Enabling multiple domains for a test allows you to track visits and goal conversions across different domains. This can happen in two cases:
- The campaign URL and the goal URL belong to different domains
- Campaign URLs belong to different domains
For instance, let’s consider a scenario where you set up a test and specify the campaign URL as www.example.com and create a goal on www.myexample.com. In the second scenario, you set up a test, wherein you include two campaign URLs of different domains - www.example.com and www.myexample.com.
As these tests involve more than one domain, you must select the multiple domains option on the final step in the creation process. Enabling this option allows VWO to use third-party cookies to track visitors and goal conversions seamlessly across domains.
If you are self-hosting the JavaScript files, you are not allowed to enable multi-domain tracking.
Things to Consider While you Enable Your Test to Run Across Multiple Domains:
- You need not enable cross-domain tracking for subdomains in your account.
- Do not enable cross-domain tracking if you have defined a ‘click on a link’ goal and the link points to a different domain, or if you have a ‘track form submits’ goal and the action URL is of a different domain.
- Cross-domain tracking must be enabled when the control and variation URLs in a Split URL campaign are of different domains.
- Cross-domain tracking is not supported for VWO Insights.
- For enhanced privacy, the Firefox and Safari browsers block cross-domain tracking by default. As a result, VWO cannot access the third-party cookies, thereby prohibiting cross-domain tracking from working in Safari and Firefox browsers. However, the default settings can be disabled using the following:
- In the Safari browser, go to Preferences > Privacy and disable the Prevent cross-site tracking setting.
- In the Firefox browser, go to Preferences > Privacy & Security > Custom and disable the following settings- Cookies and Tracking Content.
- With the iOS 14 and macOS 11 upgrades, Apple introduced the Privacy Report feature in Safari. You can use this to examine a website's report to see which websites are tracking you and display the trackers that Safari has blocked. The report shows both cross-site tracking trackers and those detected by Apple's intelligent tracking prevention.
Please note that in VWO's context, this does not have any impact as VWO works with first-party cookies. VWO tracking would be affected only when you use the cross-domain tracking feature of VWO as some browsers do not allow working with third-party cookies by default.