Page targeting
Table of contents
In short
Page targeting determines on which pages of your website an experiment should be displayed. You have various options for this under Page Targeting in the dashboard. Valid page targeting is also required to be able to start an experiment.
Include or exclude URLs
You can include or exclude URLs on which an experiment is played. To do this, you can use a drop-down above the input field to specify whether the URL should be included ("URL Matches these URLs") or excluded ("URL Does not match these URLs").
You can then enter the corresponding URLs in the input field below. Add further URLs using the "+ Add Url" added.
Matching Type
To the right of the input field, you can specify the matching type of your targeting condition. Depending on the selection, the URL in the input field next to it is checked for various conditions. You have the following conditions to choose from:
- Simple Match
- Exact Match
- Contains
- Regex
The targeting conditions with application examples are explained in more detail below.
Simple Match
At the Simple Match all URLs are targeted, including the associated URL parameters.
In the following example, you can see the versions of a URL that are used for page targeting Simple Match for the URL www.demo.de apply:
| URL | Targeting applies |
|---|---|
|
www.demo.de |
applies |
|
www.demo.de#about |
applies |
|
www.demo.de?color=red |
applies |
|
www.demo.de/category |
does not apply |
|
www.demo.com |
does not apply |
|
sub.demo.com |
does not apply |
If you want to target multiple pages, page types or subdomains at the same time, you have the option Regex. Just read on.
Exact Match
Use the condition Exact Matchif the page targeting explicitly only for a specific URL - without URL parameter - should apply.
In the following example, you can see the versions of a URL that are used for page targeting Exact Match for the URL www.demo.de apply:
| URL | Targeting applies |
|---|---|
|
www.demo.de |
applies |
|
www.demo.de/ |
does not apply |
|
www.demo.de#about |
does not apply |
|
www.demo.de?color=red |
does not apply |
|
www.demo.de/category |
does not apply |
|
www.demo.com |
does not apply |
|
sub.demo.com |
does not apply |
Contains
The page targeting condition Contains you use when you several pages of a certain group you want to target. For example, if you want to run a test on product pages only, you could use "Contains" with "/products/" to include only these pages. The complete specified expression must appear at least once in the URL.
In the following example, you can see different versions of URLs where the page targeting "/products/" applies.
| URL | Targeting applies |
|---|---|
|
www.demo.de |
does not apply |
|
www.demo.de/produkte |
does not apply |
|
www.demo.de/produkte/t-shirts |
applies |
|
www.demo.de/produkte/hosen |
applies |
|
www.demo.de/blog/produkte-reviews |
does not apply |
|
www.demo.de/blog/produkte/tests |
applies |
Regular Expressions (Regex)
Regular expressions allow you to set your A/B tests to specific individual pages or page groups to target specifically. This may be more precise than, for example, with the targeting conditions just presented.
We have created this guide to page targeting with regex to make it easier for you to get started with regex. In many cases, it is sufficient to copy one of our examples and replace your own URL.
To validate your regular expressions you can use regex editors like regexr.com.
Example of creating a regex
On Plomo-o-Plata on all product detail pages in the category Outlet Sale the sales prices will be displayed in red. Product detail pages in other categories should remain unchanged.
By using regex in URL targeting you have the possibility to explicitly map this targeting condition.
As an example, here you can see a URL that is located in the Outlet Sale category.
The structure of the URLs is the same for all product detail pages that can be found in this category:
https://plomo-o-plata.de/collections/plomo-o-plata-outlet-sale/products/…
In the table Useful use cases you will find predefined regexes that you can apply to your website URL structure using this example. In our case, use case 3 applies.
-> Targeting of all pages that are www.demo.de/category/ after the path.
-> ^.*www\.demo\.de\/category\/.+
First, we go to https://regexr.com/ and transfer the similar use case.
We can now use this use case as a guide, and apply it to our example of Plomo-o-Plata.
Useful use cases
| Use case | Example page | Regular Expression |
|---|---|---|
|
Targeting exactly one page |
www.demo.de/product-list |
^.*www\.demo\.de\/product-list$ |
|
Targeting exactly one page incl. anchor links, parameters, and optional "/" |
www.demo.de/?utm_source=google_cpc |
^.*www\.demo\.de(#.*|\/#.*|$|\/$|\/\?.*) |
|
Targeting of all pages hung in the path www.demo.de/category/ |
www.demo.de/category/product |
^.*www\.demo\.de\/category\/.+ |
|
Global targeting of a page without "www." |
demo.de/ |
^.*demo.de\/.* |
|
Global targeting on the entire domain www.demo.de/ |
www.demo.de/ |
^.*www\.demo.de\/.* |
|
Targeting on a subdomain blog.demo.de/ |
blog.demo.de/category/article
|
^.*blog\.demo.de\/. |
|
Targeting on an entire domain incl. subdomains demo.de/ |
blog.demo.de/category/article
www.demo.de/category/product |
^.*demo.de\/.* |
|
Targeting on two specific product categories |
www.demo.de/shirts/product
www.demo.de/pants/product |
^.*www\.demo.de\/(shirts|pants)\/.* |
Need help setting up your regex? No problem!
Just send us a message with the page group you want to target. We will send you the appropriate regex as soon as possible.
Use Cases
Targeting parameters
With page targeting, an experiment can be displayed for specific URL parameters. To do this, enter the desired URL parameter in the page targeting for which the experiment is to be played. In this example: "landingpage=new".
Then select the "Contains" option as the matching type for the parameter.
This activates the experiment as soon as the URL contains either the parameter "?landingpage=new" or "&landingpage=new".
Use parameter targeting for email marketing or Google Ads campaigns, for example. This allows you to create landing pages specifically tailored to your advertising media.
Advanced Options
Cleanup Experiment on URL change
Single Page Applications (SPA) behave differently to static pages. Static pages completely reload their content with every URL change. With SPAs, only the contents of the page that differ from the previous page are reloaded.
The setting "Cleanup Experiment on URL change" is activated by default. By default, Varify performs a reset of the variant playout every time the URL is changed, i.e. all variations on the page are reset, the URL is checked again and all applicable variations for the new URL are reapplied.
This function is particularly useful on pages, such as product pages in online stores, where users can select different product variants such as colors. With such a selection, the URL can change (in the example mentioned, the URL would reflect the selected color). However, if there is a variation that refers to content that does not change (for example, the "Add to cart" button), it would not be desirable to delete and reapply this variation. This could lead to undesirable effects such as screen flickering. The targeted use of the "Cleanup on URL Change" function can avoid this problem by not resetting variations that should remain constant regardless of URL changes.