Class: Conductor::Experiment

Inherits:
Object
  • Object
show all
Defined in:
lib/conductor/experiment.rb,
app/models/conductor/experiment/raw.rb,
app/models/conductor/experiment/daily.rb,
app/models/conductor/experiment/weight.rb,
app/models/conductor/experiment/history.rb

Defined Under Namespace

Classes: Daily, History, Raw, Weight

Class Method Summary collapse

Class Method Details

.pick(group_name, alternatives, options = {}) ⇒ Object

Selects the best alternative for a given group

Method also saves the selection to the database so everything happens in one move

options allow you to specify a specific GOAL in case you have multiple goals per site. For example, if you are using Conductor to maximize newsletter signups and orders, you might have: => “signup” and {:goal => “purchase” }

goals are important since you can specify which goal converted with the track! method to only update records for that specific goal.



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# File 'lib/conductor/experiment.rb', line 21

def pick(group_name, alternatives, options={})
  group_name = Conductor.sanitize(group_name) # => clean up and standardize

  # check for previous selection
  selection = Conductor.cache.read("Conductor::#{Conductor.identity}::Experience::#{group_name}")

  if selection.blank?
    selection = select_alternative_for_group(group_name, alternatives)
    Conductor::Experiment::Raw.create!({:identity_id => Conductor.identity.to_s, :group_name => group_name, :alternative => selection}.merge!(options))
    Conductor.cache.write("Conductor::#{Conductor.identity}::Experience::#{group_name}", selection)
  end

  return selection
end

.track!(options = {}) ⇒ Object

Records a conversion for the visitor.

May optionally supply a conversion value and goal.

Conversion value is specified as => 123.45

If no goal is specified as an option, than ALL selected alternatives for the experiments for a specific user will be updated with the conversion value. If a goal is specified, then only those records will be updated.

To clarify by explaination -

Assume you are selecting a landing page to maximize newsletter signups and are selecting a price point to maximize purchases. In this case you would have two goals -

- 
- purchase

Now, if we assume that for visitor 24601 a landing page and price point are selected before they signup for the newsletter, if you called track! after a newsletter signup occurred without specifying the goal, then a conversion would ALSO (and incorrectly) be recorded by the PURCHASE goal as well as the SIGNUP goal.

What you needed to do was call track!(=> ‘signup’) to correctly record a conversion for visitor 24601 and the newsletter signup only.



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# File 'lib/conductor/experiment.rb', line 70

def track!(options={})
  value = (options.delete(:value) || 1) # => pull the conversion value and remove from hash or set value to 1
  experiments = Conductor::Experiment::Raw.where({:identity_id => Conductor.identity.to_s}.merge!(options))
  experiments.each {|x| x.update_attributes(:conversion_value => value)} if experiments
end

.weights(group_name, alternatives) ⇒ Object

returns the raw weighting table for all alternatives for a specified group



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# File 'lib/conductor/experiment.rb', line 37

def weights(group_name, alternatives)
  group_name = Conductor.sanitize(group_name) # => clean up and standardize
  return generate_weighting_table(group_name, alternatives)
end