In this article, we report the results of an experimental sensitivity analysis on a vertical electrically heated Rijke tube. We examine the stability characteristics of the system due to the introduction of a secondary heat source. The experimental sensitivity analysis is quantified by measuring the shift in linear growth and decay rate as well as the shift in the linear frequency during periods of growth and decay of thermoacoustic oscillations. Linear growth and decay rate measurements agree qualitatively well with the theoretical predictions from adjoint-based methods. A discrepancy in the linear frequency measurements highlight deficiencies in the model used for those predictions and shows that the experimental measurement of sensitivities is a stringent test of any thermoacoustic model. The findings suggest that adjoint-based methods are, in principle, capable of providing industry with a cheap and efficient tool for developing optimal control strategies for more complex thermoacoustic systems.