Visual Website Optimizer

WordPress and Drupal are the most popular CMSes on Earth as they power a lot of business and personal websites. These CMSes have been game changing because they enable anyone can setup and manage a website easily without ever touching HTML or messing up with technical issues. However, if you need to do A/B or multivariate tests on such CMSes, then it is not exactly a piece of cake. All the technical issues (inserting code, tagging page, etc.) associated with setting up a test completely defeat the spirit of CMS. Separation of content from code is the first place why one uses a CMS thus running an A/B test on it shouldn’t require any messing up with code.

Because we realize the pains associated with creating A/B tests on CMSes, we are proud to announce two new Visual Website Optimizer plugins for WordPress and Drupal. With these plugins, you do not need to touch even a single line of code on your website to create and run A/B or multivariate tests. The real power comes from the fact that if you have these plugins enabled you can create unlimited number of tests from VWO without any sort of page tagging. Simply activate the plugin and you are all set for increasing your sales and conversions.

WordPress Plugin Instructions

This plugin is made by Andy Bailey of CommentLuv. Thanks for your effort Andy!

• Download the plugin here or search for ‘Visual Website Optimizer’ plugin in WordPress directory.
• Follow the usual plugin installation steps: either it is automatic or extract the zip file, transfer the files to your blog’s /wp-admin/plugins/ directory.
• Activate the plugin and enter your account id (available in VWO under Account Management link) into configuration page of the plugin.
• Start creating tests from VWO!

Drupal Plugin Instructions

Update: Thanks to Ted Cooper, there is now a plugin in Drupal repository which you can use (instead of downloadable plugin below): http://drupal.org/project/visual_website_optimizer

First version of the plugin was made by Will Ronco of Awesome Software. Thanks Will!

• Download the plugin here and unzip it.
• Move the folder “visual_website_optimizer” into your site’s “sites/all/modules/” folder.
• Browse to http://yoursite/admin/build/modules and look for the module named “Visual Website Optimizer”. Check the box next to it in the list, then scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Save configuration”. This will install the Visual Website Optimizer Module.
• After the module is installed, a message will appear asking you to configure your VWO plugin on the settings page. Follow that link, or browse to http://yoursite/admin/settings/visual_website_optimizer and enter your Visual Website Optimizer ID, then click “Save configuration”
• Your site is ready to be used with Visual Website Optimizer!

We will be adding support for more CMSes soon. If you have a CMS and you want to experience the smoothest and easiest A/B testing on it, let us know. We will make a plugin for your CMS too.

15 Comments »

Visual Website Optimizer’s integration with Google Analytics is automatic, which means you don’t have to modify your existing GA or VWO only in anyway. While creating a test, simply enable this integration option with the click of a button. What this integration does is that it pushes VWO variation data into GA’s custom variable report, so you can segment any report in GA with an additional segmenting option. Once you enable the option in test settings (under accounts) or during creating a test, Visual Website Optimizer will automatically pass the variation data of the Variations to the Google Analytics. To see A/B test reports in Google Analytics, click on Visitors in the sidebar and then click on Custom Variables report. Then click on the test id (available from VWO reports page) corresponding to the test you want to see a report for. An example of the report name in GA would be “VWO-2” which means it is a report corresponding to test with id 2. In the report you can see goal values for different variations plus you can also see different metrics such as bounce rate, time on site, return visit, pages/visit, etc. corresponding to the variations. The reports look something like the following screenshot (click to expand):

In the integration options, there are two values that you can change:

• GA Slot: This is the custom variable slot in Google Analytics that you want to use for Visual Website Optimizer. If you are unsure what this means, leave it as it is.
• GA Account Prefix: In case you are using more than one Google Analytics account on your website, specify here which Google Analytics Account Prefix you want VWO to be integrated with. This is an optional field and should be left empty if you are unsure. Please read more about it on our helpbase.

<< The following method is now deprecated, although still supported >>

For integrating Google Analytics with Visual Website Optimizer, you will have to sandwich a snippet of code (in bold font below) in your existing Google Analytics tracking code (most likely present at the bottom of your website HTML):

<script type="text/javascript">
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("XX-XXXXXX-X");
pageTracker._initData();

if (typeof(_vis_opt_GA_track) == "function") { _vis_opt_GA_track(); }

pageTracker._trackPageview();
</script>

The process for Asynchronous code snippet is similar:

 _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'XX-XXXXXX-X']);

if(typeof(_vis_opt_GA_track) == "function") { _vis_opt_GA_track(); }

_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

In other words, the code in bold (javascript function  _vis_opt_GA_track()) needs to be added just before the Google Analytics code snippet _trackPageview After you have added the code, the integration is done. No more settings, no more configuration. For all tests, the Google Analytics intergration will start automatically. Before you get too excited, please note following important points regarding the plugin:

• By default, the plugin will work perfectly ONLY if you have one test running on your website running at a time (the limitation is because Google Analytics provides limited slots to store customer variables). In order to track multiple tests simultaneously, see the technical note below.
• The reports you see in Google Analytics are indicative, at best. GA won’t show you statistical significance for any result – so interpret the results with care.
• Unlike VWO, Google Analytics reports aren’t realtime – so allow atleast 1-2 days for data to show up in GA reports.
• You can add the integration code site-wide (even on the pages where VWO is not running). The plugin will not affect your GA tracking in any manner.

Technical note: VWO uses GA’s 4th custom variable slot by default. If you would like to change it (either because you already use if for a different purpose or you want to track multiple tests in GA), add the following code before any GA code:

<script type="text/javascript">
var _vis_opt_GA_slot = YOUR_CUSTOM_SLOT; // a number between 1-5
</script>

Leave a comment here if you cannot get the plugin to work for you or you have trouble understanding what code to add or where to add. This manual integration does not work with Visual Website Optimizer’s asynchronous code aspect.

46 Comments »