A/B test your emails

Send up to five versions of an email to different leads and see which one gets more replies.

Updated 3 October 2026

An A/B test sends different versions of an email — variants A to E — to different leads, and the campaign's Analytics shows the replies each one got. Test a subject, an opening line, a question at the end.

Start a test

  1. On the Sequence tab, under the email, click A/B test this email.
  2. Variant B appears as a copy of A. Change what you want to test — often just the subject or one line.
  3. For more, click Add variant — up to five. A new variant starts as a copy of the one on screen.
  4. Switch between them with the tabs Variant A, Variant B …
  5. Click Save sequence.

An email with variants A and B — the preview marks the one this lead gets

Each variant is checked as an email of its own: every variant of the first email needs a subject, and none may be empty. In a follow-up, a variant with an empty subject replies in the lead's thread; one with a subject starts a new thread.

Who gets which variant

  • Each lead gets one of the variants switched on, picked at random — each about as often as the others.
  • A lead always gets the same one. Preview as a lead says which on the email's box (Version B); open the box to see every variant, the lead's own marked This lead gets it.
  • Each email's test is separate: a lead can get A of one email and B of the next.
  • A follow-up in the same thread replies to the subject that lead got.

End a test

Switch Send variant B off and save: leads who haven't had the email yet get one of the other variants. Its numbers stay in Analytics, marked Off. The last variant that's on can't be switched off.

Important

Once a test has sent, switch variants off rather than removing them. Remove variant B moves the letters after it up — C becomes B — while the numbers stay with the letter.

Compare the results

On the campaign's Analytics tab, the email reads A/B test · 2 variants, with a row per variant below it: sent, replied, reply rate and bounced. A reply counts for the variant the lead's first reply answered. See Campaign analytics.

Analytics: each variant of the email with its sends and replies

A/B tests are for emails. LinkedIn steps have no variants — vary their words with spintax.

More in Campaigns

Create a campaign and add leads Name a new campaign, choose its channels, add the people on your contact lists as its leads — or duplicate one. Write your sequence Write your first email and its follow-ups, set the days between them and check them in the flow, as one of your leads gets them. Variables and fallbacks Put each lead's own details into your messages — and say what goes there when a detail is missing. Spintax: vary your wording Write {Hi|Hello|Hey} and each lead gets one of the options, so your messages don't all read the same. Auto Enrichment: research each lead Looks each lead up on the web — company news, their posts, hiring — for a personal intro. Auto Personalization: a personal intro for each lead AI writes each lead a short personal opening line; the rest of your message stays the same. Send leads to Clay, Make, n8n or Zapier The Webhook step sends each lead to your own tool and puts what it sends back into your messages. Schedule: when messages go out Choose the days and hours your campaign sends in, its time zone — and, if you like, the day it starts. Campaign options Choose the accounts a campaign sends from, how fast it sends, and when a lead stops. Launch, pause and resume What a campaign needs before it launches, what pausing does, and when a lead or a campaign stops by itself. Campaign analytics What a campaign sent, who replied and the opportunities it made — in total, day by day and per step.