NOTE: Cross-Domain tracking uses third-party cookies. To see why VWO uses third-party cookies, please see our blog post on cross-domain tracking.
Enabling multiple domains for a test allows you to track goal conversions across multiple domains. For example, you have set up your test on www.example.com. Let's say one of the goals you define for the test is “visits a page,” which is tracked when the user lands on www.myexample.com.
As the test involves more than one domain, you must select the multiple domains option on the final step in the creation process. Enabling multiple domain options allows VWO to use third-party cookies to track visitors and goal conversions.
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 upgrade, 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 the Safari browser does not allow working with third-party cookies by default.