Overview
A good referral program drives quality new customer acquisition. A great program activates a significant and broad base of participants. Extole allows you to test messaging, CTAs, rewards, and rules to optimize all aspects of your program.
If you're looking to specifically run an A/B test for your reward, please refer to our article on A/B Testing Your Offer.
When to A/B Test
The need for an A/B test typically comes from the desire to test a hypothesis about your program.
For example, you may want to know if changing the subject line of your Share Email can positively impact your open rate. In this case, it could make sense for you to set up an A/B test with two versions of your Share Email that have slightly different subject line copy. The test will allow you to determine which copy helped drive a higher open rate among your included customers.
Setting Up a Test Within a Program
Please take the following steps when configuring your test in My Extole.
Log in to your My Extole account.
Duplicate your live campaign
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.
Hit the Edit Creative button of the new campaign and navigate to the Basics tab to update the name and description.
Be sure to rename it in a way that makes it clear this is the "variable" campaign in your test.
Update your creatives on this campaign to align with the variable
Check out Using Extole's Campaign Editor for help
Once you're ready to launch, go back to your Programs page and open the dot menu to the far right of your test campaign.
Click the Go Live button and choose the option to Go Live as a Test.
Note: This will automatically split your campaign traffic 50/50, which means existing advocates will continue to see the control campaign while new customers will be split. To learn more about Pausing vs. Ending, check out this article.
As your are 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. If you are not immediately ready to go live, but would like 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).
Monitoring your Test
Once your test is up and running, you will see two (or more) live campaigns running against each other on your programs page. To compare performance, navigate to your Program Dashboard to view your test campaigns side-by-side.
Using the program's dashboard and Extole reports, you will be able to draw conclusions about your test and which experience performed better according your metrics. For example, if you tested two different Share Email subject lines, you will be able to determine which copy correlated with a higher open and/or click-through rate.
Concluding your Test
To conclude the test, you can choose to either pause or end the lower performing campaign. Pausing your campaigns means that new customers will not see them, but customers who are already participating (i.e., friends) will still be able to finish their journeys and earn their rewards. Ending your campaigns means that no customers will see them, but rewards that have been earned will still be issued. Learn more here about Pausing and Ending Campaigns.
If you are testing the reward, we'd recommend pausing the campaign.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is traffic split between my A test campaign and B test campaign?
For A/B tests, the Extole campaign targeting engine uses a pure random number generator when each user begins their session. If you want to run a test with more than 2 campaigns, they will be split evenly.
Extole does support weighted campaigns if you are rolling out a new feature. Reach out to support@extole.com if you want to set up a percentage other than an even split.
Will customers who have already interacted with my program continue to see the campaign they have already experienced?
If you would like current customers to continue to experience the campaign they have already seen, the steps detailed above will be perfect.
If you would like to ensure that any traffic, new or old, gets split for a test regardless of prior history, you will want to complete steps 2–6 again to test two new campaigns against each other. You will also want to pause your evergreen campaign so that it stops receiving traffic. To do so, navigate to your Programs page and open the menu on the right of the campaign you want to end, then select the End option.
What if I host the promotions I want to test?
If you control the promotions or calls to actions (CTAs) you would like to test, we have two options for you.
Make your promotions and links generic (like Refer a Friend) and set up an A/B test.
Recommended: Change your promotion for a limited time and run a burst. A burst will pause traffic to your live campaign in favor of a new campaign that features the promotion you would like to test for a limited time. Once your burst is launched, you will want to end your original campaign so that it stops receiving traffic. To do so, navigate to your Programs page and open the menu on the right of the campaign you want to end, then select the End option.
Do I need to re-tag my site in order to run a test?
No. If you have already added Extole tags to site you do not need to do any additional set up in order to run an A/B test.
What if I want to target a specific audience for my test?
This is possible using our Promote to Audience feature if you would like to initiate your test via email.