In Optimizely Experimentation, you can create reusable templates called pages that tell Optimizely Experimentation where and when to deliver experiments, personalized experiences, and recommendations on your site. For example, a page might tell Optimizely Experimentation to run an experiment on your homepage (where), immediately on initial page load (when).
You can tie Optimizely Experimentation pages to a specific URL or pattern of URLs on your website, or you can apply them globally across your entire website.
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Pages are reusable and save you time – Use them to build templates for common URL targeting patterns and activation modes for key parts of your site. Once you create them, you can quickly add them to any future experiment or campaign and make adjustments as needed.
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You can set up pages in advance or in real time – Build out pages that target the most important parts of your site when you set up Optimizely Experimentation. Then, add more as you go when creating experiments or personalization campaigns.
Create a new page in Optimizely Web Experimentation, and read on for how pages work in Optimizely Experimentation and how you might use them.
Anatomy of a page
Pages are building blocks for experiments in Optimizely Experimentation. A page tells Optimizely Experimentation where to run an experiment on your site and when to activate it.
Pages exist in projects, which are workspaces in your Optimizely Experimentation account that are available to a set of collaborators. When you create a page in a project, it is available for use with all experiments in that project.
Pages use URL targeting to identify where you personalize or experiment on your site:
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A single URL where you want to change the experience, such as the homepage of a site.
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A set of URLs that share the same template, such as all the product detail site pages on an e-commerce site.
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A global URL that targets web pages with the Optimizely Experimentation snippet to change elements that appear across the site pages, such as a navigation menu.
Within the boundaries of your project, use the URL patterns above to group parts of your site as pages in Optimizely Experimentation.
Pages also lets you use a set of triggers and conditions that tell Optimizely Experimentation when the page should activate. If you have a traditional, static website, you will likely use the default activation mode—Immediate—most of the time. Immediate activation tells Optimizely Experimentation to activate the page right away when the Optimizely Experimentation snippet loads, so your visitor experience is seamless.
Do you have a single page application (SPA)?
If you work with a single page application, such as a site built on React, Angular, Ember, Backbone, and so on, you may need more granular controls for pages.
Enable Optimizely Experimentation's Support for Dynamic Websites feature to gain access to a kit of additional triggers and conditions, so you can build experiments seamlessly on dynamic content. Combine these triggers and conditions to tell your page to activate when a certain elements load on the page or write custom JavaScript.
When to use pages
Common use cases for Optimizely Experimentation pages:
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Running site-wide experiments on global components like a navigation bar or footer, or targeting click metrics on elements that exist across the site
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Testing feedback solicitation modals or other pop-ups that appear site-wide
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Tracking metrics between variations of a redirect experiment, in which both the original and redirect URLs are targeted
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Running experiments across cart funnels, cart flows, or sign-up flows
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Excluding certain site pages—like checkout or cart—from an experiment, or excluding certain visitors based on their login status, or excluding the entire site except for certain site pages (for example, international pages)
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Targeting categories of related site pages (for example, search results site pages, PDPs, support pages or knowledge articles, and landing pages) as a way of streamlining the process of setting up experiments involving those sections of the site
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Binding visual tags to site pages
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Targeting each instance in multi-level environments; this way, you can avoid automatically creating a duplicate site page when the instance is promoted to the next environment
If you set up key components for experimentation across your whole site, see preparing your Optimizely Web Experimentation project.
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