[00:37:30] George B. Thomas: One thing. Yeah. Um,
[00:37:32] Chad Hohn: With a sub thing.
[00:37:33] George B. Thomas: no.
[00:37:34] Liz Moorehead: Chad? Let me have this.
[00:37:36] George B. Thomas: Yeah. Right. Um, AB testing is your secret weapon.
[00:37:41] It's your choice to pick it up and use it or not.
[00:37:43] Chad Hohn: Mm-hmm.
[00:37:43] 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?
