Create Messages in Random Sampling Mode

You should use random sampling mode when you want to send a sample of test messages to your audience before determining the best one to use as a final message.

When creating messages in random sampling mode, you define different message content, designs, delivery, and proofing options for each version of your message. After you evaluate the effectiveness of your test messages, you create a final message and send it.

For the best practice on how to handle scheduling, see Scheduling Mailings and Surveys for Market Testing.

1. From the Select Market Testing Mode window, select Random Sampling and click OK.
   The Message tab (mailings) or Invitation Message tab (surveys) displays in random sampling mode.

   By default, one test message is sent to five percent of the audience, and one final message sent to the remainder of the audience. You can add more messages, edit the messages, send proofs, or view results. From here, you can also see information about each message.

   Message Tab / Invitation Message Tab

   Column	Description
   Name	This column displays the name of the message.
   Subject	This column displays the email subject line for the message.
   Status	This column displays the status of the message. See and .
   Audience	This column displays the percentage of the audience the message will be sent to.
   Sent	This column displays the number of emails sent with the message.
   Delivered	This column displays the number of emails sent with the message that did not bounce.
   Opened	This column displays the number of unique email recipients who opened the message.
   Clicked	This column displays the number of unique email recipients who clicked a tracked link.
   Unsubscribed	This column displays the number of email recipients who unsubscribed from mailings. Unsubscribe sets global opt-in in both Outreach and Feedback. See .
   Replied	This column displays the number of times the mailing was replied to.

2. Click New on the toolbar to add a second message.
   The Edit Message window opens.
3. Enter the name of the message in the Name field.
4. Enter the number or percentage of recipients you want to receive the message in the Test Audience field and select Percent or Recipients from the drop-down list.
   The percentage of recipients is based on the number of contacts in the audience at the time the mailing is sent.
5. Enter the subject of the message in the Subject field on the Content tab. See .
6. Define any other content or formatting options you may want to test using either the HTML editor or the Text editor on the Content tab. See and .
7. To send a proof message, click the Proofing tab on the Edit Message window. See .
8. Click the Delivery tab on the Edit Message window to define the delivery options for the message. See or .
   Tip: When sending multiple test cells, we recommend scheduling them to be sent all at one time rather than a few minutes apart. This minimizes any performance impact on your database by sharing audience segmentation processes across all of the sending cells, instead of performing them multiple times.
9. Click OK to save the test message.
   The new message is added to the Message (mailings) or the Invitation Message (surveys) tab.
10. To open a message for editing, select the message and click Open.
11. To delete a message, select the message and click Delete.
    Note: You cannot delete the final message.
12. To copy a message to create a new message, select the message and click Copy.
    A document is automatically created and stored in the Automatically Generated folder in the Documents explorer for every copy of a test message. Changes made to content in any of the copied test messages is not shared with the original test message or subsequent copies. See .
13. To send a proof of a message, select the message and click Send Proof.
14. To preview the content of a message, select the message and click Preview.
15. To refresh the message statistics, click Refresh.
16. To add URL parameters, enter any parameters you want to append to the links in your message (for example, p1=v1&p2=v2) in the URL Parameters field.
17. To add a merge field to the URL parameters, click the Merge Field icon to the right of the URL Parameters field and select the field. See .
18. When you are satisfied with your message, you must copy it as your final message and then define delivery options.
    1. Select the message and click Copy To Final.
       The message you selected is copied to the Final Message section of the Message tab (mailings) or the Invitation Message (surveys) tab.
    2. Click OK.
    3. Select the final message and click Open.
       The Edit Message window opens.
    4. Click the Delivery tab on the Edit Message window to define delivery options.