How to Prioritize Your A/B Tests: PIE vs ICE Frameworks

A/B testing can help you uncover what works best for your audience. But with limited resources and dozens of ideas, where do you start? Prioritizing your A/B tests ensures you’re getting the biggest bang for your buck. In this guide, we'll focus on two popular frameworks to help you do just that: the PIE and ICE frameworks.

1. The PIE Framework

The PIE framework helps prioritize A/B tests by evaluating each idea based on three factors: Potential, Importance, and Ease.

- Potential: How much impact could the test have if successful? Tests with the potential to significantly improve key metrics should score highly.

- Importance: This measures how crucial the page or element is to your overall goals. High-traffic pages and critical funnel steps are more important and should rank higher.

- Ease: This assesses how simple it is to implement the test. Tests requiring minimal resources and low complexity should score higher, allowing quicker execution and learnings.

Rate each test for Potential, Importance, and Ease on a scale of 1-10, then add the scores. The higher the total, the higher the priority. PIE helps you focus on impactful tests that are both feasible and strategically important.

2. The ICE Framework

The ICE framework is another effective way to prioritize A/B tests by evaluating Impact, Confidence, and Ease.

- Impact: Similar to PIE, Impact assesses the potential effect of a successful test. Tests that could drive significant results should score highly.

- Confidence: Confidence measures how certain you are that the test will succeed, based on available data. Historical evidence, user feedback, or solid data should boost confidence scores.

- Ease: Like PIE, Ease evaluates how simple the test is to implement. Prioritize tests that require low effort for quick insights.

Rate each test on Impact, Confidence, and Ease, then add the scores. ICE ensures your tests are not only impactful but also supported by evidence, increasing the likelihood of success.

Choosing Between PIE and ICE

Both frameworks are highly useful. Choosing between them depends on your team's focus:

- Use PIE when evaluating the strategic importance of pages or elements. It’s ideal for prioritizing tests that align with critical business goals by focusing on potential value and importance.

- Use ICE when you want a data-driven approach that factors in confidence. If you have strong user data or historical performance, ICE helps ensure you invest in tests that are likely to succeed.

Prioritizing A/B tests is about making informed decisions to maximize value. The PIE and ICE frameworks provide simple but powerful ways to rank and prioritize your testing ideas. Whether you choose PIE for its strategic focus or ICE for its emphasis on data-backed confidence, these frameworks help you systematically prioritize impactful, feasible tests that align with your goals.