Do layout A/B tests work?

More often than anything else we track. Layout changes — moving blocks, reordering sections, swapping columns — win 19% of the time. That is the highest rate of any well-sampled category here, and nothing in a layout test is rewritten. The same words, in a different order.

If you have traffic for one test, this is the category with the best odds. Rearranging what you already have beats rewriting it.

The numbers

Tests analysed	250+
Beat control	19%
No measurable difference	67%
Lost to control	14%
Median lift when it won	+20.7%

Typical winning range: +8.6% to +47.2% for the middle half of winners. Median traffic per variant was 3024 visitors. Most ran on homepages (116), product pages (66), landing pages (42).

What counts as a layout test

Blocks move, reorder or change position. No copy is rewritten and no new content is added. If you moved a section *and* rewrote it, that is two variables and the result will not tell you which one worked.

Control and variant wireframe for a layout A/B test — Control on the left, variant on the right. Only the changed element is highlighted.

Adjacent categories, and how often they win: hero image (17%), styling (15%), CTA copy (12%).

Layout tests by page type

page type	win rate	tests
homepages	27%	100+
product pages	6%	50+
landing pages	14%	42 tests
category pages	21%	33 tests

Only page types with at least 30 layout tests appear here.

Layout tests that won

hides the existing carousel and replaces it with a new grid of product/promo cards (award banner, stairlift categories) with images, titles, and CTA buttons
replaced the three-audience card selector layout with a single personal-notary focused hero featuring a new headline, process steps, price framing box, and trust stats/rating
Replaced the generic three-audience selector page with a single-focus, direct-response layout: new headline targeting individuals, product screenshot image, process steps, pricing badge, and trust stats replace the segmented card grid

Layout tests that did not

Hides native family-plan banner, header, image, pricing box, features, and footer, replacing them with a custom injected two-card add/skip family-plan selector with default-selected add option, dynamic CTA text/discount copy, and a loading spinner state.
Redesigned page with light theme, added nav menu, eyebrow tagline, intro paragraph, and a checklist replacing the dark-themed benefits bullet list; form subheading and fields also updated
Injects a new sticky header with logo, nav links, and mobile burger menu, and hides the existing collections selector element
Adds a new sticky mobile bottom bar on product pages with a variant selector, price display, and an add-to-cart button that mirrors the native action

These are individual tests, not rules. Each ran on one site, with one audience, against one page we are not showing you. They are picked to be illustrative rather than sampled at random, and a change that won here can lose on your page for reasons none of this captures. Read them as prompts for what to test, not as findings to copy.

Why the rate looks like this

Moving a block changes what someone sees before they decide. Rewriting a block only changes what it says to the people who already reached it. The first is a larger intervention, which is the likeliest reason layout beats every copy-based category here.

How this compares

change type	win rate	tests
Layout (this page)	19%	351
Hero image	17%	160
Form	16%	81
CTA colour	16%	32
Styling	15%	1414
Price framing	13%	117
CTA copy	12%	315
Body copy	11%	337
Split URL	11%	1164
Headline	10%	918
Social proof	9%	196

FAQ

Is this the same as a redesign?

No. A redesign changes layout, copy and styling at once, and a win tells you nothing about which part was responsible. These are single-variable position changes.

Where do layout tests work best?

Homepages carried the most in this set. That partly reflects where people test rather than where it works, so read it as popularity, not proof.

Who ran these tests

This is every Mida account that ran a readable test — in-house marketers, founders, product teams, and agencies working on client sites. Nothing here is filtered by who ran the experiment or how experienced they are.

Low win rates are normal in experimentation, including at the top end. Microsoft's experimentation team, reporting on its own platform, found that only about one third of ideas improve the metric they were designed to improve — and that roughly another third actively hurt it. That is a dedicated experimentation organisation with research, prioritisation and review behind every test.

A mixed population like this one runs below that. The gap is roughly what disciplined practice buys you: ideas grounded in research rather than opinion, one variable at a time, and tests built so the result can actually be read.

So treat these as a general base rate, not a target. If you would rather not close that gap the slow way, find a CRO agency in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands or Australia — or browse every region.

A win is a variant that beat its control on that test's primary goal with a statistically significant result. Tests that never got enough traffic to say anything either way are excluded. The methodology has the full detail, including what these numbers cannot tell you.