By default, VWO tracks visitors who land on every page of your website that has VWO Smartcode added. In this situation, every visitor who lands on any page of your website becomes eligible for sampling. Visitors to your website become eligible for getting sampled for Insights as soon as they visit one of the pages defined in the Included URLs list. When a visitor meets these criteria and becomes part of the random sample, VWO tracks their data for Goals, Funnels, Heatmaps, Recordings, and Form Analysis, for the rest of their journey.
By using this feature, you can collect Insights data optimally for your website by defining specific pages where you want to trigger visitor sampling. For example, if you have included URLs of your Home, Checkout, and Contact Us pages of your website, then all new visitors who land or visit these pages are eligible for sampling data.
The Include or Exclude Pages for Insights Visitor Sampling option allows you to decide the set of URLs where you want to trigger visitor sampling for Insights. In other words, VWO tracks only those visitors who land on the Included URLs and sample for the research purpose.
To include or exclude pages from Insights visitor sampling, select Settings > Accounts > More > Insights Settings.
- By default, the URL matches the pattern * which means that the sampling is enabled on all pages which have the VWO Smartcode added.
- Enter the necessary URL details for the page where you want to track visitors. Click here to know how to use the URL types. You can add a maximum of 30 URLs including both Include and Exclude URLs, to either of the lists or divide them amongst them.
- To add more pages for tracking, click Include URL.
- To remove pages from tracking, click Exclude URL.
- To apply the URL settings, click Save.
For example, if you add a site-wide URL pattern, say https://example.com* as the Exclude URL, the Exclude settings are applied site-wide. As a result, no visitors are tracked even if you have listed specific page URLs under the Include section. VWO first checks for the Exclude URL settings, and then check for the Include URL settings.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What happens if I have the same link under both Included and Excluded Pages?
If the same URL is present on both Included and Excluded pages, any visitor to the page will not be sampled for Insights. VWO gives priority to Excluded Pages over included.
2. A visitor lands on an Excluded URL and afterward visits an Included URLs during the journey. Will I be able to track the Referring URL for the visitor?
For visitors, VWO maintains a log of their referrer and the landing page URL, regardless of whether a visitor is eligible for sampling. For example, if a visitor lands on an Excluded Page and then happens to visit an Included URLs during the journey, VWO will keep a record of the visitor’s referral website and the landing page. The user information can be used to track their behavior and interaction on the website after they are sampled for Insights.