Random Value for contact properties

[PhilZ87]

Hello,

I searched everywhere but I couldn't really find anything on this subject. 

I want to do a pretty simple thing. 

Each time a contact gets created a certain property should randomly have either value a or value b.

How could i do this in HubSpot?

Thanks for the help

[AZhukova]

Hey guys,

I believe that you can achieve this by setting a branch with a  split based on percentage - 50-50. Once contacts are enrolled, they will be alternating between the two branches. And then all you need to do is to set property value for the first branch to 'A' and the second one to 'B'. 

[PhilZ87]

Hello Guys, thanks for the update / infos on this. Not the most satisfiying answers 🙈. 

So we bought the Enterprise Edition of HubSpot in December and therfore the Operations Hub wasn't included unfortunately. And I also have to say the pricing here doesn't really make sense for us. We almsot have all the features the Operations Hub provides exept for the Custom Code and the connection to other tools. And to pay just for these 2 features 700 € a month extra is extremely high, especially if we already pay for enterprise. 

Zapier could be a solution but since we have a lot of contacts in HubSpot Zapier could become even more pricey.

What i want to do is bascially have some sort of A/B testing in workflows since HubSpot also doesn't offer a split audience functionality in the workflows. So everytime a contact is crated a property either gets Label A or Label B. This would then be used to separate these contacts in Workflows and A/B Test.

Also the next benefit is that we currently can't connect workflow analytics to our BI Tool Looker. We only can do this with Contact Analytics. So there we could at least extract this property with the random value and see the analytics in Looker with or other KPIs. 

I hope you understand why this is important to us.

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @PhilZ87,

I understand your pain, as a user I'm feeling it as well.

A/B testing for workflows is actually in beta as of January 2021, see this post here: How to A/B test within a Workflow (workaround with guide video) You can reach out to your customer success manager to get access.

@fiachra_duffy also shared a video for a workaround (using the HubSpot user property approach I mentioned) under that link.

Best regards!

[fiachra_duffy]

@PhilZ87 @karstenkoehler 

I believe Ops Hub Custom Coded Workflow Actions could probably do this - however this requires Ops Hub Pro and access to a developer. 

Otherwise probably best to use the workaround from the video 🙂 

[karstenkoehler]

Hi @PhilZ87,

This is definitely more complicated to achieve than it should be, I agree. There are a few ways you could approach this.

One option would be custom code actions in workflows. These let you extend workflow functionality within and outside of HubSpot and would allow you to use the Math.random() JavaScript function to generate a random number and store it in a property. This requires HubSpot's recently launched new product, Operations Hub Professional.

You can achieve the same effect by using the Zapier integration, sending contacts to a Google Sheets, assigning them a random number there and pulling that information back into HubSpot. Not as neat but it would work.

Another odd way for doing this that was first suggested to me by a HubSpot support rep a while ago is by leveraging the "Rotate objects between multiple owners" action in workflows. You would first create a new custom HubSpot user type property, and then rotate your records between two users within this new property. HubSpot assigns these randomly. If a record is assigned to the first user, you could label it as A, if it is assigned to the second user, you could label it as B. The obvious downside of this workaround are the notifications sent to these owners or the fact that Sales Pro seats are needed.

Hope this helps!

[warrendavey]

@PhilZ87  - Great question.  So first off, this can be ultimately accomplished in Operations Hub.  Assuming you don't have it, then a workflow that triggers the creation and then chooses the values by some other default could work.  The problem is that it would be systematic and not random.

An alternative would be to build it in Integromat or Zapier and find a "Random" function that could parse your selected values.

If you can tell me more about your use case I could probably help you find a better solution.

Hope this helps.