Performing a marketing experiment lets you try out different methods of

running a campaign to see which one will perform the best. It involves
doing background research, structuring the experiment, and analyzing the
results.

Now, let's go through the five steps necessary to conduct a marketing

experiment.

1. Make a hypothesis.

Hypotheses aren't just related to science projects. When conducting a

marketing experiment, the first step is to make a hypothesis you're curious
to test.

Let's say you want to make a marketing email that will improve
engagement rates. A good hypothesis for this might be, "Making an email
with emojis in both the subject line and copy will increase our engagement
rates by at least 25%." This is a good hypothesis because you can prove or
disprove it, it isn't subjective, and it has a clear measurement of
achievement.
2. Collect research.

After creating your hypothesis, begin to gather research. Doing this will give
you background knowledge about experiments that have already been
conducted and get an idea of possible outcomes.

Researching your experiment can help you modify your hypothesis if

needed. If your hypothesis is, "Making an email with an emojis in the
subject line and copy will increase our engagement rates by at least 25%,"
and research on trends in your audience on email subject lines show that to
be true, you know you have a solid hypothesis. However, if other
companies in your industry haven't seen success from emojis in emails,
you might want to reconsider.

3. Choose measurement metrics.

Once you've collected the research, you can choose which avenue you will
take and what metrics to measure.
For instance, maybe you will run an A/B test. This method will allow you to
measure the results of two different emails, and figure out which email
performs better with your target audience..

For a marketing email test, consider measuring impressions, reach,

conversion rate, or clickthrough rate (CTR). These email metrics can let
you know how many people are receiving, opening, and reading your
emails, and will help you analyze the results of your hypothesis.

4. Create and execute the experiment.

Now it's time to create and perform the experiment. If you're creating
an A/B test to prove your hypothesis about emojis in emails, then you'll
want to create two emails -- one with a plain text subject line, and an
identical email with 1-2 emojis added to the subject line. Try to only
make slight variations between emails A and B to ensure accuracy.

When you're finished designing the experiment, come up with a timeline,

and decide how you'll monitor the results. That way, when conducting the
A/B test, you'll be prepared to swiftly figure out which email performed
better.

Finally, choose your recipients and conduct the experiment. Next, you'll
analyze your results.

5. Analyze the results.

Once you've run the experiment, collect and analyze the results. Use the
metrics you've decided upon in the second step and conclude if your
hypothesis was correct or not.

The prime indicators for success will be the metrics you chose to focus on.

For instance, for the marketing email example, did engagement numbers
appear higher? If the CTR, impressions, and click-to-open rates are at or
higher than the 25% goal, the experiment would be considered one where
the hypothesis was accepted.

Now that you know how to conduct a marketing experiment, let's go over a
few different ways to run them.