Publish A/B Test Sample campaigns with the Deploy Campaign Wizard. Before you can Deploy a A/B Test Campaigns, you must create the A/B Test Definition.
To Deploy A/B Tests
- Go to TASKS > DEPLOY CAMPAIGN to display the Deploy Campaign page. The wizard will guide you through the options to send the campaign.
- For Mailing Type, select A/B Test. The wizard will refresh to reflect the options you select.
- Select a definition from A/B Definition.
- Select an Account Profile to use when filling the Account Profile tags in your content. If no Account Profile tags are defined in your content, you can skip this step.*
- To help distinguish this campaign from others with the same settings, enter a unique Campaign Name.
- Select the Format of the content you wish to send. The format you select must be defined in the Template selected in the A/B Test Definition, otherwise you will be prompted to change your selection.
- If you are ready to continue to send the campaign, click NEXT. If you need to make additional selections to define your campaign, click ADVANCED SETTINGS. The only option not available in Advanced Settings is Suppression List because it must be set within the A/B Definition. To learn more about all the available options, see Deploy Campaign Wizard Variations.
- Continue through the wizard, making the necessary selections and settings until you reach the Confirmation page.
- The Confirmation page displays the selections you have made within the wizard as well as some of the properties from within your List, such as whether tracking is enabled or if Workflow Approval is required. In addition, the Template, Subject, and From Address for every Sample are displayed.
- The Confirmation page also displays the Number of Contacts, which is the total number of contacts in the selected List at the time the page is displayed. Before you send the campaign, click UPDATE COUNTS to verify that the Number of Contacts displayed is near the number you are expecting.
- After you have confirmed all the settings, click SEND to deploy the campaign. The Task Summary page will display the name of the List, the number of jobs ahead in the publishing queue, and the progress of the campaign as it is sending the messages. Because the list is split into samples, the progress will not reach 100% until all samples and the remainder are deployed. You may leave this page at anytime and the campaign will continue deploying.
You will receive a confirmation email for each sample once the campaigns are deployed and the campaigns will appear in both TASKS > VIEW A/B TASKS as well as REPORTS > VIEW CAMPAIGNS.
At anytime throughout the wizard, you may click NEXT to continue to the next page of selections, click BACK to make changes on a previous page, or click CANCEL to close the wizard without deploying the campaign.
Throttling
In realms where campaign Throttling is enabled, an option for setting the Throttling rate is available in the Advanced Settings. To honor the A/B Sample timing, the A/B Samples deploy at the normal system rate. Once a winning Sample is selected, the A/B Remainder campaign will deploy at the Throttled rate.
You may Schedule A/B Test Campaigns by going to TASKS > CALENDAR and selecting Schedule Campaign Deployment. The options are similar with the addition of options to set the date and time to deploy.
Workflow ApprovalIf you have Workflow enabled for the List selected in your A/B Test Definition, you will receive a single Workflow Approval message immediately after you deploy the campaigns. The Workflow Approval message contains the following information about the A/B Test as a whole:
- Mailing Type: Publish AB Test
- Mailing: Name of the A/B Test Definition
- Total Recipients: Total number of contacts in all Samples and Remainder
- Publishing Time: When the campaign will be sent, generally After Approval
In addition, the following details are included for each separate Sample:
- Attachment: Name of the attached file corresponding to the Sample
- Template: Name of the Template selected
- Subject: Subject Line defined
- From: From Address defined
- Recipients: Number of contacts assigned to the Sample
Finally, a copy of each sample is attached to the message. Open each Sample to review the contents and verify it is what you wish to deliver.
To approve the message and send it to the contacts identified for the campaign, click APPROVE. If on a schedule, the campaign will deploy at the scheduled time, unless it has passed, then it will start immediately. If deployed through the Deploy Campaign Wizard, the campaign will start immediately.
To regenerate the content and resend the workflow, click RESEND. The campaign will not deploy, but instead it will make a new snapshot of the content of each Sample and send a new copy of the workflow message. This is helpful when you have made last minute changes to the Template or List and need the changes reflected in the campaign.
To cancel the campaigns completely, click CANCEL. No campaigns will be generated in the list of campaigns, and the message will not be delivered to the contacts.
*Account Profiles added in v12.02