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The profile sampling feature in BlueConic assigns a random number to each BlueConic profile, which enables you to run tests or deliver messages to randomly created test groups. BlueConic automatically creates the Sample ID profile property for all profiles and adds a number value to it between 1 and 100.

Uses for profile sampling in BlueConic

You can use the Sample ID property to create random groups of profiles. Ways to use random sampling to optimize your marketing include:

• Use test groups to perform experiments across multiple messages or dialogues.
• Perform comparative multichannel marketing campaigns.
• Measure the effects of using an orchestrated Lifecycle against an existing campaign.
• Create a 'hold-out group' of profiles and exclude them from particular campaigns.
• Run an experiment for a holiday sales campaign, for example, where 10% of your customers see a dialogue and receive an email, while a control group sees only a dialogue.
• Target 80% of customers with a personalized email vs. 20% with a non-personalized email and compare opens or clicks.
• Measure web push notification success, using BlueConic insights.
• In AI Workbench, you can train AI models against a random sample of profiles instead of against your whole profile database.

Sample ID property

You can use the Sample ID property to create random groups of profiles.

The assigned numbers are evenly distributed across all of your profiles, including visitor profiles and those imported via connections. The BlueConic Global Listener assigns Sample IDs (randomly) between 1 and 100 to each profile in your database. This number is written once to the profile and is not updated or changed. 

Profile merging and Sample IDs

Because Sample IDs are assigned to profiles by BlueConic, during profile merging the first stored value is retained. The Sample ID profile property will not store more than one value and is not updated during the merge.

Creating segments and sample groups for your campaigns and lifecycles

Say you want to create a test campaign randomly targeted to 50% of your profiles. Follow the steps outlined below to create a sample test group segment of profiles with Sample IDs between 1 and 50. (Of course you can use any set of 50 values for the profile ID; each sample ID value between 1 and 100 represents 1% of your total profiles.)

1. Select an existing segment to serve as an audience for testing. In this example, we start with a 'Holiday Campaign' segment of 52.8k profiles, including customers who have consented to receive personalized emails.
   
2. To create a test audience of 50% of these profiles, click the Save button's dropdown menu and select Save as.
3. Rename the new segment 'Holiday Campaign - Sample A', and click OK.
4. To refine the segment definition click AND to choose an additional profile property for the segment definition.
   
5. Search for the 'sample ID' profile property, which BlueConic creates and fills automatically with a random number between 1 and 100.
   
6. For the profile property condition, select values from 1 to 50. Save your changes.
   
   The test segment contains a random set of 50% of the Holiday Campaign audience, or 26.4k profiles.
7. Create a Control Group segment using sample ID values from 51-100.
   
8. With profile sampling, you can create test segments such as these for targeting, testing campaigns, and trying out new offers.

Contact your Customer Success Manager to learn more about profile sampling and how it can benefit your applications.