Create a Multivariate Campaign

When you create an email marketing campaign, there are many ways to present your content, but you may wonder which way is best. Use our multivariate testing feature to see how small changes to your email campaigns impact subscriber engagement.

In this article, you'll learn how to create and edit a multivariate campaign.

Before you start

• This feature is included with Mailchimp Pro or our Premium plan.
• Before you create a multivariate campaign, you may want to familiarize yourself with the terminology and ways they can be used.
• We recommend you send each combination to at least 5,000 subscribed contacts to get the most useful data, but smaller tests can still help you learn about your audience’s preferences.
• Wait at least four hours after you send a multivariate campaign to send a winning campaign. Many subscribers won't engage with your email campaign sooner, which can misinform your test results. Shorter test times may cause a losing combination to go out to the rest of your recipients. You can see the campaign results at the time the winner was selected in the campaign report.
• In multivariate campaigns where content is a variable, choose the winner by best click rate, since opens occur before a recipient views your content.

Create a multivariate campaign

Multivariate campaigns are built in a series of steps. First you'll create and name your campaign, then you'll choose your recipients, decide which variables to test, choose your setup, and add your content. Last, you'll confirm that everything looks good and send.

To create a new multivariate campaign, follow these steps.

1. Click the Create icon.
   
2. Click Email.
   
3. Click Multivariate.
4. Enter a campaign name and click Begin.
   

Recipients step

On the Recipients step of the campaign builder, choose the audience or segment you want to send your email campaign to. You can configure a new segment on this screen or choose a saved segment.

Variables step

You'll configure the elements you want to test on the Variables step.

On the Variables step, you'll choose whether to test your subject line, From name, content, or send time. You can choose to test up to 3 variables at once.

To configure your variables, follow these steps.

1. On the Variables step, click each variable you want to test.
2. Click the plus or minus icons to add or remove additional variations of the variable.
   You can test up to three of four variables, to create up to eight combinations. The number of variations of each variable multiplied together equals the number of combinations. This number is shown in the Summary. For example, if you want to test 3 subject lines and 2 variations of content, we'll generate 6 combinations of your email campaign.
3. Under How should we split your recipients?, click and drag the slider to set the percentage your recipients you want to send your test combinations to.
   
   Send combinations to 100% of your recipients if your audience or segment doesn't allow for 5,000 subscribers in each combination. If you're testing Send time, this is your only option.
4. Review the Summary to see how many of your subscribers will receive each combination.
5. Choose whether to determine a winner based on open rate, click rate, total revenue, or manually. Then, choose how long you want the test to run.
   
   At the end of the test phase, we'll send the winning combination to your remaining recipients.

During the test phase, you can convert to manual selection to choose the winner from the campaign report.

Setup step

Depending on which variables you test, the Setup step will present multiple Email subject, From email address and name, and Subject line fields.

To choose your setup, follow these steps.

1. Type in your variation content in the fields provided. Settings for Send time variations also appear on this step.
   
2. Check the boxes next to your preferred settings or tracking options.

Content step

The Content step is where you add content for your campaign. What you see on this step will vary if you choose to test content.

Test subject line, From name, or send time

To add content when your variable is subject line, From name, or send time, follow these steps.

1. On the Template step of the content builder, choose your layout.
2. On the Design step of the content builder, design and test your content.
3. When everything is how you want, click Confirm Before Sending.

Test content

If your variable is content, the Content step shows a preview for each variation.

To add content to each variation, follow these steps.

1. Click Add Content for any variation of your email.
   
2. On the Template step of the content builder, choose your layout.
3. On the Design step of the content builder, design and test your content. When everything is how you want, click Next.
4. On the Description step of the content builder, type in text to describe the variation of the content. Your subscribers won't see this description, but it will help you remember the differences between each variation.
   
5. Click Continue to content to return to your content variations.
6. Repeat steps 1-5 for each content variation. On the Template step, use a different template or select a variation you already designed in the Previous Variations tab.
   
7. When everything is how you want, click Next.

Confirm step

The Confirm step is where you'll review the combinations that make up your Multivariate campaign and send them when ready.

To confirm and send your Multivariate campaign, follow these steps.

1. Review the pre-delivery checklist. Click Resolve or Edit to make changes to any section.
2. After you're finished, Send your campaign now or Schedule it to go out later.
   

Account users with a Manager user level or higher will receive an email when a winner has been automatically chosen, or after four hours if you haven't yet picked a winner manually.

Manually choose winner

If you chose Manual Selection from the drop-down menu on the Variables step of the Campaign Builder, you'll be able to view the campaign report after the test combinations are sent, and choose the winner.

To manually choose a winner, follow these steps.

1. Click Analytics, then click Reports.
2. Click View Report for the Multivariate campaign you want to work with.
3. An alert will tell you how long into the testing phase you are and recommend that you wait at least four hours.
   
4. Review the report for each combination. Under Finalize your test, click the radio button next to the combination you want to send to your remaining subscribers.
   
5. Click Send To Remaining Recipients.
   
6. Click Send Now in the confirmation pop-up modal to send the winning campaign.

Convert to manual selection

After you send your test with the choice to have the winner chosen by open rate, click rate, or total revenue, you may decide that you want to manually choose the winning combination instead.

To convert to manual selection after you sent your campaign, follow these steps.

1. Click Analytics, then click Reports.
2. Click View Report for the Multivariate campaign you want to work with.
3. Click Convert to manual selection in the alert block.
   
4. In the pop-up modal, type CONVERT and click Convert.
   
5. When you're ready, choose a combination to immediately send to your remaining recipients.