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Not sure which subject line will get more people to open your email? Give the campaign two to five of them. Hiveku splits your audience evenly, sends everyone the same email at the same time with one of the subjects, and the campaign’s report shows how each subject did. This guide tests two subjects for Northwind’s Holiday Gift Box email on the Docs test list.
Northwind’s Docs test list is made of test addresses that accept email but never open it, so both subjects show an open rate of 0%. On a real list, the open rates start to differ within hours of the send.

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Write the subjects

1

Start a campaign

Click Marketing in the left rail, then the Email Marketing card, and click New campaign. Fill in the campaign as in Create, Test and Send an Email Campaign.
2

Tick A/B test subject line

Type your first subject in Subject line, then tick A/B test subject line. The first box becomes Subject A, and a Subject B box appears below it. Half your audience gets Subject A and half gets Subject B.
Subject A, Early access: the Northwind Holiday Gift Box, outlined; A/B test subject line, ticked and outlined, with Split recipients evenly across two to five subjects. The campaign report will show which one had a higher open rate; and Subject B, Be the first to see our Holiday Gift Box, outlined, with Add another subject (up to 5) below

Two subjects for the Holiday Gift Box email

3

Add more subjects if you like

Click Add another subject (up to 5) to test a third, fourth or fifth subject. The audience is then split evenly across all of them.
4

Save, test and send

Pick the audience, sender and email, click Save draft, then use Test send, Quality check and Dry run before you send, as for any campaign. The campaign’s page shows Subject A under its name.
If Dry run says Fix these before sending because the footer has no mailing address, your template is missing it. Every marketing email needs your mailing address and an unsubscribe link: add them to the template’s footer, or click Edit on the campaign and add them to its body. Northwind’s Holiday Gift Box template had no address, so it added one to this campaign’s own copy.

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See which subject did better

Open the campaign once it is sent. Under the usual numbers, A/B test · subject line has a card for each subject: how many people got it, and its open and click rates.
A/B test · subject line, with two outlined cards: Variant A, Early access: the Northwind Holiday Gift Box, Sent 3, Open rate 0.0%, Click rate 0.0%; and Variant B, Be the first to see our Holiday Gift Box, Sent 4, Open rate 0.0%, Click rate 0.0%

Subject A went to 3 people and Subject B to 4

When one subject’s open rate is more than 2 points ahead of every other, its card turns green and says Winning. Closer than that, the difference is too small to mean much, and no card is marked.

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Good to know

  • Everyone gets the email at once. Hiveku doesn’t send to a small test group first and the winner to everyone else later. Use what you learn for your next campaign.
  • Bigger lists tell you more. A difference between a few dozen people is mostly chance. Test on an audience of a few thousand people if you can.
  • Each person gets one subject, and the email itself is the same for everyone.
  • More: See How Your Email Campaign Did explains every number in the report, and Campaigns covers every campaign setting.