A/B testing campaigns for purchase flows

Overview

Use A/B testing campaigns to compare purchase flow variations and determine the highest converting purchasing funnel. Test between multiple purchase flow types:

• Checkout with cart functionalities
• One page checkout without review
• One page checkout with review
• Checkout page
• Express Payments Checkout

Requirements & limitations

Parameters sent through buy links will overwrite campaigns variables. Campaigns will not start if the buy link has a parameter that overwrites an experiment variable.

Trial links generated without CART or CARD parameters are also taken into account by the A/B testing mechanism.

You can see in the table below that some links that you can generate via the Sales links area of the platform contain parameters such as CART=1, CARD=1 or CARD=2. Make sure to remove these parameters from the links your shoppers use. Otherwise, their interactions will not be taken into account by the purchase flows A/B test.

Important: 2Checkout updates the campaign results at hourly intervals. Please allow up to one hour for the statistics to completely refresh after running tests.

2Checkout recommends using simple links, such as https://secure.2checkout.com/order/checkout.php.

https://secure.2checkout.com/order/checkout.php?CART=1

https://secure.2checkout.com/order/checkout.php?CART=1&CARD=2

https://secure.2checkout.com/order/checkout.php?CART=1&CARD=1

https://secure.2checkout.com/order/checkout.php

Purchase flows scenario variants

• Include cart functionalities
• Include payment details
• Exclude review page

Shopping cart modifiers

• Include compact shopping cart fields
• Include express payments checkout

Note: The one page checkout without review and one page checkout with review flows have an identical behavior when the shopper uses PayPal for the payment.

By using these options, you can replicate the purchase flows available in the 2Checkout system.

• Checkout with cart functionalities: shopping cart, billing info, review order, payment details
• One page checkout without review: shopping cart, billing info, payment details, express payment checkout
• One page checkout with review: shopping cart, billing info, payment details, review order, express payment checkout
• Checkout page: cart content, billing info, review order, payment details

You can use all of the flows in conjunction with the Include compact shopping cart fields setting.

2Checkout allows you to compare the following purchase flow scenarios. The table below shows the scenarios that 2Checkout currently supports.

Example scenario 1

Let's say that you currently sell products/subscriptions using the One page checkout with review purchase flow, and you want to compare conversion rates with the One page checkout without review flow.

Requirements

Before kicking off an A/B test make sure that you create a comprehensive testing plan with clearly defined comparison scenarios and even clearer success metrics.

Setup

1. Go to the A/B Testing page and click the Campaigns tab.
2. Click Configure new campaign in the Purchase flows section. If you already have an existing campaign, click the Edit Campaign button.
3. Fill in the details of the new campaign, such as the campaign name, maximum number of tests and the date when the campaign should end. Hit the Add campaign button to create an empty campaign. If you already have an existing campaign, proceed to the next step.
4. For our example scenario, enable the Include cart functionalities and Include payments details options to define the One page checkout with reviewpurchase flow. This will act as the baseline control sample. Set 50% of the traffic to be redirected to this scenario - this means that 50% of all visitors that reach checkout will use the One page checkout with review flow.
5. Click Add Scenario.
6. Next, let's create the second scenario. Enable the Include cart functionalities, Include payments details and Exclude review page options to define the One page checkout without review purchase flow. This will act as our comparison version. Set the remaining 50% of traffic to be redirected to this scenario - this means that the remaining 50% of all visitors that reach checkout will use the One page checkout without review flow.
7. Click Add Scenario.
8. Click Save campaign.
9. Return to the A/B testing dashboard and find your campaign in the list.
10. Click Start Campaign to direct half of your shoppers to one scenario and half to the other.
11. Calculate the A/B testing statistical confidence to know when you can stop the A/B testing campaign. When you have gathered enough relevant data you can easily decide on the winning scenario.

Note: Keep in mind that the example above is only a demonstrative one. You'll need to configure your own A/B tests based on your own individual testing needs.

Example scenario 2

Let's say that you currently sell products/subscriptions using the One page checkout without review purchase flow, and you want to compare conversion rates using the compact shopping cart fields and express payments checkout.

Setup

1. Go to the A/B Testing page and click the Campaigns tab.
2. Click Configure new campaign in the Purchase flows section. If you already have an existing campaign, click the Edit Campaign button.
3. Fill in the details of the new campaign, such as the campaign name, maximum number of tests and the date when the campaign should end. Hit the Add campaign button to create an empty campaign. If you already have an existing campaign, proceed to the next step.
4. For our example scenario, enable the Include cart functionalities, Include payments details and Exclude review page options to define the One page checkout without review purchase flow. This will act as the baseline control sample. Set 34% of the traffic to be redirected to this scenario - this means that 34% of all visitors that reach checkout will use the One page checkout without review flow.
5. Click Add Scenario.
6. Let's create the second scenario now. Enable the Include cart functionalities, Include payments details, Exclude review page and Include compact shopping cart fields options to define the One page checkout without review purchase flow with compact shopping cart fields. Set 33% of the remaining traffic to be redirected to this scenario - this means that another 33% of all visitors that reach checkout will use this flow.
7. Click Add Scenario.
8. Now for the third scenario. Enable the Include cart functionalities, Include payments details, Exclude review page and Include express payments checkout options to define the One page checkout without review purchase flow with express payments checkout. Set the remaining 33% of the remaining traffic to be redirected to this scenario.
9. Click Add Scenario.
10. Click Save campaign.
11. Return to the A/B testing dashboard and find your campaign in the list.
12. Click Start Campaign to start splitting your visitors between scenarios.