A/B Test Design: Personalized Marketing Emails and Conversion Lift
Scenario
An e-commerce firm wants to send personalized marketing emails to increase purchase conversions and evaluate the impact rigorously.
Tasks
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Design an A/B test to measure whether personalized emails increase conversion rate. Specify:
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Unit of randomization and exposure rules
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Control vs. treatment definition
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Primary metric and guardrail metrics
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Statistical test and analysis approach
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Minimum Detectable Effect (MDE)
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Required sample size and expected test duration
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After rolling out to the full user base, a new director reruns the test and observes only a 2% lift versus the original 20%. List plausible causes and the specific analyses you would run to diagnose the discrepancy.
Hints
Consider experiment design, power analysis, instrumentation issues, seasonality, user overlap/interference, novelty effects, and segmentation cuts.