In marketing analytics, hold out testing refers to the practice of withholding a particular marketing promotion or campaign from a segment of the target audience in order to compare their behavior to a control group that does receive the marketing promotion.
This method is used to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing strategies or campaigns by measuring differences in consumer behavior, such as purchases or engagement, between the two groups.
It is also used in CRO or product analytics in the form of A/B testing that measures the long-term effects of product / website changes.
These holdout tests prevent a small group of users from seeing your changes for a long period of time, usually weeks or months after the experiment ends.
It helps in understanding the true impact of the marketing effort on consumer decisions.
