A/B-Split Job Properties

To access the A/B-split job properties page for a given A/B-split job from the A/B-split job details page, click the Edit link in the top right corner of the A/B-Split Job section or select Job Properties from the menu.

Edit the properties of an existing A/B-split job.

Job Title: The Job Title is an informational string that is used to identify the A/B-split job for the user. This title will be shown on the overview page of the A/B-split job.

Note: The variant jobs of the A/B-split job will initially be created with the same job title, but each variant's job title can later be edited individually (for example, to discern between the variants). When entering a job title:

Use regular alphanumeric characters for Job Titles, but there are no restrictions on the number of characters or the character set used.
Enter text that is meaningful and will identify the job when it appears in a listing of multiple jobs.
The Job Title does not have to be unique, but unique titles make individual jobs recognizable to the job owner and other team members who may collaborate on the job.

Job ID Prefix: The Job ID Prefix is a way to help identify or group various jobs for the user by adding a prefix to the unique job ID generated by the system. When entering a job ID prefix, remember that:

A Job ID Prefix does not have to be unique, and it can be the same for many jobs.
Adding a Job ID Prefix is optional and the field may be left blank.
A Job ID Prefix will appear before the system generated job ID and will be separated by a hyphen.

The job ID itself is generated by the system to insure each ID is unique, and it is used by the system to identify each job. The job ID is created using the pattern: YYMMDDI, where "YY" stands for the year (the last two digits), "MM" for the month, "DD" for the day, and "I" for a unique letter starting with "A". The letter distinguishes the ID from other IDs generated on the same day. For example, the first job started on the 15th of January 2004 would have a job ID of 040115A. If more than 26 jobs are started on one day, the letters will be doubled; therefore, the 27th job started on the day of the example would have a job ID of 040115AA. This part of the ID generated by the system and cannot be influenced by the user.
Also the variants in an A/B-split job will get the same job ID as the A/B-split job, suffixed with the "#" character and an additional letter, starting with "A" for the first variant generated, and so on.
Using the example above, if you enter "DOE" as the prefix, the generated ID of the A/B-split job will appear as DOE-040115A, the ID of the first variant will be DOE-040115A#A, the ID of the second variant will be DOE-040115A#B, and so on.

Job Type: Defines the A/B-split type of this A/B-split job:

A/B-Split Job: A job for A/B-splitting of the recipients. Allows you to define a list of recipients, but with several different message content and tracking definitions, in the form of "variant jobs" that are sub jobs of the A/B-split job. During delivery, the list of recipients will be split evenly between all the variant jobs so that each variant job has the same number of recipients, and each variant job will then be delivered to its recipient share.

If tracking is defined for the variant jobs, then the tracking results can be used to assess the "success" of each variant job in comparison to the other variants; therefore, giving you valuable insight into which kind of content has the most impact and which can in turn be used to optimize future jobs.
A/B-Split Job with Sampling: A special version of A/B-splitting, where there are a number of Sampling Variant jobs, plus a Main Variant, which together are the sub jobs of the A/B-split job. The bulk of the recipients are usually reserved for the main variant, while only a smaller part is used for the sampling variants. This smaller part is split evenly between the sampling variants so that each of them has the same number of recipients.

The sampling variants are authorized and delivered first, while the main job is held back. The tracking results of the sampling variants are used to assess the "success" of each variant (just like with a normal A/B-split job). Next, the content of the most successful sampling variant is copied to the main variant (maybe with some additional changes), which is finally authorized and delivered to the bulk of the recipients. That way, the insight gained from the sampling variants is already utilized for the main variant so that the bulk of the recipients already receives the message which has proven most successful of all variants. In contrast to normal A/B-splitting, the insight can only be utilized with the next job. The drawback of this is that of the total list of recipients, some will get the message earlier (the recipients that happen to receive the sampling variants), while the bulk of the recipients will receive the message later when the main variant is finally authorized and delivered.

Note: For each of the recipients of the A/B-Split Job (of either type), the decision as to which of the messages the recipient will receive is completely random, without any bias regarding the recipient's profile values.

Recipients Reserved for Main Job: (Only for A/B-Split Job with Sampling) Defines how many of the total recipients will at least be reserved for the main variant job (in percent of the total number of recipients in the A/B-split job). The number of recipients assigned to the main variant will never be smaller than the percentage defined here. It may however be larger, depending on the second threshold value for the Recipients Limit per Sampling Job.

Recipients Limit per Sampling Job: (Only for A/B-Split Job with Sampling) Defines how many of the total recipients will be used for each sampling variant job (as an absolute number). The number of recipients in each individual sampling variant will never be larger than the number defined here. It may however be smaller, depending on the first threshold value for the Recipients Reserved for Main Job.

Variant Job Delivery / Sampling Variant Job Delivery: Define if all variants (or all sampling variants, in case of an A/B-Split Job with Sampling) shall be delivered at the same time (according to common delivery settings), or if they are to be delivered at different times, with individual delivery settings per variant job.
Note that for an A/B-Split Job with Sampling this settings applies only to the sampling variants. The main variant will always have its own delivery settings and will always be delivered after all sampling variants.

Test Delivery: Defines the behavior of the test delivery state, after the test delivery workflow step has been completed and the test delivery was accepted as "complete" (so that the workflow step is "green").

Reset test delivery state after content change: The test delivery state will be reset to "incomplete" after every change to the content, tracking definition or sender information, so that you are reminded to re-test the changed mail job.
Keep test delivery state after content change: Once the test delivery state has been accepted as complete, it will not be reset to incomplete even if you make changes to the content, tracking definition or sender information, unless you completely reset the content by selecting a new template from the template gallery or by uploading a new content. It remains your own responsibility to make sure that you re-test the changed mail job if you make substantial changes.

Delivery Notification and Statistics Notification: Enter the email addresses to which a delivery or statistics notification message will be mailed after the delivery of the variant jobs in the A/B-split job or after the statistics have been collected. A notification will be sent for each variant job that has been delivered. The delivery notification email will also include the delivery status (success or failure) of each variant job.

These fields are optional. If left empty, no delivery or statistics notification will be sent. You can specify several addresses here, separated by space, linebreak, comma, or semicolon. The first address specified will also be used to populate the "From:" field of the notification emails.

Authorization Due By: If you have a special date and time by which the mail job is supposed to be authorized for delivery, then you can enter this information here. The due date will then be displayed in the job list of open jobs and also on the Dashboard in the Jobs Due Next section as a reminder of which open jobs need your attention most.

For a normal A/B-split job, this setting is labelled "Variant Jobs Authorization Due By" and will apply to all variants in the A/B-split job.

For an A/B-split job with sampling, this setting will appear twice: once with the Sampling Jobs Authorization Due By label and once with the Main Job Authorization Due By label. The first of these defines the "due by" date for all sampling variants, the second defines the "due by" date for the main variant.

Note: All of the above settings can only be edited for jobs that have not yet been delivered.

Auto-Archive: Defines if and when the job will automatically be moved to the archive. There are three available options:

Administrator defined default: The job will be automatically archived (or not) according to the default settings defined by the administrator (as displayed in the option).
Do not automatically archive this job: The job will not be automatically archived.
Automatically move this job to the archive: The job will automatically be archived a certain number of days after the delivery (or delivery failure) of the job. Enter the number of days into the field that appears when this option is selected.

Note: This feature can be used to keep the list of handled jobs clean by automatically removing jobs that are "older" than a certain threshold. However, in contrast to actually deleting the old jobs, this feature moves the job into a special archive folder. The archived jobs will no longer appear in the normal LISTSERV Maestro User Interface (they will appear to have been deleted); however, they can, if necessary, be restored by the LISTSERV Maestro administrator.

Important: Use this feature with care so only jobs that you are not interested in anymore (which are "old enough" to be uninteresting) are archived automatically. And, remember that only the Maestro administrator will be able to restore such an archived job, and when it is restored, the job will appear "frozen" in the state that it had at the moment it was archived (i.e., no further tracking events will be collected for this job).

Recipient Limits for A/B-Split Jobs with Sampling

For an A/B-Split job with sampling, it is necessary for the user to define which part of the list of recipients to use for the main variant job and which part to use for the sampling variants. This is done by defining the Recipients Reserved For Main Job (as a percentage) and Recipients Limit per Sampling Job (as a total value) settings.

These two values are then applied by the system. The first value is used to determine how many of the recipients will belong to the main variant. The remaining recipients are then split equally among the sampling variants. However, no sampling variant will receive more than the number defined in the second value. So, if there are any left-over recipients that are not assigned to any of the sampling variants (because of the second value), then these left-over recipients are assigned to the main variant (which, in this case, will have more recipients than required by the first value, the minimum percentage).