If you want to know which version of your popup performs better, this is the feature for you. A variant A/B test shows two or more versions of the same campaign to different visitors, so the numbers — not your taste — decide which one stays.
Why it is worth it
Testing makes the same traffic produce more subscribers and more customers. And you can play it safe: if you run five tests and three of them improve conversion, you keep those three and drop the rest. Nothing is lost.
Where the variants live
Open Campaigns in the left menu and click a campaign. On the Overview tab, under the metrics band, is the variants table:
| Traffic | Variants | Active | Impressions | Submits | Submit rate | Uplift |
|---|
Every row is one arm of the test. Underneath it sits + Add A/B test variant.
Step 1: Add a second variant
Click + Add A/B test variant. You get three options:
Control (no popup) — A holdout bucket that sees nothing. Use this to measure what the campaign is worth at all (see A/B test with and without an OptiMonk campaign). Only one per campaign; once it's there the item reads Already added.
Duplicate a variant — Clone an existing design to tweak. Hover it and pick which existing variant to copy. This is the usual choice for a headline or button test: you get an identical copy and change one thing on it.
Create with AI — Generate a new design in the designer. OptiMonk builds a genuinely new design for the same campaign instead of copying one. If the campaign has no design session behind it, the item is greyed out and says Unavailable — this campaign has no design session.
You can also start from an existing row: open the ⋮ menu at the end of it and choose Duplicate, or New design from this variant.
While the variant is created you see Duplicating variant… with the note This can take a few seconds — it's syncing with OptiMonk. A variant created with AI takes longer — its row shows Building · step 3 of 8 until the popup is finished.
Adding a second design while you are still building the campaign
If the campaign isn't finished yet, you meet the same decision earlier, on the A/B test step of the campaign worksheet. There you pick from the designs you already have:
{count} designs go head to head — Visitors get one of them at random, in equal shares. You can follow the result in the campaign's analytics.
One design for now — You can go on like this. Pick one more, though, and the two run against each other — the numbers then tell you which one performs.
Under You could put these up against it, click Add it on any other design from the concept board.
Then Continue to targeting.
With three or more variants, note the warning the step itself shows: With three or more variants a reliable result takes longer to build up than with two.
Step 2: Switch the variants on
Each row has an Active toggle. Only active variants take traffic — a variant that is switched off is not part of the test. Make sure every arm you want to measure is on.
You can also Rename a variant from the ⋮ menu so the table reads like your test ("Headline — urgency", "Headline — discount") rather than "Variant 2".
Step 3: Change one thing
Click a variant's thumbnail or Edit variant to open it in the editor, then change what you want to test. Either edit the element directly on the panel, or describe the change on the Edit with AI tab ("make the CTA button much more prominent").
We recommend changing the elements in this order:
Headline
Subheading
Button text
Data asked
Background
Image
Colors
Other texts and descriptions
Beyond the content of the popup, keep refining your main offer. Your customers might react ten times better to a different one — a discount may beat a free ebook, or the other way round. Every site has its own visitors with their own needs, and testing is the only way to find out.
Please note: we do not recommend making too many changes at once, because then you won't be able to tell why a variant is performing better or worse. A sensible way to start: change one element, test it, keep the winner, then move on to the next element.
Let OptiMonk suggest the test
You don't have to come up with the idea yourself. In the chat panel next to the campaign, ask "Suggest an A/B test I could run". OptiMonk first asks what kind of test you have in mind:
Test the copy only (headline, CTA…)
Change the offer / incentive
Try a whole new design variant (takes longer)
Surprise me — mixed ideas
Then it comes back with concrete ideas, each with a preview. Click one to open Variant comparison — the Control · current version on the left, the Suggested one on the right, plus Why this works and What changes. Add variant turns the idea into a real variant on the table. If none of them fit, click None of these — show me other variants.
Step 4: Traffic
Traffic is shared equally across all active variants — two variants, half each; three variants, a third each. Click the number in the Traffic column to open A/B test settings and see the split per variant plus the total.
The Evenly split checkbox is marked Always on: Traffic is shared equally across all active variants. Setting your own percentages is not available yet — clicking the checkbox says Custom traffic split is still in progress. For now, traffic is always distributed evenly across active variants.
Step 5: Read the result and pick the winner
While the test runs, the Overview tab shows a green A/B test running banner naming the leader — … is leading by +12.40% (81% chance to win) — or Data collection in progress. before there is enough data.
Two numbers matter:
Uplift — how much better (or worse) a variant converts than the baseline. The baseline row shows a dash.
Chance to win — how confident the result is. Each row shows {pct}% to win.
Let it end itself. In A/B test settings, Auto-declare winner is on by default: Automatically end the test when a clear winner emerges. It fires only when all three conditions are met — Declare at 95% chance to win, Min conversions 200, Min days running 3. Change any of them there.
Or call it yourself. Click Declare winner at 95% in the banner. Below your threshold OptiMonk warns first — Ending the test now may pick a winner that isn't statistically reliable yet — and you can Keep testing or Declare anyway.
Once the winner is declared, it stays active and the other arms stop.
Housekeeping
From a row's ⋮ menu you can Rename, Duplicate, create a New design from this variant, or Delete it. The last remaining variant cannot be deleted — a campaign needs a design to run.