A/B Testing Your Funnel

Your funnel is running. Sales are trickling in. Now you want more sales from the same traffic. That’s where A/B testing comes in.

But most course creators test the wrong things first, change too many things at once, and declare winners too early. Here’s how to do it right.

What to Test First

Start with the highest-impact, lowest-effort tests:

1. Opt-in page headline This single line determines whether 20% or 40% of visitors give you their email. Test two completely different approaches: benefit-focused (“Get the Complete Guide to X”) vs. curiosity-focused (“The One Thing Most Instructors Get Wrong About X”).

2. Email subject lines Your best email is worthless if nobody opens it. Test different angles: question vs. statement, specific vs. vague, their name vs. no name.

3. Deadline length If you’re running a 5-day sequence, test 3 days and 7 days. The difference in conversion rate might surprise you — and it’s easy to test because you just change the timer duration.

What to Test Second

Once the big wins are captured:

4. Lead magnet format If you’re offering a PDF guide, try a video, a checklist, or a mini-email course. Different audiences prefer different formats.

5. Email send times Morning vs. afternoon. Weekday vs. weekend. Your email platform can test this automatically.

6. Sales page headline The first thing they read on your sales page. Same principle as the opt-in page headline — test completely different angles.

7. Price Test a price 20% higher and 20% lower than your current price. Sometimes higher prices convert better because the perceived value increases.

8. CTA button text “Enroll Now” vs. “Start Learning” vs. “Get Instant Access.” Small change, sometimes significant impact.

How Long to Run a Test

The most common mistake: declaring a winner too early.

Rule of thumb: Run each test until you have at least 100 conversions per variant. For a funnel with a 3% conversion rate, that’s roughly 3,300 opt-ins per variant (6,600 total).

If you get 30 opt-ins per day, a valid test takes about 220 days. That sounds like a lot — and it is. This is why patience is a competitive advantage. Most of your competitors will give up after a week and declare a winner based on noise.

If your volume is lower, run tests longer. If your volume is higher, you can test faster. But never declare a winner on fewer than 100 conversions per variant.

The Testing Trap

Testing too many things at once: You change the headline, the price, the CTA, and the email sequence all at once. Sales go up 15%. Which change caused it? You have no idea. Test one thing at a time.

Testing insignificant things: You spend two weeks testing whether the CTA button should be green or blue. It makes a 0.2% difference. You could have spent that time testing your headline — which might have made a 10% difference. Prioritize high-impact tests.

Never implementing winners: You run a test, find a winner, and… move on to the next test without making the winner permanent. The whole point of testing is to implement what works.

The Optimization Order

Fix things in this order — it gives you the most improvement per hour invested:

1. Fix the biggest leak first (see Lesson 11 — find where the biggest drop-off is)
2. Optimize the opt-in page (this multiplies everything downstream)
3. Optimize the email sequence (subject lines, then email content, then CTA placement)
4. Optimize the sales page (headline, then offer, then design)
5. Optimize the deadline length (3 vs. 5 vs. 7 days)

Your Action Step

Pick ONE thing to test this week. Just one. The thing most likely to move your funnel conversion rate. Run the test for at least two weeks (or until you hit 100 conversions per variant). Then decide.\n