Optimizely Web is a web experimentation platform that allows you test and experiment new features on your website across any channel or device. It is typically used by marketing teams and product managers to learn more about the customers' product journey, and test new features to boost conversion rates and overall customer engagement.

RudderStack allows you to configure Optimizely Web as a destination to which you can send your event data seamlessly.

Getting started

On order to send data to Optimizely Web, you will first need to add it as a destination to the source from which you are sending event data. Once the destination is enabled, events from RudderStack will start to flow to Optimizely Web.

Before configuring your source and destination on the RudderStack app, please check whether the platform you are working on is supported by Optimizely Web. Please refer to the table below:

Connection ModeWebMobileServer
Device modeSupported--
Cloud mode---
To know more about the difference between cloud mode and device mode in RudderStack, refer to the RudderStack Connection Modes guide.

Once you have confirmed that the platform supports sending events to Optimizely Web, perform the steps below:

  • Define custom events in the Optimizely Dashboard and add those events as metrics in the corresponding experiments.
  • Add the Optimizely Web snippet to your web page immediately after the opening <head> tag. Then, include the RudderStack JavaScript snippet.
  • Choose a source to which you would like to add Optimizely Web as a destination.
  • Select the destination as Optimizely Web to your source. Give your destination a name and then click on Next. You should see the following screen:
image  50 Connection Settings for RudderStack Web
  • In the Connection Settings, configure the settings you want to apply for the destination. The settings are explained in more detail below:

    • Send experiment data to other tools: By enabling this setting, you can send your experiment or campaign data to other destinations configured by you, such as Google Analytics.

      • As a track call: When this setting is enabled, an Experiment Viewed track event will be sent to RudderStack along with other configured destinations for each active experiments per page load. The properties of this event will be Optimizely's experiment metadata.
      • As identify call: When this setting is enabled, an identify call will be sent to RudderStack and other configured destinations, with the traits as experiment name and variation name .
    • Send experiment viewed event as non-interaction event: In case you want to send the

      Experiment Viewed track event to Google Analytics, please enable this setting. The trackevent will then be sent to Google Analytics as a non-interaction event, i.e. an additional property nonInteraction with value 1 will be appended to the properties of that event.

    • Revenue on Order Completed event: Enabling this setting will send revenue as a property of the trackonly for the events with event name Order Completed.

    • Track categorized pages: Enabling this setting will send page calls to Optimizely Web having category as track events.

    • Track named pages: Enabling this will send page calls having name as track events to Optimizely Web.

    • Custom campaign properties: In this section, provide the mapping of the campaign metadata to the RudderStack track event properties for the Experiment Viewed event. Please note that the event property should be the track event property and the campaign property should be the corresponding metadata of the campaign.

Page

If you have enabled Track Categorized Pages or Track Named Pages , then a page call having category or name will send a track event with event name Viewed ${category} page or Viewed ${name} page to Optimizely.

A sample page call is as shown in the snippet below:

// "home" is the name of the page.
rudderanalytics.page("home");

Track

A track call with a valid event name associated with an active experiment will be sent to Optimizely.

If you have enabled the option of sending Revenue on Order Completed event , then revenue will be sent only on Order Completed event and not in any other event. This should be part of event property. RudderStack will convert the value to cents and pass it. Thus, $5 will be converted to 500 cents.

If the option Revenue on Order Completed event is disabled, then the property will be passed as it is.

A sample track call is as shown below:

rudderanalytics.track("Order Completed", {
revenue: 30,
value: 30.0,
})

Sending Experiment Data

Track

If the Send experiment data as track call setting is enabled while configuring the Optimizely Web destination on the RudderStack app, one Experiment Viewed track event is sent to other configured destinations for each active experiment. Here Optimizely Web acts as both source and destination. This event includes the campaign metadata.

This track event call consists of the following properties:

  • campaignName
  • campaignId
  • experimentId
  • experimentName
  • variationName
  • variationId
  • audienceId
  • audienceName
  • nonInteraction

If you provide the custom campaign properties in the destination settings, then the campaign metadata key will be overridden by the corresponding event property.

A sample track call made on a page load is as shown:

rudderanalytics.track("Experiment Viewed", {
campaignName: "test campaign",
campaignId: "1234567890",
experimentId: "0123456789",
experimentName: "test experiment",
variationId: "1122334455",
variationName: "test variation",
audienceId: "1212121212",
audienceName: "sample audience",
nonInteraction: 1,
})

Identify

If the setting Send experiment data as identify call is enabled, one identify event will be sent to other configured destinations with the following traits for each active experiment:

  • experimentName
  • variationName

The identify traits are appended with the subsequent calls. In case multiple experiments are active, then multiple identify calls will be made and the subsequent identify calls will contain traits of previous identify calls as well.

A sample identify call made on a page load is as shown:

rudderanalytics.identify({
`Experiment: ${experimentName}` : variationName
});

FAQs

Do I need to add Optimizely Web's JavaScript snippet to my website?
Yes. You need to add the Optimizely Web snippet immediately after the opening <head> tag of your web page. Then, include the JavaScript snippet of RudderStack.

Why I am not able to see the events in my experiments?
Define the custom events in Optimizely Web's dashboard and add those events as metrics in corresponding Optimizely 's experiment.

While defining the custom event, you need to provide an API Name and while using RudderStack's track API, use this API name as the event name .

Contact us

If you come across any issues while configuring Optimizely Web with RudderStack, please feel free to contact us. You can also start a conversation in our Slack community; we will be happy to talk to you!

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