How to Create a Goal in VWO Testing?

VWO Testing goals help you track different visitors’ activities on your website such as page visits, elements click, links click, and so on. When a visitor successfully performs the actions defined in a goal, VWO records a conversion for the same.

To create a goal in VWO Testing, all you need to do is select a visitor activity and specify URLs where they will be tracked. This can be done by going to the TESTING feature on the VWO app and selecting the type of test(A/B, Multivariate, Split URL) you want to work with. 

CONVERSION URL

When a visitor to your website completes a desired action such as signing up for a newsletter, filling out a form, or making a purchase, a website conversion occurs. In VWO, the Conversions URL must be defined where the visitor performs the desired action. Although a website owner would want to track almost all user actions, they should only track the conversions that user does and “converts” as part of their important business goals. For example, filling out a signup form, showing some level of engagement with the site, or completing the purchase.

Prerequisite

Ensure that you have added VWO SmartCode on every webpage where your goals are running. To learn about how to add the VWO SmartCode to your webpage, refer to Configuring SmartCode for your Website.

Procedure

1. Login to your VWO account.
2. Go to TESTING and select a test type per your requirements
   The corresponding test dashboard appears.
3. In the dashboard, click CREATE.
4. In the Enter URL of the page you want to test field, enter the URL of the webpage you want to test.
   
   NOTE: To include or exclude URLs from the campaign, click the ADVANCED tab present next to the URL field. Using this tab, you can also define advanced pattern-matching options to either include a broad URL with wildcard entries or a specific URL. To learn about using different URL patterns, refer to Using URL Patterns in VWO.
   INFO: In the case of specifying a URL pattern for the campaign, where you wish to exclude a given webpage that matches the pattern criteria, the Exclude URL option comes in handy.
   For example: Let’s say you wish to run a site-wide test on https://vwo.com, but you want to exclude the Contact Us page (https://vwo.com/contact-us/) from it. Then, you need to mention the URLs in the respective fields as follows:
   Included URLs: https://vwo.com*
   Excluded URLs: https://vwo.com/contact-us/
5. From the What hypothesis are you testing? dropdown, select a hypothesis you want to work with. This is an optional step.
   NOTE: If you do not have a hypothesis yet or wish to create a new one, you can do so by clicking on the Create a New Hypothesis option present at the bottom of the hypothesis dropdown. To learn more about the hypothesis, refer to Hypothesis in VWO.
6. In the Variations page, create your variations and click Next.
7. On the Goals page, click the edit icon present next to the New Goal and enter the name for your goal.
8. From the Goal Type dropdown, select an action for which you want to record a goal conversion in VWO.
9. In the Included URLs field, specify the operation from the dropdown, and in the field next to it, enter the URL of the webpage where you want to track the conversions. If you wish to exclude a webpage from the goal conversion tracking, use the Exclude URL option to specify the operation and the URL of that page.
   
   NOTE: These fields appear based on the goal you have selected in the Goal Type dropdown.
10. To add more goals to your campaign, click Add Another Goal.
    
    NOTE: If you add multiple goals, you have the option to specify one goal as Primary Goal. VWO declares a variation as a smart decision or a winner based on the primary goal. If you have multiple goals in your test, then the goal which is directly and exclusively impacted by the changes you make in the test must be chosen as the primary goal. By default, the first goal is considered a Primary Goal.
11. Additionally, at the bottom of the page, the Frequently used goals section is present, which shows the goals you use the most. You can either search or choose from the ones displayed. Selecting a goal from here allows you to reuse the goal code instead of configuring a new one.
    
    NOTE: The goals appear based on the domain where your test is running.

Post-requisite
To verify whether your goal is successfully created, go to the TESTING type for which you have created the goal. Say, if you have created a goal for the A/B test, go to TESTING > A/B and in the goal dashboard, check for the goal which you recently created.

Additionally, using the Preview mode, you can check if your goal is working as expected or not.