Experiment Design: Measuring Instagram Shopping's Impact
Scenario
Instagram is launching an in-app Shopping feature (e.g., product tags, shop surfaces, in-app checkout). Leadership wants to quantify its incremental impact on user engagement and revenue.
Task
Design an experiment to measure the impact of the Shopping feature on engagement and revenue.
Address:
-
What experimental design(s) would you use and why (e.g., A/B vs. geo hold-out; rollout strategy)?
-
Which metrics (north-star and guardrails) would you monitor, with success criteria?
-
How would you mitigate and measure selection bias and network effects (spillovers across the social graph)?
Considerations
-
Users can influence each other via follows/likes/shares (potential interference).
-
Some users may be eligible but never use the feature (non-compliance).
-
Rare, heavy-tailed outcomes (purchases/GMV) and delayed conversions.
-
Hints: A/B vs. hold-out, north-star metrics, guard-rails, diff-in-diff.