How to Create a Split URL Test in VWO?

A split test in VWO is typically created to test multiple versions of your website hosted on different URLs. If your Variation is on a different address or has major design changes compared to Control, we’d recommend you to create a Split URL Test. To know more, refer to Split URL testing in VWO.

A Split URL test in VWO can be created from TESTING > Split URL and involves the following steps:

• Setting up pages for your test
  This is the first and foremost step in creating your Split URL test in VWO. Here, you specify the hypothesis, define the URLs for control, variation, preview pages, and configure the visitor segments for your Split URL test. To know more about setting up pages for your test, refer to Setting-up Pages for Your Test in VWO. 
  
  
• Adding conversion goals
  Once your variations are ready, you can define the events 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 creating your Split URL 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 a Split URL 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 > Split URL.
   The Split URL testing dashboard appears.
3. To create a new Split URL 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 field under the Control, enter the URL of the original webpage.
6. In the field under the Variation, enter the URL where the variation is hosted.
   
   NOTE: If you want to add more variations, use the option Add Another Variation.
7. 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/
8. 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 at the bottom of the hypothesis dropdown. To learn more about the hypothesis, refer to Hypothesis in VWO.
9. If you want to target your test for a specific set of visitors, or you may want to exclude some URLs from your campaigns, then you can use the options present in the More Options section. To know more, refer to Setting-up Pages For Your Test.
10. Click NEXT.
11. On the GOALS / METRICS (if your account is enabled with Data360) page that appears, define the goals/metrics that you want to track. To know how to set up goals, refer to Adding Conversion Goals for a Test.
12. Once you are done setting up the conversion goals, click NEXT.
    The OTHERS page appears.
13. To customize the visitor traffic allocation for your campaign, expand the Traffic Split section, and choose the relevant option.
14. 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.
15. 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.
16. To add notes about something important to your test, click Add Notes, and enter the information.
17. To add labels to your test, click Add Labels.
    Note: You can use the labels to filter tests on the dashboard.
18. Once you are done finalizing the advanced settings for your test, click CREATE.
    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 Campaign in VWO.

Post-requisite

To ensure that your Split URL test configurations are in place and work as expected for your website visitors, preview your variation before actually starting a test. This can be done using the PREVIEWS tab of your Split URL test campaign. Options present in this tab provide a convenient way to quickly check and validate your variations without digging through the entire test settings. To know more about previewing a test, refer to How to Preview Changes for a Test. 

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 they load for the targeted visitor segment. This helps stimulate the experience, allowing you to ensure that the test is implemented correctly for targeted visitors. 

VWO also lets you verify the goals that you have configured for your campaign. To learn how to do this, refer to Verify Goals Setup Using Live Previews.