{
  "abstract": "This paper advocates for using blocked (stratified) assignment in online A/B tests to handle highly skewed population data. While blocking yields only modest precision gains (5-10%) due to the limits of discretization, the authors demonstrate it offers two crucial structural benefits over post-hoc statistical adjustments. First, fixed-weight blocking correctly targets the true average treatment effect, avoiding the severe bias introduced by efficiency-weighted alternatives. Second, blocking localizes extreme outliers, enabling targeted within-block winsorization that effectively controls noise without destroying the tail-end treatment effect.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": "2610.10435",
  "author_total": 5,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Abbas Zaidi"
    },
    {
      "name": "Matthew Reimherr"
    },
    {
      "name": "Rina Friedberg"
    },
    {
      "name": "Fabian Martinez"
    },
    {
      "name": "Richard Mudd"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/9x6dy8kvjaphr.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2610.10435",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "9x6dy8kvjaphr",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.10435",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "stat.AP"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "2613|Advanced Causal Inference Techniques"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7220924401",
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2610.10435",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-07",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/9x6dy8kvjaphr.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:27:48Z",
      "native_id": "2610.10435",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.10435"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "mathematics",
      "origin": "arxiv:stat.AP",
      "subfield": "statistics"
    }
  ],
  "title": "On the Benefit of Blocking for Online Experiments with Skewed Data",
  "title_text": "On the Benefit of Blocking for Online Experiments with Skewed Data",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:27:48Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/9x6dy8kvjaphr",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": []
}