Scheduling an A/B tested email to send at the same time?

[Anonymous]

Hey folks! Marketo beginner here.

Why do my A/B tested emails have to be sent 4 hours apart -- doesn't that ruin the point of the A/B test by throwing another variable in the mix? Is there any way I can have both variants send at the same time?

I'd love any and all feedback. 🙂

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

The email that is sent at least 4 hours after is not a test variation, it's the winning email (or report if you declare manually). The test variations is sent at the same time (unless of course you are doing the date/time test) 🙂

[Kim_Allen]

Yep, it's what Erica said. The winner of the tests is sent later (size dependant on the % you picked). If you are just looking for A/B testing and no winning email to be sent, I'd use the champion/challenger test. Think of the challenger as your original subject line and then add one or two challengers. If you truely do have one you use most of the time I'd give that one most of the sends ~80% and the other one or two 20 or 10% each. Then decide after a certain number of runs the new champion and add new challengers. This works best for emails in nurture streams that are reoccuring.