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March 1, 2018
Question

Subject Line - A/B Test

  • March 1, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 3376 views

How do you determine the winner if the criteria is Open Email. If it's based on the count of open email during the testing, can someone explain why on our testing the winner was Subject B but Subject A performed better.

These are the result:

Subject A - Open Email: 303

Subject B - Open Email : 299

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1 reply

Valerie_Whitin2
Level 4
March 1, 2018

It is based on the open rate. Which is calculated by # of opens/# delivered. So, it is possible for the B test group to win if it had a smaller delivery group. Hope this helps!

October 2, 2018

Hi Valerie,

I'm having a similar issue. Though even with a smaller delivery group, my B subject line performed worse than A and was still declared the winner. Please see below:

Subject Line A - 29 opens /// 586 delivered = 4.95% open rate

Subject Line B - 24 opens /// 584 delivered = 4.11% open rate

And if it somehow matters, A had 5 clicks while B had 4. It looks like in every way, B performed worse.

Also, the Marketo A/B test winner notification shows B as winning with some absurdly vague "Opens" number:

This notification is the only "solid" reasoning I've found for B winning the test, but I can't figure out in the slightest how this number is calculated -- and I've come up blank in combing the forums thus far.. Can you provide any insight on this?

Thank you!

PJW

Ronen-Was-SRpro
Level 5
October 3, 2018

Hi,

You can choose what will be the winner criteria when you are making the A/B test.

Define the A/B Test Winner Criteria - Marketo Docs - Product Documentation

Ronen Wasserman