In today's data-driven world, we A/B test everything: landing pages, email subject lines, button colors, and ad copy. We do it to optimize for conversions, engagement, and revenue. But here's a question: are you applying that same rigor to your backend processes?
Your automated workflows—the invisible engines that power your business—are ripe for optimization. From customer onboarding sequences to order fulfillment logic, small changes can lead to significant gains in efficiency, cost savings, and customer satisfaction.
The key to unlocking this potential is moving beyond "set it and forget it" automation. It's time to start experimenting. This guide will show you how to A/B test your automations using the power of event-driven triggers, turning your business logic into a laboratory for continuous improvement.
If a workflow runs successfully, why change it? Because "successful" doesn't always mean "optimal." By experimenting with your automations, you can achieve tangible business outcomes:
The secret to effective workflow A/B testing lies at the very beginning of the process: the trigger.
On an event-driven platform like Triggers.do, a trigger is the predefined condition that initiates a workflow. It listens for real-time events—like a user signing up or a payment being processed—and then kicks off a specific action. The magic is that you can apply powerful filters to these triggers, ensuring they only fire under the exact conditions you specify.
This filtering capability is what makes A/B testing not just possible, but elegant. You can create two (or more) different triggers that listen for the same event but route to different workflows based on a filtering condition. You effectively "split" the stream of incoming events into different experimental groups.
Let's walk through a practical example.
Scenario: We want to improve our user onboarding. We have a hypothesis that a more hands-on onboarding sequence will lead to better long-term retention.
Our goal is to send 50% of new users to Workflow A and the other 50% to Workflow B. We can achieve this by creating two triggers that use a simple condition to split the traffic. Many event payloads include a numeric user ID. We can use the modulo operator (%) to determine if the ID is even or odd.
Here’s how you would define this using Triggers.do:
This trigger listens for the auth.user.created event and checks if the userId is an even number. If it is, it starts the Onboarding_Standard workflow.
import { Trigger } from 'triggers.do';
// Trigger for the 'Onboarding_Standard' workflow (even user IDs)
const standardOnboardingTrigger = new Trigger({
event: 'auth.user.created',
filter: 'data.userId % 2 === 0', // <-- The splitting logic
action: {
workflow: 'Onboarding_Standard',
inputs: {
userId: '{{data.userId}}',
userEmail: '{{data.email}}'
}
}
});
await standardOnboardingTrigger.activate();
This trigger listens for the exact same event but has a different filter. It checks for odd-numbered userIds and starts the Onboarding_Enhanced workflow.
import { Trigger } from 'triggers.do';
// Trigger for the 'Onboarding_Enhanced' workflow (odd user IDs)
const enhancedOnboardingTrigger = new Trigger({
event: 'auth.user.created',
filter: 'data.userId % 2 !== 0', // <-- The splitting logic
action: {
workflow: 'Onboarding_Enhanced',
inputs: {
userId: '{{data.userId}}',
userEmail: '{{data.email}}'
}
}
});
await enhancedOnboardingTrigger.activate();
With these two simple triggers activated, your A/B test is live. Every new user who signs up will now be automatically funneled into one of your two onboarding experiments. All that's left is to measure the results over time by tracking your key activation or retention metrics for each group.
The power of workflow triggers goes far beyond a simple A/B test. You can orchestrate more sophisticated experiments with ease.
Canary Deployments: Before rolling out a critical new workflow, Fulfillment_v2, you can deploy it to a small fraction of events. Set a trigger with a filter like 'Math.random() < 0.1' to send just 10% of traffic to the new version. This allows you to monitor for errors and performance issues in a controlled manner before a full release.
Multi-Variate Testing: Why stop at two variations? As our FAQs note, a single event can activate multiple workflows. You can create Triggers A, B, C, and D, each with a different filter and pointing to a different workflow variation, allowing for complex, multi-variate process experiments.
Segment-Specific Tests: Test different logic for different user segments. Use your trigger's filter to target users based on their plan (data.plan === 'enterprise'), region (data.geo.country === 'DE'), or any other attribute present in the event data.
Event-driven automation is not just about connecting systems; it's about making those connections smarter, faster, and more effective. By treating your automated processes as living systems that can be measured and improved, you unlock a new frontier of optimization.
Platforms like Triggers.do give you the granular control needed to run these experiments simply and safely. The ability to filter and route real-time events to different workflows is the foundation for data-driven process improvement.
Ready to automate at the speed of your business—and then make it even faster? Explore what you can build with Triggers.do.