How to create an effective A/B testing dashboard to drive optimizations in 5 steps

A/B testing is a great way to home in on which parts of your site or product lead to conversions—and which ones need improvement. But to get the most out of your tests and prioritize impactful changes, you need a fast and reliable way to see what’s working.

An A/B test dashboard gives you an at-a-glance overview of your experiment’s performance. It visually represents how the control and variant in your test compare across key metrics, like conversion rate, to quickly reveal which version is the most successful, enabling you to make data-driven optimizations and take action on your results.

Ready to get started? Setting up your A/B testing dashboard couldn’t be simpler (especially when you have a customizable pre-made template to kick things off). Read on to learn everything you need to create—and use—an effective A/B testing dashboard with Contentsquare in 5 easy steps.

Key insights

• A/B testing (also known as split testing) is the process of comparing two versions of your site, web page, or feature to get real data about which one performs better. It shows either the control or the variant to users at random, enabling you to test hypotheses, assess performance, and make informed decisions.

• A/B tests are a powerful form of conversion rate optimization (CRO), but they only show you which version won, not why. Combine A/B testing tools with an experience intelligence platform like Contentsquare to unlock in-depth insights about user behavior and preferences to get the most from your experiments.

• A customizable A/B test dashboard template automatically surfaces the key metrics and lets you easily share them with stakeholders like product, UX, and design teams, so you can quickly put your findings into action and scale your results across the business

1. Select your A/B test

Start by selecting the experiment for which you want to create a dashboard. Some examples of A/B testing dashboards you can create include

• Landing page optimization tests: discover which elements contribute to conversions

• Product improvements: understand how new product or feature launches impact performance

• Design or copy changes: see which marketing copy or design resonates with customers

• Mobile app or site changes: use mobile A/B testing to optimize the user experience (UX) on mobile devices like phones and tablets

Give your dashboard an easily identifiable name so you can find (and share) it later. 

💡 Pro tip: simplify setup by starting with a pre-made, customizable A/B testing dashboard template in Contentsquare. Select the A/B test you want to analyze to instantly generate a dashboard with relevant widgets and segmentation, so you can jump straight to insights.

2. Monitor the right metrics

Decide which metrics you’ll measure based on your hypothesis and goals for the A/B test. Choose from site-wide, page-level, and zone-level metrics. For example:

• Customer satisfaction goals like conversion rate, bounce rate, click rate, and Frustration Score (an AI-powered metric that combines frustration factors like rage clicks and repeat form submissions into an objective score so you can prioritize based on impact)

• Ecommerce goals like conversion rate, page views per visit, exposure rate, and conversion rate per click

• Engagement goals like session time, click rate, activity rate, time spent on page, and reach rate

• UX and functionality goals like Frustration Score and bounce rate

Then, add these A/B testing metrics to your dashboard as widgets so you can monitor KPIs and spot trends in real time.

💡 Pro tip: if you used an A/B testing dashboard template like Contentsquare’s, your dashboard will already be populated with relevant metrics to get you started; however, this template is completely customizable, so you can add or remove metrics as needed.

3. Drill down by segment

Get more granular insights by filtering your A/B testing dashboard. Filter by device (like desktop, mobile, or tablet) or user segment (like returning users, users that completed a specific goal such as completing a transaction, or people who experienced an error) to understand how different audiences respond to the test variations.

For example, you might discover that your A/B test variant boosts conversions on desktop but not on mobile. Filtering by mobile devices lets you dig in further, revealing that the variant causes errors on iOS, resulting in frustrated users who don’t convert. With this insight, you can make adjustments to your A/B test to ensure it works as expected and get your experiment back on track.

4. Contextualize your test results

Enrich your A/B test results with qualitative data from behavior analytics tools to understand what drives user activity behind the numbers. Use tools like

• Session replays, video-like playbacks of individual users navigating the A/B test from beginning to end, to uncover common journeys and behavioral patterns

• Zone-based heatmaps, aggregated visualizations of where users click, tap, scroll, and engage on each page, to see which elements caught their attention and which ones were overlooked

With Contentsquare, you can jump straight from your A/B testing dashboard to relevant session replays in a single click. Save time by using AI-powered Session Replay Summaries to extract key insights, identify potential issues, and show the user’s detailed journey, so you can spend less time scrubbing through videos and zoom in on the most crucial moments. 

Likewise, quickly go from your dashboard to Zoning to see side-by-side heatmaps of user engagement for both your control and variant.

Use these additional insights as you evaluate your test results to contextualize user behavior, spot trends, and reveal why your winning version was successful.

Contentsquare lets you jump to relevant session replays and zoning analysis in a single click from any widget in your A/B testing dashboard

5. Share your findings

Once your experiment is complete and the A/B test results are available, share your data with relevant stakeholders to inform decision-making and secure buy-in for optimizations.

With Contentsquare, you can easily share your dashboard with other teams, keeping everyone aligned and informed. Use visualizations from your A/B testing dashboard and significant session replay moments as evidence for your proposed initiatives that will have the greatest impact to help prioritize resources and rally the business around what matters most.

💡 Pro tip: use Contensquare to create manual or AI-powered alerts for key metrics and monitor your A/B test in real time. Notify relevant stakeholders via email or Slack when KPIs deviate from expected thresholds so you can quickly intervene before your experiment negatively impacts business outcomes like revenue.

How Ultra Mobile complements their A/B tests with Contentsquare

“Our A/B testing tool Optimizely is great for telling us how variants within a specific experiment are performing when it comes to KPIs, but it doesn't do a great job of showing us why,” says Sheena Green, director of ecommerce and optimizations at Ultra Mobile.

“With the Optimizely integration with Contentsquare, we're able to be more effective as a CRO program because we can take a losing test and see why it lost—maybe there are points of friction or a minor tweak we could make to change the outcome of the test,” she says. “With Contentsquare, we're able to build and iterate the losing test, instead of scrapping it and starting out at square one, turning a losing test into a winning experience.”

For Sheena’s team, this has been a game changer. “Testing resources are expensive—from development and creative to time spent—and we're limited by those things. So if we're able to put something into market, even if it's a loss, and we're able to learn and pivot quickly, it's a huge win for us and it keeps us agile.”

Track and improve your experimentation with an A/B testing dashboard

A well-configured A/B testing dashboard is your one-stop shop for monitoring your experiments, providing instant, real-time insights about test performance. Simplify dashboard creation with a template that automatically selects the right metrics and user segments for even speedier setup, then drill into results with filters, session replays, and heatmaps to enrich your data and get more from your experiments.

FAQs about A/B testing dashboards