Methods include treating a portion of a sample composition to be tested for presence of an analyte by depleting or blocking the target analyte. The treated composition may be used to equilibrate an acoustic wave sensor prior to exposing the sensor to the untreated sample composition for analysis. By using the treated sample composition, in which the analyte is depleted or blocked, to equilibrate the sensor, the sensor may be equilibrated with a composition having a similar viscosity and non-specific binding characteristics to the untreated sample composition, which should result in improved accuracy when analyzing the analyte in the untreated sample composition.