How to Create an A/B Test in VWO

An A/B test is typically created to test and compare two or more versions of a webpage or an app with the intent of finding out which versions perform better. In an A/B test, the URL of the variations remain the same. To know more about A/B testing in VWO, refer to A/B Testing in VWO.

An A/B test in VWO can be created from TESTING > A/B and involves the following steps:

• Setting-up pages for your test 
  This is the first and foremost step in creating your A/B test in VWO. Here, you specify the hypothesis, define the page URLs, and configure the visitor segments for your A/B test. To know more about setting up pages for your test, refer to Setting-up Pages for Your Test in VWO.
  
  
• Creating variations using Visual Editor
  Once you are done with setting up the pages for your A/B test campaign, the next step is to create the variations of your website. The VWO Visual Editor enables you to quickly make changes to the existing web pages and create variations to test. To know more about creating variations, refer to Creating Variations Using Visual Editor in VWO.
  
  
• Adding conversion goals
  Once your variations are ready, you can define the events for which you want to record a goal conversion in VWO. When a visitor performs the event you defined, VWO will record a goal conversion. For example, you can record goal conversion when users click on a link, visit pages, submit forms, and so on. To know more about adding conversion goals, refer to Adding Conversion Goals in VWO.
  
  
• Finalizing your test 
  The last step in the creation of your A/B test is to configure some advanced options allocating traffic percentage to the variations, integrating VWO data with third-party products such as Google Analytics, etc. To know more about finalizing your test configurations, refer to Finalizing Your Test in VWO.

Steps to Create an A/B Test in VWO

Prerequisite

You need to add the VWO Smartcode to the webpages you want to test. To learn how to add VWO Smartcode to your website, refer to Configuring Smartcode for your Website. 

Procedure

1. Login to your VWO account.
2. Go to TESTING > A/B.
   The A/B testing dashboard appears.
3. To create a new A/B test, click CREATE.
4. To change the test name, click the edit icon present next to the New Campaign and enter the name for your test.
5. 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.

6. 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.

7. If you wish to create variations of your test by writing code or you may want to target your test for a specific set of visitors or you may want to load your campaigns on mobile devices, then you can use the options present in the More Options section. To know more, refer to Setting-up Pages for Your Test in VWO.
8. Click NEXT.
   The VARIATIONS page appears and the VWO Visual Editor in a new tab allowing you to modify and save changes on the variation. You can make changes by drag and drop functionality or by writing lines of code. To learn about VWO Editor, refer to VWO Visual Editor.
9. Once you are done making the changes to your variation, click NEXT.
   The VWO Visual Editor gets closed and the GOALS page appears.
10. To set up goals for your test campaign, click the edit icon present next to the New Goal and enter the name for your goal.
11. From the Goals Type dropdown, select the goal type you want to work with. To know more about different goal types in VWO, refer to What are the Different Types of Conversion Goals?. 
12. In the Include URLs the 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.
    

    NOTE: This field appears based on what you have selected in the 
    Goal Type dropdown.

13. To track another activity in 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 as a Primary Goal.

14. Additionally, at the bottom of the page, the Frequently used goals section is present which typically displays the goals that you use the most. Choosing a goal from here would be useful as it allows you to reuse the goal code without having to configure a new one from scratch.
    

    NOTE: The goals appear based on the domain where your test is running.

15. Once you are done setting up the conversion goals, click NEXT.
    The FINALIZE page appears.
16. To customize the visitor traffic allocation for your campaign, expand the Traffic Split section, and choose the relevant option.
17. If you want to integrate your test with the third-party integrations supported by VWO, expand the Integrate with third-party products section, and choose the desired integration.
18. To configure advanced options for your test, expand the Advanced Options section, and select the desired options. To know the functionality of each option, refer to Finalizing Your Test in VWO.
19. To add notes about something important to your test, click Add Notes, and enter the information.
20. To add labels to your test, click Add Labels.
    Note: Labels can be used to filter out the test on the dashboard.
21. Once you are done finalizing the advanced settings for your test, click FINISH.
    Summary of your test appears along with the option to RUN NOW or REVIEW CAMPAIGN AND START LATER. To learn about how to schedule your test in VWO, refer to Scheduling a Test in VWO.

Post-requisite

To ensure that the changes you made to the variations are in place and works as expected for your website visitors, preview your variation before actually starting a test. This can be done using the PREVIEWS tab of your A/B test campaign. Options present in this tab provides a convenient way to check and validate your variations quickly without digging through the entire test settings. To know more about previewing a test, refer to How to Preview Changes for a Test.
Also, if you wish to verify if the goals are working or not, refer to Verify Goals setup using Live Previews.

For example, say you have created a test that targets users from a specific geographic location. In such a scenario, the Previews option allows you to load the test pages in the same way as it will load for the targeted visitor segment. This helps in stimulating the experience, allowing you to ensure that the test is implemented correctly for targeted visitors.

To learn more about the A/B test concepts, refer to our A/B Testing Guide blog.