Unlock the Power of Split Testing

As a developer, you’re always looking for ways to improve your application and user experience. One of the most effective ways to do this is through split testing, also known as A/B testing.

What is Split Testing?

Split testing is a method of comparing two or more versions of a product, feature, or design to see which one performs better. By dividing your traffic between different versions, you can gather valuable insights into user behavior and preferences, and make data-driven decisions to improve your app.

Netlify’s Split Testing Feature

Netlify’s split testing feature is a powerful tool that makes it easy to test and optimize your app. With this feature, you can divide traffic to your site between different deploys, straight from their CDN network, without losing any download performance, and without installing any third-party JavaScript library.

Key Benefits of Netlify’s Split Testing

There are several benefits to using Netlify’s split testing feature:

• Easy to use: Netlify’s split testing is straightforward and easy to set up, even for developers who are new to A/B testing.
• Flexible: You can use any client-side analytics library of your choice to track visitors across different versions of your site.
• Powerful: With the superpowers of Git branches, Netlify can build all your branches and serve them on dedicated URLs.
• Versatile: You can use this feature with any type of site you like, regardless of what tools or static site generator you used to create it.

A Simple Example

To illustrate how split testing works, let’s take a simple example. Imagine you have a project hosted on GitHub that greets users with the current time, date, and an African proverb after they input their name. You want to test a new feature that tells users how many characters their name has and the time in 12-hour format, all in a fancy font type.

// Original code
const userName = prompt('What is your name?');
const currentTime = new Date();
const africanProverb = 'When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.';

document.write(`Hello, ${userName}! The current time is ${currentTime.toLocaleTimeString()}. ${africanProverb}`);

// New feature code
const userName = prompt('What is your name?');
const currentTime = new Date();
const africanProverb = 'When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.';
const characterCount = userName.length;
const formattedTime = currentTime.toLocaleTimeString('en-US', { hour12: true });

document.write(`Hello, ${userName}! Your name has ${characterCount} characters. The current time is ${formattedTime}. ${africanProverb}`);

Getting Started with Split Testing

To get started with split testing, you’ll need a Netlify account. Once you’re logged in, click on the new site from the Git icon in the top-right of your dashboard. Follow the steps to deploy your site, and then head back to your dashboard to set up split testing.

Setting Up Split Testing

To activate split testing, click on the site you want to apply this feature to, and then click on Split Testing, the third menu item from the right. Click the button in the bottom-left labeled Activate branch deploys, and then choose the branches you want to test and the percentage of traffic you want to allocate to these branches.

1. Click on the site you want to apply split testing to.
2. Click on Split Testing.
3. Click the Activate branch deploys button.
4. Choose the branches you want to test.
5. Allocate the percentage of traffic to each branch.