Introducing A/B Testing with Solodev Experiments!

Solodev Required

This tutorial introduces Solodev Experiments, the latest addition to the Solodev Marketing Toolbox.

A/B Testing is by far the most essential tool you can use to find out what is working on your website and what is not. This article introduces the latest addition to the Solodev feature set which now allows you to easily A/B test content! A/B Testing in Solodev, or as we call it, Solodev Experiments, allows you to test different iterations of content on different pages and track which are getting the most conversions and engagement on your website.

Solodev Experiments is a powerful tool to add to your Marketing Toolbox. You can experiment with different pieces of content on a page, the copy on a page, images on a page, different hero iterations, sliders, you name it. Now let's go step by step and get your experiments running in Solodev!

Note: Prior to setting up your experiments in Solodev arrange the different iterations you would like to test on your page(s). Keep in mind that website visitors will see the different iterations of content on your website so be sure you are testing with the correct iterations. Content cannot be a page itself, it must be a file in the web files directory with an .HTML or .TPL extension.

For the sake of this example we are going to test two versions of a homepage. One will feature a slider and the other will feature a static hero image with text on it. After enough page views we'll begin to see the number of views each version got and which converted more. Let's get started by opening up your web files directory in Solodev!

Step 1 - Click Add->Experiment

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Step 2 - Name your Experiment and click Submit

Note: Name and describe your experiments so that at first glance, collaborators know the intent of the experiment, in this case, the intent is to see which performs better, a static hero image or a hero slider.

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Step 3 - Open the "Home" Experiment

Click on the beaker icon next to Home to open your experiment.

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Step 4 - Click the Browse button 

This is where you will select the content you would like to add to your experiment.

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Step 5 - Select your Content

We will select home-slider-custom-repeater.html (our slider) as it is one of the two iterations in our experiment. Click Choose.

You will then be redirected to your experiment with your first piece of content added to it as shown below.

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Step 6 - Configure your content

Name your content, in this case, we will name it "Slider", select the "Active" checkbox. You can adjust the frequency in which this iteration is shown accordingly. Click Save.

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Step 7 - Add your second iteration

Click the green + button on the far right of Slider and a new row will populate.

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Step 8 - Click Browse

Select home-hero and click Choose.

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Step 9 - Save your Experiment

Configure your frequency settings and click Save. Now it's time to add your experiment to a web page.

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Step 10 - Add your Experiment to a Page

Open the page where you'd like to add the experiment and select the drop zone (DynamicDiv) where you'd like to place it until it turns blue as shown below.

Select the Home Experiment from the web files directory and click Publish. Your experiment is now live, distributing each iteration based on the frequency you specified.

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Note: Now 50% of site visitors will see our Hero Image iteration and the remaining 50% will see our Hero Slider iteration.

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Let's take a look at how the two iterations of our homepage are doing.

Note: As you can see the hero slider seems to be outperforming the hero image despite the hero image getting more views. Although there aren't enough views or data to make a definitive decision, it looks like the slider will win out as converting the most on this page. With this data, we can select the most successful iteration, in this case the slider, and use that as our homepage hero.

Congratulations!