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Choose Randomization Unit for Referrals

HardA/B Testing & Experimentation00:00
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Your question is Choose Randomization Unit for Referrals. Take a moment with it on the right.

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Problem

Scenario

You work on a consumer fintech app and want to test a growth change in the referral and invite experience. The treatment could affect not just the exposed user, but also the friends they invite and the households they belong to, so you are worried that a naive user-level split may contaminate results.

Question

How would you think about the right unit of randomization for this growth experiment? Walk through how your choice would affect metric definition, power, and the validity of the test.

What This Tests

  • Choosing between user, household, and cluster randomization
  • Recognizing network interference and SUTVA risk
  • Defining a primary metric with guardrails and MDE
  • Reasoning about power loss from clustered designs