This article covers the following:
- Overview
- A/B Tests: Create Variations
- Multivariate Tests: Generate Combinations
- Split URL Tests: Define Control and Variation URLs
- Configure Traffic Allocation
Overview
The Variations & Traffic section is where you define what changes your visitors will see during the test and how much of your traffic is allocated to each variation. Both are configured on the same page, variations at the top, and traffic allocation directly below.
This article covers how to create variations for A/B tests, Split URL tests, and Multivariate tests (MVT).
A/B Tests: Create Variations
The campaign starts with a Control variation, which is the original version of your page. You build variations on top of the control.
Creating variations for an A/B test includes the following four steps:
Set the Editor URL and View Mode
The Editor URL at the top of the Variations & Traffic section shows the page URL that VWO loads when you open the editor. To change it, click the edit icon next to the URL.
Use the View mode dropdown (Desktop, Mobile, Tablet) in the top-right corner to preview how the page looks on different devices before opening the editor.
Add a Variation
- Click Add variation. Wingify adds a new variation row to the table. To add a variation that redirects visitors to a different page instead of showing a modified version, click the dropdown arrow next to Add variation and select Redirect to another page.
- Click the variation name to rename it.
- Select an editor from the Edit with dropdown, Visual editor or Code editor.
- Use the Visual Editor to make changes by clicking directly on page elements, no coding required.
- Use the Code Editor to write custom HTML, CSS, or JavaScript.
- Make your changes in the editor and save them. The Modifications column updates to show the number of changes applied to that variation.
- Repeat for each additional variation you want to test.
Set the Traffic Split for A/B Test Variations
Use the Traffic split dropdown to control how traffic is distributed across variations:
- Equal Distribution (Default): Traffic is split equally among all variations.
- Custom Distribution: Manually specify the percentage of traffic allocated to each variation.
- Auto-distribute (Multi-arm bandit): Wingify’s ML algorithm automatically redirects more traffic to the better-performing variation over time.
Multivariate Tests: Generate Combinations
MVT works differently from A/B testing. Instead of creating complete page versions, you create multiple variations for individual sections or elements on the page. Wingify automatically generates all possible combinations of those section changes and lists them in the Combinations table.
To generate combinations for an MVT, go to the Combinations & Traffic page and follow these steps:
- Enter the page URL in the Editor URL field.
- Use the View mode dropdown to select how the page renders in the editor: Desktop, Mobile, or Tablet.
- Click Open Visual Editor.
- In the editor, select a section of the page, for example, the headline, and create variations for it. Each set of changes to a section becomes a variation of that section.
- Move to a different section and create variations for it as well.
- When you return to the Combinations & Traffic screen, Wingify populates the table with every possible combination of your section variations. The Control row represents the original version of all sections. For example, if you test two sections, headline and hero image, and each has two variations, Wingify generates four combinations:
- Original headline + Original image
- Variation A headline + Original image
- Original headline + Variation B image
- Variation A headline + Variation B image
Note: The number of combinations grows multiplicatively as you add more sections and variations. Keep this in mind when planning: more combinations require more traffic to reach statistical significance.
Split URL Tests: Define Control and Variation URLs
For Split URL tests, the Variations section works differently. Instead of editing page elements, you specify the URLs for the control and each variation. Wingify redirects visitors to the appropriate URL based on their traffic assignment.
Configure the Control URL
The Control row is pre-populated. Click the URL field and enter your existing (control) page URL. Use the Page URL dropdown to select how Wingify matches that URL:
- URL matches: Exact match for a single, specific URL. Redirection Settings (Exclude Query String, Exclude Fragments) are only available for this option and control whether query parameters or URL fragments from the control URL are retained or stripped during redirect to the variation.
- URL matches pattern: Use wildcards (*) for simple broad matching across similar pages.
- URL matches regex: Write a regular expression for advanced dynamic URL matching. Wingify auto-detects capture groups in the regex and assigns each one a token ($1, $2, etc.) that you can reference in the variation URL.
- URL matches regex pattern: Match URLs using regex without using group tokens in the variation URL.
- Custom Redirection: Write a JavaScript function that dynamically constructs the variation URL at runtime, based on visitor attributes, the current URL structure, or other business logic.
Configure Variation URLs
Enter the URL of your variation page in the Variation row. If you used regex with capture groups in the control URL, use the corresponding tokens ($1, $2, etc.) in the variation URL to preserve dynamic segments such as country codes, category names, or product IDs.
Example: Control URL (regex): ^https:\/\/example\.com\/([a-z]{2})\/products\/([a-z]+)$ captures $1 (country code) and $2 (category) Variation URL: https://example.com/$1/new-products/$2 Wingify replaces the tokens with values captured from each visitor's actual URL.
Note: The variation URL must be a valid destination URL starting with http:// or https://. Never use regex syntax in the variation URL; it is a redirect destination, not a matching rule. If you do, users may be redirected to incorrect or broken pages.
Additional Split URL Options
Preview URL: Enter a URL in the Enter URL of the page to create Previews field. Wingify uses this to generate variation screenshots and heatmap reports, so you can visually verify that redirects are working correctly before going live.
Exclude URLs: Enable Exclude some URLs from the campaign to prevent specific pages or URL patterns from triggering a redirect, even if they match the control URL pattern.
Test campaign setup: Enter any URL and click Validate to check whether it matches your control URL pattern. If you used regex, Wingify shows the captured group values for that URL so you can confirm the tokens will resolve correctly.
Tip (Best Practice): Assign 0% traffic to the Control and add the control page as one of the named variations instead. This routes all traffic, including the control group, through the same redirect process, eliminating any latency difference between groups and making results more comparable.
Manage Test Variations
Click the More options ⋮ icon on any variation row to access the following options:
- Use this as baseline: Set this variation as the baseline for comparison
- Disable variation: Exclude this variation from the running campaign
- Live Preview: Open a live preview of the variation in a new tab
- Remove: Delete the variation from the campaign
Configure Traffic Allocation
You can configure traffic allocation directly on the Variations & Traffic page, below the variations table. There are two distinct controls:
Traffic Split Between Variations
The Traffic split dropdown above the variations table controls how traffic is divided among the variations and control. The default is Equal distribution. You can change this by:
- Clicking the percentage value next to any variation and entering a custom number.
- Selecting Equal Distribution from the Traffic split dropdown to reset to an even split.
- Selecting Custom Distribution when you want to specify the percentage of traffic to be allocated to each variation.
- Selecting Auto-distribute (Multi-arm bandit) to let Wingify automatically shift more traffic toward better-performing variations as the test runs. This is useful when you want to optimize for conversions during the test, not just at the end.
Overall Traffic Allocation
The Traffic Allocation slider at the bottom of the Variations & Traffic section controls what percentage of all visitors to your campaign pages will be included in the test. Visitors outside this percentage see the original page and are not tracked or bucketed into any variation.
Drag the slider or type a number directly into the percentage field. The default is 100%, meaning all visitors are included in the test.
Note: Reducing overall traffic allocation is useful when you want to run a lower-risk test on a subset of visitors before widening exposure. For example, starting at 10% while you verify the implementation, then increasing to 100%.
Click Save Now to save your variations and traffic settings, or click Next to move to the Metrics section.
Need more help?
For more information or further assistance, contact Wingify Support.