Webmecanik Automation allows to use A/B testing on emails. The objective is to send 2 or more versions of a same email to see which one get the best results according to what is important to you. Then the winning version is sent to the whole target.

How to use A/B testing with emails ?

Connect to your Webmecanik Automation instance and create a first email. More informations in this article on how to create emails.

Once the parent email is created, go in the email sheet and click on the down triangle next to "Close" then click on "Add A/B Test".

Create the new version (variant) of the parent email.

Fill the mandatory field at the right part of the screen such as the internal name and the subject (that could be different than the parent email is the subject is part of your A/B test).

Choose the traffic weight which is the percentage of contact in the segment that will receive the parent version as well as the variant. For example, if you choose 50%, that means 50% of the contacts in the segment will receive the parent email and 50% of this other part of the segment will receive the variant.

Add your A/B test winner criteria between dowload rate, read rate, clickthrough rate and submission rate.

For example, if your A/B test is about the subject, it could be interesting to add the read rate as the winning criteria. Email with the better read rate would be the winner, so the subject would be better.

Save and close.

Do not forget to publish the variant before sending emails.

When you are in the parent or variant email sheet, you will see the "Variants" tab. It shows what email is currently selected with the "Current" badge. The "Parent" badge shows what email is the parent. To the right, the percentage shows the one you have chosen when creating the variant. Below written in green is the winner criteria you have chosen.

Once emails have been sent, the winning email will be shown with a cup logo.

How to send A/B test ?

Segment emails

Go in the parent email sheet and click on send.

All versions (parent and variant) will be sent according to the traffic weight you have chosen).

Emails sent though campaigns

In the builder of the campaign, add "Send email" action and choose the parent email.

All versions (parent and variant) will be sent according to the traffic weight you have chosen.

IMPORTANT : The tool does not allow to send an A/B test to specific contacts within a segment.
If you wish to do so, we recommend creating an alternative segment with the specific contacts you would like to test the A/B testing on.
Then, once the results settles the winner, you will be able to send the best email to the segment in its whole.

Example: Your segment has 10 000 contacts. Create an alternative segment that contains for example 1000 contacts from the first segment. Send the A/B test, see results. Then send to whole segment the winning version.

INFORMATION : In the email list, you will only find the parent version. Variants do not appear. So you must go on the parent email sheet to find the variant. 

However, emails with A/B test are easily findable as it has a specific logo next the name.

PLEASE NOTE : An email with A / B testing should not be scheduled because it risks losing all statistics when it is unpublished.