Create multi-page (funnel) tests in Optimizely Web Experimentation

  • Updated
Relevant products:
  • Optimizely Web Experimentation
  • Optimizely Performance Edge
This topic describes how to:
  • Set up multi-page (funnel) experiments in Optimizely Web Experimentation
  • Use the Editor to add pages to an individual variation

In a traditional A/B test, the changes being tested are usually contained on a single page. But what if you want to test a hypothesis that affects more than just one page or even every page on your site?

Maybe your hypothesis is that your conversion rate will improve by reducing the amount of text throughout your site. You will want to make sure your visitors are not switching back and forth between pages with vastly different amounts of text: if a visitor starts with a page that has less text, they should only see pages with less text for the duration of their visit.

Multi-page (funnel) experiments allow you to do this. In a multi-page experiment, visitors who saw the original version of page 1 will also see the original version of page 2, while visitors who saw Variation 1 of page 1 will also see Variation 1 of page 2. This approach is particularly helpful for funnel testing.

Optimizely Performance Edge is a lightweight experimentation product that delivers significantly faster performance than previous versions of Optimizely. It does this by relying on a streamlined "microsnippet" which limits the range of available features.

Optimizely Performance Edge and Optimizely Web Experimentation handle multi-page experiments the same way, so all information contained in this article applies to experiments created with either version of Optimizely.

You can build multi-page experiments as part of your standard workflow. You can create multi-page experiments by adding more pages to your campaign. Multi-page experiments work seamlessly with pages, so you only have to set them up once in a campaign. There is no limit to how many pages can be added to a campaign.

You also have two ways to create a multi-page experiment: from the Experiments dashboard or directly in the Editor. This article walks you through both options.

From the Experiments dashboard

To get started, navigate to the Experiments dashboard and click on your experiment.

Add pages

Next, add the pages you want to test to your experiment.

create-page-from-targeting.gif

  1. Begin by clicking Targeting.

  2. A list of pages that are currently part of the experiment appear. To add another, click Create New Page.

    Note that you are not actually creating a new page on your website in this step. In this context, the word "page" is referring to a page template within Optimizely Experimentation.

  3. In the New Page module, name your page. Then, use URL Targeting to specify a single URL or pattern of URLs for this page.

  4. When you are done, click Create Page. You are returned to the list of pages included in this experiment. Note that the page you just created, "Landing page 1," is now visible at the bottom of the list.

  5. Repeat this process for each page you want to add to the experiment. When you are done adding pages, click Save to save your changes or Revert to undo your changes.

Add a variation

Now that you added all the pages you want to include in this test, it is time to add them to a variation.

create-variation-from-exp.gif

  1. Under Manage Experiment, click Variations > Add Variation and type in the name of your new variation. Repeat this step until you have added all the variations you need.
  2. When you have finished adding variations, click Save. The new variation is added to your experiment.
  3. Now it is time to make changes to the pages in your variation. Click the Edit button to the right of your variation's name to open the variation in the Editor.
  4. Select the first page you want to change from the drop-down list at the top of your browser.

See this article for more information on using the Editor in Optimizely Web Experimentation.

From the Editor

Sometimes, you might want one variation of a multi-page experiment to include pages that are not in the original. When you create a new variation, all the pages automatically included that have been added to the experiment up to that point. When building an experiment, you can add pages to a variation to create a multi-page experiment from the Editor. Complete the step-by-step instructions below:

create-mulit-page-exp.gif

  1. From the Experiments dashboard, open your experiment and click Manage Experiment > Variations.

  2. Click the name of the variation to which you want to add pages to. The Editor opens.

  3. Click the drop-down list at the top of your browser. Select Edit Targeting.

  4. A list of pages that are currently part of the variation appears. To add another, click Create New Page.

  5. Repeat this for each page you want to add to the variation.

You can also add an existing page to your variation by selecting it from the list under Browse for Pages. This can be useful if you created a new page after you created this variation, and now you want to go back and add that page in.

Now that you have added all the necessary pages to your variation, you can edit them in the Editor and launch your experiment.

Congratulations! You have created a multi-page experiment.