File: README — Documentation for mp-gwo (0.2.0)

NOTE: CURRENTLY THIS WORKS ONLY WITH HAML ... I HAVE TO FIX IT IN ORDER TO GET IT RUNNING WITH ERB

This is a Ruby on Rails plugin (gem) which simplifies Server-Side Dynamic Section Variations with Google Website Optimizer as described in the article Server-Side Dynamic Section Variations on gwotricks.com

== Features:

very good Ruby on Rails integration
very simple to use
support for several sections that should have different variants
support for named and numbered sections
include part of a page in more than one variant
support for google analytics tracking
kill-switch
well tested

The 'Usage' may look long - but it's fairly straightforward and shouldn't take 5 mins.

Daniel Bornkessel [email protected] & Alex MacCaw - [email protected] (original author)

== Usage

To use GWO, you need two pages:

A test page containing the multi variant sections
A page that signifies conversion (i.e. account creation page)

Signup for Google Website Optimizer and:

Click create another experiment
Click multivariate experiment
Name it and enter the test/conversion urls (if the test will be included on multiple pages (/movies/:id), just choose one of the urls) ... actually the urls you type in don't really matter)
Select 'You will install and validate the JavaScript tags'
Ignore the scripts that are offered, but strip out your account id (uacct) and test id (both to be found in the Tracking Script). They look like as follows: var pageTracker=_gat._getTracker("UI-6882082-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview("/1662461989/test"); So, in this example the uacct is 'UA-6882082-1' and the test id is 1662461989.
Leave google and prepare your source code
Add the gwo_experiment tag around the code that is supposed to contain the variants (see the gwo_experiment documentation for possible options)
in the gwo_experiment you can specify one or more sections your side can contain. Each section can have several variants. So if you have for example 2 sections with each having 3 variants you would have 6 different possible combinations on your page.
Create your gwo_sections, as in the example. The first parameter is the name of the section, the second the name of the variant(s) in which the following code should be shown (see example code). You can mix variants by just passing in more than one identifier. The original variant has the reserved identifier :original (or 0 if you use numbers)
The variants can either be identified by numbers (starting at 0 for the original variant) or be named (see below how to assign the names in the google web interface).
Add a gwo_conversion helper tag on your conversion page passing in your uacct and test id.
In order to validate the pages in the goole web interface, start rails, surf to the pages (variant and conversion page) you just created and save each one locally.
back in the google web interface, validate your pages by using the 'offline validation' link and upload the two pages you just saved
as a next step, define the sections. If you used named identifiers in you rails source code, put the the identifiers name as the content of the variations in the web interface (i.e. the example below would have two variants (+ the original variant); one variation would have the CONTENT (subject & name of the variants are not important) 'minimalistic' and the other 'with_sidebar_and_top_signup_box' (without the quotes)). If you use numbered identifiers, just create new variations and leave the content empty.
finish up and start the experiment
lean back and let google collect data for you for the next few days ... go back an be shocked about the little number of conversions you will probably get ;)

== Example

... in haml:

= gwo_experiment("1662461989", "UA-6882082-1", :signup_box_test, :conditions => (signed_up? && country == "de")) do
  = gwo_section(:signup_box_test, [:with_sidebar_and_top_signup_box, :minimalistic], :ga_tracking => true, :conditions => (signed_up? && country == "de")) do
    = render :partial => 'gossib/signup'
    %span I am only visible in the variants :with_sidebar_and_top_signup_box and :minimalistic

  = gwo_section(:signup_box_test, [:original, :with_sidebar_and_top_signup_box], :conditions => (signed_up? && country == "de")) do
    = render :partial => 'gossib/bookmark_menu'
    = render :partial => 'gossip/pics', :locals => {:images       => @article.images}
    .box#
      %span Hi hi ... I am not visible in :minimalistic

  %span I am visible in every variation

  = gwo_section(:signup_box_test, :original, :conditions => (signed_up? && country == "de")) do
    %span I am only in the original page

... or in erb:

<% gwo_experiment("1662461989", "UA-6882082-1", :signup_box_test, :conditions => (signed_up? && country == "de")) do %>
  <% render :partial => 'gossip/article.html.haml',  :object => @article %>

  <% gwo_section(:signup_box_test, [:with_sidebar_and_top_signup_box, :minimalistic], :conditions => (signed_up? && country == "de")) do %> 
    <%= render :partial => 'gossib/signup' %>
    <span> I am only visible in the variants :with_sidebar_and_top_signup_box and :minimalistic</span>
  <% end %>

  <% gwo_section(:signup_box_test, [:original, :with_sidebar_and_top_signup_box], :conditions => (signed_up? && country == "de")) do %>
    <%= render :partial => 'gossib/bookmark_menu' %>
    <%= render :partial => 'gossip/pics', :locals => {:images       => @article.images} %>
    <div class="box">
      <span> Hi hi ... I am not visible in :minimalistic</span>
  <% end %>

  <span> I am visible in every variation</span>

  <% gwo_section(:signup_box_test, :original, :conditions => (signed_up? && country == "de")) do %>
    <span> I am only in the original page</span>
  <% end %>
<% end %>

== Conversion page:

... haml:

= gwo_conversion('1909920434', 'UA-23902382-1')

... erb:

<%= gwo_conversion('1909920434', 'UA-23902382-1') %>