Overview
When you are running an A/B test between two different campaigns to specifically test your offer structure, there are a few additional changes that must be made. If you are looking for more general information about A/B testing, please refer to our A/B Testing and Targeting article.
Setting Up an Offer Test Part I
Please take the following steps when configuring your offer test in My Extole.
Log in to your My Extole account.
On the Programs page, find the program for which you would like to run your test. Hover over the campaign you'd like to test and hit the duplicate icon.
Once you've created your duplicate, be sure to rename it in a way that makes it clear this is the "variable" campaign in your offer test. You can preview and make changes in our Campaign Editor and, at this point, your campaign will not be launched.
When editing your duplicated campaign, the Apply Changes button on the top left corner of the editor allows you to save your changes as you work. To save and return to editing at a later time, click the Publish Changes button at the top of the page (this will not launch your campaign). Do not go live at this point; please complete the checklist below.
Offer Configuration Checklist
Please make sure you have updated the following items on your newly duplicated campaign before launching your offer test. If you have any questions, please contact your CSM.
Update copy and creative elements across all assets
Confirm copy on the Social Share Image, Social Share Description, and How it Works
Update the Disclaimer and Terms
Update the reward (gift card, updated coupon codes, account credit amount, etc.)
If your test offer is a gift card, confirm your Tango Gift Card email template with your CSM in the Tango portal
Check your maximum spending limits if you are sending out more or larger gift cards
If your test offer is a higher value account credit, make sure that your system is prepared to handle a different reward amount
Setting Up an Offer Test Part II
Once you've completed the items in the checklist above, you can take the following steps to launch your test.
When you are ready to launch your test, open the campaign with your test offer in your Campaign Editor and find the menu in the top right corner of the page. From the dropdown, select the option to Go Live.
A message will pop up to ensure that you want to Go Live as a Test. Clicking this button means that all other live campaigns within your program will continue to stay live and the campaigns associated with your A/B test will begin splitting traffic. Because you are running a test, you will want this to be the case.
Splitting Traffic via Email
If you would like to split traffic to the campaigns included in your test prior to customers landing on your site or your would like to control the specific audience that sees your test, please read this section carefully. Testing an offer means you are likely going to send an email to half of your customer base or specified audience promoting one offer versus another. You can do this using our Promote to Audience feature.
Under normal circumstances, you would create one promotion link to include in your emails that would last forever and the state of the campaigns in a program would dictate what happens to your traffic. However, A/B testing an offer, you will need a promotion link for each campaign.
When creating a promotion link on the program page, you get a popup to choose your channel and enter your source name. After you click Create, you will see an Advanced link.
When you click that link, you will see all the campaigns in that program with unique tracking parameters. You can copy and paste each respective link, and if the campaign is live, the traffic will be directed to the desired campaign.
Frequently Asked Questions
What if I am conditionally firing tags or API calls?
If you are conditionally firing tags or API calls, please tell your CSM prior to setting up your A/B test to ensure that your test will perform as expected.
How can I set up an offer test if I host my own promotions or have a promotion-link-only integration with Extole?
We recommend that you launch a burst campaign instead of creating an A/B test. To do so, navigate to the Programs page and duplicate the campaign for which you'd like to try out a new offer. Apply the necessary changes to the new version in the Campaign Editor, and when you are ready to launch, select the option to Go Live as Burst. This will pause your original campaign and direct traffic to your burst for the duration it is live.
When ending a burst, you can decide what you want to happen to traffic. You will have two options:
Pause your burst. This will send all friends to the burst, but move advocates back to the evergreen campaign.
End your burst. This will send all advocates and friends back to the evergreen campaign.