A/B testing

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A/B testing is a method of advertising testing by which a baseline control sample is compared to a variety of single-variable test samples. A classic direct mail tactic, this method has been recently adopted within the interactive space to test tactics such as banner ads, emails and landing pages.

Employers of this A/B testing method will distribute multiple samples of a test, including the control, to see which single variable is most effective in increasing a response rate or other desired outcome. The test, in order to be effective, must reach an audience of a sufficent size that there is a reasonable chance of detecting a meaningful difference between the control and other tactics: see Statistical power.

This method is different than multivariate testing which applies statistical modeling which allows a tester to try multiple variables within the samples distributed.