A/B testing is a term used in online marketing and refers to experiments that show whether one approach (A) is better than the other one (B) at increasing sales or other outcomes.

This can mean presenting a page with the normal/original green “Buy Now” button (approach A) to half the visitors of a site, and presenting the same page but with a button in red (approach B) to the other half. After some time, one of the two will produce a higher percentage of conversions, and you can obviously switch to that approach to continue to receive increased sales. And you can measure more than sales, it could be site subscriptions, visits or other goals.

This kind of experiment is useful when trying alternatives to learn which variation is more effective.

It is often called split testing too.

In this article we’ll show you how to set up an experiment with A/B testing in your Breezi site with Google Analytics.

Create a Google Account

For this experiment you’ll need a Google account. If you don’t already have one, you can sign up for one on this link.

After filling in the fields and creating your Google account, you can log straight in to your Analytics account, on the same link from above.

Now that you’re logged in, but have no sites added to your account to track, you’ll be presented with the following screen:

Create a Tracking ID and Account

Then you’ll be presented with a “New Site” creation form. Here you’ll enter your site name and URL, and all the information requested.

Since you don’t have any “Account” either, you’ll have to create one too. Accounts are organizational holders that contain one or more sites to be tracked.

Clicking the blue button on the bottom will present you with the terms of service. After reading and accepting them, you’ll get to the screen with the tracking code.

You must install this tracking code in every page of your site that you want. In Breezi, there’s a special section for it.

Go to the Content Experiments

Click on the Reporting tab.

You’ll be taken to the panel where all the statistics and data is shown. If you just installed the script, you won’t find any data, since it’s only beginning to track your visitors.

On the left menu, search for “Content” and click on it. It will expand to reveal several options, there you’ll choose “Experiments”.

Choose a Page for the Test

You will see a field for a URL. Here you’ll enter the page where you want to conduct your A/B tests.

This one doesn’t necessarily have to be your homepage. It can be whichever page you’re testing out. For example, if you’re trying to get more clicks on a given button, and that button is located on the “About Us” page, you’ll want to enter the URL for that page here.

Click Start Experimenting to continue.

Choose Variations

You’ll be able to choose the original page and up to 9 variations.

So this isn’t actually just A/B testing but A/B/C/D/E… you get the idea.

Click “Save & Next” to continue.

Configuring the Options

On the next screen, you’ll be asked for an objective. This can be a goal you’ve previously set, or you can set one right there. Goal examples are:

• Your visitors landing on an exact URL (of your choice)
• Your visitors spending certain time on a given page (you can choose both the page and the lower/upper time limits)
• Having a minimum , exact or maximum amount of page visited

The next field lets you set the percentage of visitors you want to include in the tests. If the number is 100%, all the visitors will be randomly presented with any of your alternatives (including the original page). If the number is less, for example 70%, it means that the remaining 30% will not take part on the experiment and those visitors will always get the original page.

Note that once a visitor gets a variation, that same variation will always be presented if he/she returns. The same applies for the original, if they get it on their first visit, they will never see the variations.

Optionally on the Advanced Options you can choose a minimum time for the experiment to last, and a confidence threshold. The higher the value of this field, the longer it will take to declare a winner. The winner will be the variant that performs better on the selected Goal/Objective.

Click “Save & Next” to continue to the next part of the setup.

Add Experiment Code

The next screen will ask whether you want to add the code yourself, or send it to your webmaster. Since you are the webmaster, you’ll want to select the respective option and copy the code.

Once you copy the code, you’ll need to install an Embed HTML app on the original page in Breezi.

Remember that for the experiment to work, you must have the original and all the variation pages published live. They must also have installed the normal (non experiment) Analytics tracking code.

Also note that the experiment code must only be installed only on the original page.

That’s it!

Data will begin to be gathered and the experiment will end once a variant is declared winner.

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