Creating Variations

Depending on the type of campaign you create, you'll be able to create different types of variations, such as Dynamic Content, JavaScript fired by a Custom Code campaign, or ad creative. Simply put, a variation is what you're asking the system to serve to particular visitors. For each one of your targeted experiences, you can create a single variation or multiple variations to test and dynamically optimize your campaigns.

There are three ways to create variations:

• Create a new variation: To create a variation from scratch, select an out-of-the-box template or a custom template built by your developer.
• Import a variation from another experience: Start with an existing variation and then edit the content to your current needs.
• Sync with Data Feed: Create variations using a Data Feed when you have a large number of variations and you want to automate and sync their content by tying them to a data source.

Creating a new Variation

The first step is to determine which template to use as your starting point. You have several options:

• No Template: Create your variation from scratch, using custom HTML, CSS, and Javascript. When you click this option, the Dynamic Yield web authoring tool is displayed, with tabs for HTML, CSS, and JS as well as a preview pane.
  After you enter your custom code, you can save it for reuse by clicking Save as Template:
• Dynamic Yield Templates: Out-of-the-box templates that can be used for different types of variations. 
• Web Templates: Templates you created and saved in your account (whether during the process of adding new custom code variations or by using the Templates section under Site Settings in the sidebar navigation menu) will appear in this screen, allowing you to reuse the template as desired, and push changes to several variations at once.

Learn more about creating templates.

You can add variables to use dynamic values for strings by highlighting the relevant value and clicking Convert to Variable. For more details, see Template Variables. 

Importing an existing variation

Variations from other campaigns in your account can be reused and imported by choosing the Copy from Another Experience option in the Variations screen. This option enables you to copy and edit single or multiple variations that already exist in your account.

Syncing with a data feed

You can use a variation feed to create and edit experiences with multiple variations. This can be helpful if you have an experience with many variations that needs to be updated frequently. For example, a homepage banner with 10 different creatives that are updated daily. 

For details, see Syncing Variations Using a Variation Feed.

Managing variations

You can always edit, add, delete, or pause a variation from any one of your experiences from both live and draft campaigns. Click the More Options icon to reveal available options. Layouts that allow multiple variations in a single view, such as sliders and item lists, also include the option to pin variations to the first (leftmost) slot.

Note: Some changes can affect A/B tests. When this happens, the system automatically treats this instance as a new test version and begins to calculate its performance measures from the start. Learn more about test versions.