Testing different subject lines

[Anonymous]

Maybe it's me,  but when I read all the articles, then try to actually do it,  it's not very clear.  I have 1 email with 2 different subject lines.  I want half the group (about 750 names) to get 1 version,  the rest to get the other.  I don't care how the split occurs.

My campaign is built around the titles of people, not a specific list.  

HELP!  I could use some pointers of the easiest way to do this. 

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Deb,

The easiest way to split-test an email is to create the campaign as you normally would and in the "Send Email" flow step, add a "Random Sample" constraint that sends half the population email A and half email B.

For 3-way tests, the percentages you'd use for Random Sample would be 33, 33, etc.

[Anonymous]

Hi Deb - The above from Charlie is a very good example of how the campaign works 🙂

I think maybe a point of confusion here lies in the statement "I have one email with two different subject lines".

It would be more accurate to say "I have two emails, each with a different subject line but otherwise identical, labelled EmailA and EmailB."

Using the Random Sample method Charlie has described above, you then send EmailA to the first 50%, and EmailB to the second 50%. Marketo then randomly sends Emails A and B to the list (it's totally OK to build your smart list using job titles, it doesn't impact the send process).

Does that ease any of your confusion?

[Anonymous]

I would like to complement the clever suggestions posted by Charlie and Veronica: the article "Random Sample Made Easy" provides a simple and robust method to define your test groups.
http://community.marketo.com/MarketoArticle?id=kA050000000L6EBCA0

[Anonymous]

thanks for everyone's input.  Here's what I did.  I created a smart list of the titles i want included in the campaign.  Then in the flow,  I showed the random sample at 50% and show the 2 emails.  Here's a screen shot.  What do you think - will this work?

[Anonymous]

This works, although you could also have just one Choice at 50% and the rest will go to default.

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much. 

[Anonymous]

Can I apply this method to an ongoing smartlist that will continue to gain new leads or does this only work with a predefined list?

[Anonymous]

This would work with both types of lists. Marketo will always check membership when the particular lead hits that step.