Create a Split URL Experiment
Step by step walkthrough for creating a split URL experiment in Elevate A/B Testing, including URLs, redirect behavior, and URL match conditions.
Create a Split URL Experiment
Six steps, from entering your URLs to launching.
Before you start: every page you want to test live and reachable on your Shopify store.
Open Experiments, select New Experiment, then Split URL Experiment.
Step 1: General Info & Goal
Enter an Experiment name. Description, Hypothesis, and Assets are optional.
Under What do you want to measure?, choose your goal. Revenue per visitor is recommended.
Select Browse all metrics for the full list, or Add Custom Metric to track something Elevate A/B Testing does not measure by default. See Custom Events.
Step 2: Set Variations
Choose the Number of Variations, then enter the URLs.
Control
Enter the URL of your current page and select Add. The https:// prefix is supplied for you.
Control can hold more than one URL. Select Add another URL to add more. Use this when several pages should all feed into the same experiment, such as a group of product pages you want redirected to one landing page.
Each variation takes a single URL.
Select Preview on any card to open that URL as a visitor sees it.
Query parameters
If a URL carries query parameters, they are listed as editable Query Parameters and Value pairs, which you can remove individually. Use Hide params to collapse the list.
Take this seriously. Parameters affect how an incoming URL is matched, and a stray UTM tag left on a control URL is a common reason an experiment appears not to run.
Redirect Behavior
This decides when a visitor gets redirected.
All Experiment URLs (default)
The visitor is redirected to their assigned URL whenever they land on any page in the experiment
Control URL only
The visitor is redirected only when they visit the control URL. Landing on a variation URL directly does nothing.
Redirect once
The visitor is redirected to their assigned variation on their first visit to any experiment URL, and not again
Redirect once control URL only
The visitor is redirected once, and only when they first visit the control URL
The default is right for most experiments. Reach for the others when repeated redirects would be a problem, for example when visitors are likely to bookmark or share a variation URL and would be bounced away from it every time they return.
URL match condition
Choosing Control URL only or Redirect once control URL only adds a URL match condition to the control, which decides how strictly an incoming URL has to match.
Matches exactly
Only that exact URL
Starts with
Any URL beginning with what you entered
Contains
Any URL containing what you entered
Ends with
Any URL ending with what you entered
Regex
Any URL matching the regular expression you supply
Matches exactly is the safest default and the easiest to get wrong, because a trailing slash or a query parameter makes a URL not match. Use Starts with or Contains when incoming traffic carries campaign parameters you cannot control.
Use Regex only if you are confident in the pattern. A regex that is too broad will redirect visitors from pages you never intended to include.
Step 3: Traffic Allocation
Set the split with the slider. Even is the default.
Isolate traffic for this experiment is optional and off by default. See Traffic Isolation.
Step 4: Audiences
Optionally narrow who enters, by device type, visitor type, UTM parameters, traffic source, or country. Select Create Custom Audience for anything more specific. See Audience Targeting.
Step 5: Enhance Your Variations (Optional)
Your variations are already set. This step layers extra changes on top and can be skipped entirely.
Content Editing Changes
You want to edit headlines, copy, or other text per variation on top of the page you are redirecting to
Custom Code
You want to apply JavaScript or CSS per variation
Click-Through Rate Tracking
You want to track clicks on specific buttons or links inside the experiment
Content editing and custom code turn this into a multivariate experiment. That is useful when the question is not just which page wins but how it should be presented. Use them deliberately: changing the page and the headline together tells you the combination won, not which half did the work.
Step 6: Review Experiment
Check the setup, then select Create Preview Experiment.
The experiment moves into Preview. QA it, then select Launch Experiment. See Preview and QA a Split URL Experiment.
Next steps
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