Back to Search
Start Over
Covariate Ordered Systematic Sampling as an Improvement to Randomized Controlled Trials
- Publication Year :
- 2024
-
Abstract
- The Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) or A/B testing is considered the gold standard method for estimating causal effects. Fisher famously advocated randomly allocating experiment units into treatment and control groups to preclude systematic biases. We propose a variant of systematic sampling called Covariate Ordered Systematic Sampling (COSS). In COSS, we order experimental units using a pre-experiment covariate and allocate them alternately into treatment and control groups. Using theoretical proofs, experiments on simulated data, and hundreds of A/B tests conducted within 3 real-world marketing campaigns, we show how our method achieves better sensitivity gains than commonly used variance reduction techniques like CUPED while retaining the simplicity of RCTs.
- Subjects :
- Statistics - Methodology
Statistics - Applications
Subjects
Details
- Database :
- arXiv
- Publication Type :
- Report
- Accession number :
- edsarx.2404.10381
- Document Type :
- Working Paper