How to A/B test your campaign
A/B test is a great way to check which version of your campaign performs better. With EmailOctopus, you can prepare such a test in a few steps. A video of the whole process is available at the bottom of this guide.
Go to your Lists and choose the list you want to test. Add a new custom field to your list (you can call it AB test).
Once it's created, all the values are empty. So to assign the values to your subscribers, we’ll need to export all your subscribed contacts.
Open the file on your device and in the AB test column, assign the value "A" to half of your contacts and "B" to the other half. Remember to do it randomly and not based on things like previous engagement or email client as it might cloud the results of your test.You can assign it to multiple contacts at once by dragging the column down.
Save your list as a CSV file and import it back to your EmailOctopus list. Choose the "Subscribed" and "Update contacts" option. Make sure to assign the new values to the correct field (so the AB test field).
Once this is done, go to your list and create two segments, "A" and "B" based on the custom field you've just populated with the recent import.
Now, when you set a new campaign, on the first page of setup you can pick the list you want to send it to, and then the segment A or B. Schedule the campaign for whenever you want it to be sent (or send immediately).
Once the first one is scheduled, you can use the other segment to send the alternative version of your campaign.
What you can test?
You can try, for example, different "from" email addresses, subject lines, preview text, template design or call to action button. You can also test how your campaign performs depending on the send time.
The results will let you know more about your subscribers and adjust this new knowledge to your future campaigns.