Troubleshoot: Not seeing the right experience in a campaign

  • Updated

This topic describes how to:

  • Figure out why you are not seeing the right experience in an Optimizely Web Personalization campaign
  • Figure out whether you are qualifying for the right audience in an Optimizely Web Personalization campaign
  • Figure out if you are in the campaign holdback

Are you experiencing any of the following issues:

  • You published your campaign, but you are not seeing the personalized experience that you expect

  • Unsure if you are qualifying for an audience

  • You want to know if you are in the holdback of a campaign

This article will help you troubleshoot the experiences in your live campaign. If you want to QA unpublished changes in your campaign, read about the Preview tool.

Check that the snippet is configured

First, check that the Optimizely Web Experimentation snippet is installed and configured to include Optimizely Web Personalization. You will do both of these things in the browser console.

  1. Load your page in a browser and open the console.

  2. Once the console is open, type optimizely. If it returns an object, Optimizely Web Personalization is enabled. If it returns an error, such as optimizely is not defined, the snippet is not implemented correctly. Learn about implementing the snippet.

  3. Check that the snippet installed synchronously at the top of the page.
    Make sure that the snippet is at the top of your <head> tag, as we recommend in the snippet implementation walkthrough.

  4. Make sure Optimizely Web Personalization is included in the snippet.
    In Optimizely Web Personalization, navigate to the Settings dashboard. Under the Implementation tab, toggle the drop-down list to Enabled.

Check that the snippet is up to date

Here is how to check whether the snippet includes your most recent publication.

Check the console log

If you run into issues during your QA process that you cannot easily diagnose, the Optimizely Web Experimentation log is a valuable resource. Think of the log as a way of "reading Optimizely Web Experimentation's mind."

You can also read about campaign activation in our developer documentation to learn how to search the console log and see if you are in the campaign.

If you are in the campaign but you are not seeing the experience you expect, check if you are in the holdback. Not sure what a holdback is? Here is a reminder.

If you are not in the campaign, check your URL targeting.

Check the holdback

Are you not seeing a personalized experience because you are in a campaign holdback? Here is how to check.

In the console log, use the following methods:

window.optimizely.get('state').getCampaignStateLists()['<campaignId>'][0].isInCampaignHoldback

If the value returned is true, you are in the holdback. So, not receiving a personalized experience is expected behavior. Try visiting the page again with an incognito browser.

If the value returned is false, you are not in the holdback. Next, check that you are qualifying for the audience you expect.

Check audience prioritization

Finally, check your audience prioritization. If your campaign has multiple experiences, your prioritization setup determines which experience a visitor sees if they qualify for two or more audience.

In the console log, enter

window.optimizely.get('data').campaigns['<campaignId>'].experiments

then expand the Array to see all audiences prioritized from first to last.

If audiences are prioritized incorrectly and the snippet is up to date, return to your campaign to check your audience setup.

If the setup looks right but you are still not seeing the experience you expect, consider filing a support ticket. We are happy to help.