Ability to A/B Test with Sequences

[JaclynSchmitz]

It would be great to have the ability to easily a/b test with email sequences. Certain emails within the sequence may perform better with variable wording, but there is no easily way to test this. 

[JaclynSchmitz]

A/B Testing Sequences is now live! 

A/B testing is a great way to figure out what resonates best with your prospects and optimize your content for outcomes. Navigate to Automation > Sequences to create a new sequence or start testing an existing one. Within any email step, you'll see the option to add an A/B test. Sends will split automatically and you'll be able to monitor results for each version.

For more details on testing and best practices check out this knowledgebase article.  

Best,
Ana

[JaclynSchmitz]

@KhalidK Great question. 

Given this example sequence: 

Email 1 (A/B) -> Email 2 (A) -> Email 3 (A/B)

1. Email 1 will be split with 50 contacts receiving A and 50 receiving B. All 100 contacts would receive Email 2 (A). Email 3 will also be split with 50 contacts receiving A and 50 receiving B. 

2. Randomization is per step in the sequence. If a contact receives version A of Email 1, they still have a 50/50 chance of receiving A or B for Email 3. 

I hope this helps clarify! Please let me know if you have any additional questions. I'm also happy to connect on a feedback call if you'd like to discuss in more depth.  

[JaclynSchmitz]

Hi Community, 

Thank you so much for the feedback and perspectives on this post. We understand how critical this feature is to experiment and improve your sequence performance and I am excited to say the ability to A/B test emails in a sequence is currently in progress! 

I'll be in touch with more updates when we're further along and ready for beta testers. Please feel free to reach out with any questions or feedback. 

Best, 

Ana

[Amad]

+1

[KJaju]

Absolutely agree. This feature is a must. The sales team is leaving so much value on the table without this feature.

[MDodd]

Much needed feature!

[PDenton]

This 100%! 

[ersideris]

Yes please!:)

[MCardenas]

Yes, please! I hope they add A/B Testing to sequences soon! 

[KJaju]

Posting on this thread once again after a month. Can we please put this feature in your product development roadmap? As of now Hubspot is not giving the full functionality that my sales team needs to perform at optimal levels.

Two major (rudimentary) features are lacking:

1. Creating workflows based on number of clicks/opens a prospect has made. 1 click + 1 open = do X. However, 4 clicks + 4 opens = do Y. As of now I cannot do this. Disappointing tbh! Since we were clearly told this was possible during the sales process.

2. A/B test sequences.

Outreach + Salesforce both offer these features. I am sure many of the others do as well. An outbound sales process that relies on sequences absolutely needs these two features.

Can Hubspot please let us know if this is coming any time soon or not? 

[NFitz]

This is a great idea and seems right in line with all of the other A/B testings we're doing on the platform.

If A/B testing is good for marketing emails then it is good for sales emails.

[CBrinkhof]

Yes please!

[DAmato]

This would be super useful.

[ACallcott]

This would definitely help the Sales team close deals and I would hate to have to buy another completely different piece of software (Outreach) just because HubSpot can don't this!

[sarawest]

This would be fantastic! SalesLoft and Outreach.io has this functionality.

[SMAlexander]

Yes. I was actually planning to implement this somehow, but I saw this thread and definitely this feature of A/B Testing on sequences (multiple subjects/multiple body descriptions). 

Any news on this? 

[CBoon]

First off I want to say that the HSpot team has done a great job making their UX very digestible, easy on the eyes, non-clunky, and pleasant. That said, there are about 5-10 features that I'm amazed HSpot sales hub does not support. This is my first HSpot experience and there definite holes that other programs (in my past I've mainly worked with SalesForce (clunky), Outreach.io (best-in-class IMO), SalesLoft (rebounded nicely since getting spanked by Linkedin in 2014-15), YesWare (remember when we were young?), InsidesSales (always impressive but expensive), Marketo (see SalesForce comments), Pardot (Boooooo, nuf said), and others . That said, even the basic sales features that were available years ago in a best-in-class platform like Outreach.io seem far from possible here:

- Pause/Resume an entire Sequence with a button is a simple, basic function for OOTO periods like the last 1-2 weeks of December.  

- Customizing a Sequence's schedule per day (i.e. Sequence-A should only go out Tues-Thurs evenings, Sat mornings, avoid Mon, Fri, Sun)

- Offering multiple options for any given step in a sequence (A/B/C tests) so that we could load 3 different templates into Step-1 of Sequence-XYZ, for instance, to test out 3 messaging statements for a new product launch. The contacts then enrolled into that Sequence-XYZ would be split evenly across Step-1A template, Step-1B template, Step-1C template.  Then, after a few weeks, we can see which Step-1ABC works best. If Step-1B worked best, then would should be easily allowed to turn off Step1A and Step1C as options with a button so that all new contacts would only receive Step-1B going fwd.

- Default Sequence Settings: As a sales leader I have to say the Settings offered for HSpot Sequences are extremely elementary and weak. We need to be able to tweak the throttling (how many emails max can go out each day), sequence schedules (see above), adding an automatic delay to all Step-1 launches so no jr level seller or SDRs accidentally start launching emails out to our lists simply b/c the SDR enrolled some new Contacts into a Sequence (sometimes you want to see the distribution of Contacts across diff Sequences before anything is launched), set permissions so employees who are not the Contact Owner can/can't enroll those Contacts into a sequence or launch a sequence with those Contacts in it, set up and lock-in default settings for any new Sequences that are to be created so future Sequences adhere to our company policy. The fact that every new Sequence has to be set up individually from scratch, unless Cloned, is very unimpressive.  

- Contact mgmt and gatekeeping needs a lot of work. At the moment if we have a prospect Contact named Kerrie Kerrwood, who is owned in our CRM by our AE named Jim Johnson, then Jim should be the full gatekeeper for all contact with Kerrie. As HSpot stands Kerrie can be sequenced by anyone else in our company without Jim even being alerted. This means if Jim is communicating with Kerrie, or even has a proposal on Kerrie's desk, any other person at our company can still target Kerrie, and even sequence Kerrie at any given time. I realize there are very (weak) permission settings that would only allow Kerrie to be only contacted by Jim, but that doesn't help if Jim's SDR, Sam, is running outbound for Jim's prospects. Honestly, this is ridiculous, especially when you work on larger sales teams with poor leadership where thing can get very competitive and dirty. I've seen shady sales ppl steal prospects, contacts, accounts and deals from their collegues, but contact ownership is one way to protect against this.  What's the point of Contact Ownership if it does't do anything other than tell others in your company who is "supposed" to be owning a specific contact?

- Inbound Automation for Sequences: Since HSpot is a unified platform (MAP, CRM, Comms Accelerator, etc) you would assume that an inbound lead that fills out a form on our website could be automatically enrolled into our "Inbound FormFill" sequence. The fact that Sequences have so many restrictions like all enrollments or launches have to be manually performed stinks. I realize that form fill leads can get an auto mktg email, but then how do we program automatic follow up (tasks are manual, not automatic)?  We need our mktg+sales tech stack to be as close to "Set it and forget it" as possible. "Set it and then we will remind you to do in a few days what a calendar or planner already can do" is no improvement, especially when GoogleCalendars are free.

IN CLOSING...

I realize HSpot's legacy comes from being a strong, user-friendly, marketing automation platform, but if on avg mktg budgets are approx 5%-10% of a company's annual sales revenue, then I would expect much more investment going into the HSpot sales tools than what I'm seeing.

Thank you, HSpot team, and Happy Friday 🙂

[VdeLaat]

Yes please!

Big shout out to @CBoon for his comment.  

[Niveathitha]

Surprised to see that this feature is missing. Hopefully it gets added soon.

[CBrinkhof21]

Must have!

[GRuffo]

Other sequence tools have this ability already, would be great to have this in Hubspot as well.

[JPD123]

Not having the ability to A/B test sequences is likely enough to get us to drop Sales Hub and just pick up Outreach. 

[simpletiger]

Totally agree. Every other sales engagement platform I've ever used including Outplay, Apollo.io, Outreach.io, SalesForce, etc. all have this feature. Major oversight here. Come on HubSpot! We're paying $500/mo for your Sales Hub Pro plan, there's no reason we can't a/b test our own manually-written emails!