Set up revenue tracking in Optimizely Web Experimentation

Optimizely Web Experimentation can track total revenue from purchases or other events on your site, and attribute the amount to a specific experiment and variation. Once you add the required code to your site (usually on the purchase confirmation page) and add the revenue metric to your experiment, you will be able to see the revenue earned per visitor, revenue per paying visitor, purchases, and the total revenue earned per variation on your Results page.

Revenue should not be your primary metric, because, unlike clicks or pageviews, revenue does not measure a specific, discrete action taken by your visitors. However, tracking revenue is a great way to tie your optimization efforts to the metrics that your company values most.

Implement the Optimizely Web Experimentation revenue tracking code

To track revenue, you will need to add a small snippet of code to your site to call Optimizely Web Experimentation's revenue tracking API. As mentioned above, this code (an example of a custom event) typically goes on the purchase confirmation page, and it should look like this:

<script>
   window["optimizely"] = window["optimizely"] || [];
   window["optimizely"].push({
     "type"      : "event",
     "eventName" : "trackRevenue",
     "tags"      : {
                     "revenue": valueInCents
                    }
   });
</script>

The 'eventName' parameter is required. You can give it whatever name you want. For example, if you wanted to track the event and name it 'purchases', you would simply type 'purchases' in place of 'trackRevenue' in the code block shown above.

ThevalueInCents variable represents the purchase amount, in cents (purchase amount*100). It is crucial that this value is passed to Optimizely Web Experimentation in cents. Otherwise, your revenue totals will be incorrect. If you do not use U.S. currency, simply multiply the purchase amount in your currency by 100. For example, a purchase amount of €54.99 should be passed as 5499.

//pass the total purhase amount to a variable 
var value = ‘youDefineThisValue’;
// Revenue must be added in cents
var valueInCents = value * 100;

You can choose which currency symbol is displayed for revenue metrics on the Optimizely Web Experimentation Results Page.

Best practices 

• It is best to track revenue after your checkout or billing detail form has been successfully submitted to avoid sending revenue totals for invalid purchases to Optimizely Web Experimentation.

• Avoid triggering the revenue goal on the click of a button. A visitor may click the button several times due to validation errors, and the revenue total would be sent to Optimizely Web Experimentation on each click.

• It is also crucial that this value is passed to Optimizely Web Experimentation as an integer. Otherwise, your revenue totals will not be sent to Optimizely Web Experimentation and will not show up on the Results page. If your site's revenue calculation code returns a floating-point value such as 99.99999999999, you should truncate or round that value to 99.99 or 100. Choose a method that works best for your business needs.

In addition to tracking revenue, you can also report the purchase event as a conversion by creating a custom event. To track conversions, simply add a custom event for 'purchases' (or whatever value you have given your 'eventName') on the Results page. You do not have to add this event in order to track revenue.

When you implement this code on your page, you do not need to make adjustments to it again. The same code can be re-used to track revenue for multiple experiments across the entire project.