A/B testing and local sends

Does anyone have best practices to share on conducting an A/B test optimally with recipients all over the world? Local, time zone-based sends aren’t permitted on A/B tests but I don’t want to execute sends that would land during off hours.

I imagine active lists are the best workaround for this and just sending individual tests regionally, but was wondering if an alternative solution is available.

Thanks very much,
Mo

Hello @mohall, thank you for posting in our Community!

I want to share this knowledge base here with more details on how you can run an A/B test.

And add some of our top experts @Phil_Vallender @mike-ward and @StefaniUAT any suggestions to @mohall?

Thank you,

Pam

Hi @mohall,

With A/B tests requiring a time range of a few hours (and no further settings to specify by locale), your best option is indeed to only run tests by region. You would create active lists and filter by Country/Region (or whichever property is your source of truth for geographic information). You would then set up tests specifically for a list and a region, scheduling the email so that the first contacts to receive the email from the region do so at the beginning of the work day. The time range for the test would have to be specified so that the latest possible emails are sent in the afternoon for those contacts.

This can of course be limiting, especially if you’re working with smaller list sizes. It could mean that one or the other A/B test comes back inconclusive. I would still say, however, that this is your best option if you want to avoid sends outside of working hours.

Best regards!

Thank you, @karstenkoehler. This makes perfect sense. I appreciate the reply!

Best,
Mo