A/B Testing Crossroads: Is Your Organization Ready?

In 2025, the disconnect between brands and customers continues to challenge CMOs. With an overwhelming 58% of customers feeling misunderstood by brands, only 14% of CMOs are seen as very or completely effective at identifying and fulfilling unmet customer needs (market shaping), according to Gartner’s Top 3 Strategic Priorities for Chief Marketing Officers.

Change this perception with A/B testing.

It’s a core tactic marketers use to understand their customers and reach their growth targets, demonstrating marketing is not a cost, but rather a profit center. A/B testing is a win-win scenario for businesses and customers alike: 

• The business can evaluate two different versions of something (like a landing page, email messaging, features on a website or app, etc.) to determine if a statistically significant improvement exists for your primary test metric (like click-through rate, conversion, etc.) between the control (or original version) and the variant (or new version). 
• The customer receives an improved user experience that can increase their brand affinity, which can lead to more repeat purchases and a higher customer lifetime value (CLV).   

With these powerful benefits, you may be tempted to start testing immediately.

HOLD IT RIGHT THERE.

We want to set you up for success!

One of the biggest mistakes an organization can make when it comes to A/B testing is starting too soon.

What Do I Need to Conduct A/B Testing?

Often, organizations jump into A/B testing without the necessary people, processes, and technology in place. This can lead to disjointed efforts and produce inaccurate results. 

We recommend that these five key aspects be in place to run a successful testing program:

1. Supportive organization

A/B testing thrives when leadership champions a culture of continuous improvement — one that embraces both successes and failures as valuable insights. While testing initiatives often begin with a single person or team, their impact multiplies across the organization as other teams witness the value. This organic growth, fueled by shared knowledge and documented wins, transforms isolated experiments into a company-wide commitment to data-informed decision-making.

2. Dedicated team with analytical skills

Effective A/B testing requires skills in areas like hypothesis development and prioritization, experimental design, statistics, and practical judgment to interpret meaningful conclusions from the test results. Incorrect data analysis can lead to rolling out changes that negatively impact the user experience and ultimately hurt the organization’s bottom line.

3. Data collection strategy and data governance

The foundation for successful A/B testing is robust and accurate data collection. Whether you are looking to benchmark historical user behavior, use data as evidence to support a hypothesis, or define key metrics for your test, you will need to ensure your data is accurate. A comprehensive data collection strategy will ensure that you are collecting metrics aligned with business goals that can be used as metrics in A/B tests. Meanwhile, data governance will ensure this data is protected and managed appropriately across the organization.

4. Traffic acquisition strategy

To produce statistically valid results, we recommend using a sample size calculator to determine the appropriate number of users and length of time necessary to run your test scenarios. This ensures that you can detect meaningful differences in the data and that your observations aren’t merely due to random fluctuations or chance. Drawing dependable inferences about a larger group becomes challenging when working with a limited number of users (usually sites or apps with less than 100,000 monthly visitors).

Search engine optimization (SEO) and generative engine optimization (GEO) are the most cost-effective traffic acquisition tactics for a website, and in our experience at WillowTree, organic traffic also has the highest converting users. For apps, we recommend app store optimization (ASO). If you need to generate traffic volume quickly, paid media is an excellent choice for both websites and apps.

5. Technology capabilities

Effective A/B testing requires a robust technical foundation. You'll need specialized tools to design, deploy, and analyze your tests. Many organizations jumpstart their testing initiatives by investing in A/B testing platforms that offer user-friendly interfaces for quick configuration and deployment. Depending on your existing infrastructure and specific testing needs, you may also want to build your own experimentation platform. The key is to buy or build a flexible, scalable A/B testing platform that integrates seamlessly with your digital properties and supports your needs.

Now that we’ve reviewed what you need to run an A/B testing program, we want to help you gain organizational buy-in.

How Do I Gain Organizational Buy-in for A/B Testing?

In today’s economic climate of shrinking budgets, a strong business case is essential to get the necessary resources and tools to begin A/B testing. Make sure your business case answers three important questions: 

• Why should we conduct A/B testing?
• What is the best solution for our company to implement?
• What is the expected outcome?

Build an A/B testing business case in 5 steps

Use our business case outline below to answer these questions as succinctly as possible — as the saying goes, “Time is money!”

I. Executive summary (the TL;DR)

Brevity is key here. Try to keep it to five sentences or less. Be sure to highlight the business opportunity, your proposed solution, and the most significant expected benefit.

‍Pro tip: Write this section last, after you know your business case intimately. 

II. Why should we do this? (the business impact)

This section needs to build a gripping, even urgent, case for A/B testing by highlighting the opportunities gained and the risks of inaction. Engage stakeholders’ FOMO, making them realize how critical A/B testing is with:

• Business problem statement: Support this with bulletproof first- and third-party insights, as well as customer feedback. 
• Proposed solution: Explain why you chose this solution over alternatives.
• Expected benefits: List them all. 

‍Earn bonus points: State how A/B testing fits into your organization’s strategic plan.

III. What does it look like? (the project definition)

This section is all about justification: 

• Justify the objective of A/B testing. 
• Justify the cost and its expected return on investment (ROI) with a cost-benefit analysis. 
• Justify how your company will be left behind because your competition is conducting A/B testing. You can use BuiltWith to see the exact A/B testing tool organizations are using, but note that it can’t sniff out custom-built tools. 

Other items you’ll want to discuss include:

• Scope
• Risk assessment & mitigation strategies
• Assumptions
• Constraints that could impact the A/B testing program
• Deliverables you will create to prioritize tests, track tests, report on test results, etc.

IV. How and who will accomplish it? (the project implementation)

It’s important to define what A/B testing is and isn’t, but it’s also a good idea to assign the team members who will implement the A/B testing program. This creates ownership and accountability and should include:

• Roadmap: A high-level timeline with milestones outlined
• Governance: A framework of processes and standard operating procedures
• RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) chart: An outline of clearly defined names (or roles, if no one has been hired yet) and responsibilities for each task related to A/B testing
• Communication plan: An explanation of how A/B testing initiatives will be shared with stakeholders

V. Recommendations & next steps (the key takeaways)

It’s important to summarize your key points and reiterate why an A/B testing program is needed at your organization. Remember to include your ROI again to show the value of this initiative, and repeat how it aligns with your organization’s strategic business goals.

Convince them with data & A/B testing case studies

A/B testing isn't just another business buzzword — it accelerates growth and fosters innovation.

If you are having difficulty gaining organizational buy-in, share a few A/B testing success stories: 

• Spotify ran a series of A/B tests on its Discover Weekly feature, which is now one of Spotify’s most successful personalized playlists.
• Bing conducted a single A/B test on its ad headline format that led to a 12% revenue increase, translating to over $100 million in annual revenue growth.
• Booking.com, a company known for its culture of experimentation, runs more than 25,000 A/B tests annually. It has grown twice as fast as the S&P 500, beating the market consistently over the past 10 years.
• At WillowTree, we increased retirement account claims by 111% (the primary source for customer acquisition) for a client in the Financial Services sector.

‍Research from Harvard Business School's study of 35,000 startups shows that companies embracing A/B testing outperform their peers. They scale faster, launch more products, and attract more investment capital. Perhaps most tellingly, at the beginning of the study, only 7.6% of startups used A/B testing. Within three years, this number grew to 16.75%.

Whether you work at a startup or an established enterprise, the message is the same: In today's data-driven business landscape, A/B testing isn't just an option — it's a competitive necessity. Companies that embrace this methodology aren't just making better decisions; they're building a culture of continuous improvement that positions them for long-term success.

The question is no longer whether to implement A/B testing but rather, “Which of the five key aspects is preventing your organization from starting A/B testing?”

Elevate your Decision-Making with Data

A/B testing can help you become part of the elite 14% of CMOs who are seen as very or completely effective at identifying and fulfilling unmet customer needs. Organizations with a culture of experimentation boost their competitive edge with data-driven decision-making by increasing conversion rates, maximizing ROI, and improving customer satisfaction.

Accelerate your organization’s growth, and start the A/B testing conversation with your leadership today. If you are looking for an agency partner, reach out to our team of experts to guide you on your testing and experimentation journey.