Best Practices for Scaling A/B Testing With Experiment Protocols
Datadog, Monday, October 26th, 2026
Datadog explains how experiment protocols turn an approved A/B testing methodology into reusable configurations for scaling experiments.
Datadog describes experiment protocols in Datadog Experiments, which turn an approved methodology into a reusable configuration so experiments of the same type start consistently.
A protocol carries the subject type, primary and secondary metrics, randomization defaults, exposure schedule, duration, analysis settings and notification recipients, and only published protocols are available to experimenters.
The post recommends defining primary metrics and guardrails before launch, using deterministic salted hashing for randomization, and staging exposure such as 1%, 5%, 25% and then an even split.
It also covers diagnostic checks for issues like traffic imbalance and missing assignments before interpreting results.