Is it possible to A/B test a batch email in a regular Marketo program?

[Dan_Stevens_]

I'm very familiar with the A/B testing capabilities within the Email Program.  We don't use email programs for a variety of reasons.  We stick with regular Marketo programs.  We have an event program setup and the marketing manager wants to A/B test the email invitation.  Is it true that we cannot leverage the champion/challenger test since this will be a batch email send?  If so, would the best approach be to create two emails and then send "email A" to "random sample A" and send "email B" to "random sample B"?  And then creating a wait step to properly evaluate the test at which time we would identiy the winner and place it in the "send email" flow step after the wait step?  If so, I'm glad I'm on the right track.  It sure would be great to have the same type of A/B testing that exists within the Email Program.

[Kim_Allen]

Yes you can A/B in a regular smart campaign. In the send email flow step you add a constraint and send to random sample, just as you said. Typically I don't send a winner in this same campaign, that's one of the major advantages of the email programs. When I used to have to run a/b tests like this, I would test the whole smart list and then use the "winner" in the next batch or use those winner qualities for the next email build.

[Dory_Viscoglio]

Hi Dan, I have a feeling what you meant to say above was that you can't leverage the champion/challenger test since it'll be a batch send. One workaround I've found for this is to use a batch campaign to add people to a list, and I have an additional triggered campaign when someone is added to the list which sends my email with a champion/challenger test. I also recently did a "if random sample is 50%" in the flow step to only add 50% of people to the champion/challenger send... The winning subject line was then sent in a separate campaign.

The only downside to this is that Marketo has been running slowly recently, and this makes things PAINFULLY slow. But, it's a workaround for the limitation that Marketo has presented us with.

[Dan_Stevens_]

Thanks Kim and Dory - and yes, I meant to say "cannot"