Slots are available on your web store via the Experiments option within the Layout tab’s Grid View. Slots provide a means of content variation similar to stacks, however, only a single variant of a slot will be returned to the visitor’s browser based on server-side rules.
Slots enable you to integrate with experiments for A/B testing, allowing a number of content variations to be defined in a page and resolved by the Experiments application.
Create and manage experiments
You can add an experiment slot to most layouts, with the exception of the Checkout and Payment page types. However, it is advisable to only have one experiment slot per layout. You should also avoid making changes to layouts or widget instances being used by an experiment as this may impact the results.
Note: If an experiment status is ‘In Progress’, the system prevents the user from adding or removing variants, or changing the variant name.
To create an experiment:
Open the Design page and click the Layout tab.
Navigate to any layout and open with the Grid View option from the configuration toolbar.
Locate the relevant section where you would like to create an experiment and highlight an existing region.
Either:
Select an existing region and ensure all widgets are removed so that just the region itself remains.
Or
Add a new row (which contains regions) above or below using the arrows on the row menu bar.
Refer to Add, remove, and rearrange widgets, elements and stacks in a layout for details on adjusting a region’s width settings, and removing widgets.
Open the Components menu, select Experiment Slot and drag to the empty region. You will see a default experiment slot containing a control (or default) slot and a variant slot.
You can now customize the slots as required or configure your experiment slot settings.
To customize your experiment slots, click the:
Add variant ‘+’ button on the far right to add up to a maximum 5 variant slots, including 1 control slot. Variant slots can be easily re-ordered via drag and drop.
Remove variant ‘x’ button to the right of each slot name to remove it. You must have at least one variant to create an experiment.
Note: You should not remove a slot if an experiment is scheduled, or in progress.
Variant name to open the Variant Label box where you can rename each step as required.
To configure your experiment slot settings:
Click the Settings icon to display the configuration options.
Choose your slot name and description details. You can also select whether you want to allow the user to go back a step by checking the Show “Previous” Button.
Click Save to confirm your settings.
Drag and drop widgets from the Components menu to the control variant(s) as required.
Click the experiments flask icon to update the experiment and launch an embedded modal view of the experiments settings provided by the Experiments application.
For further details on experiments, refer to the Using Oracle Commerce Experiments guide.
Configure audience-based content
You can create several versions of your store content in order to reach a variety of target audiences. For example, content images may be based on gender or age category.
To do so, you can add a Content Variation Slot to any layout.
To configure audience-based content:
Open the Design page and click the Layout tab.
Navigate to any layout and open with the Grid View option from the configuration toolbar.
Locate the relevant section where you would like to create a content variation slot and highlight an existing region.
Either:
Select an existing region and ensure all widgets are removed so that just the region itself remains.
Or
Add a new row (which contains regions) above or below using the arrows on the row menu bar.
Refer to Add, remove, and rearrange widgets, elements and stacks in a layout for details on adjusting a region’s width settings, and removing widgets.
Open the Components menu, select Content Variation Slot and drag to the empty region. You will see a default slot containing a control (or default) slot and an unassigned variant slot.
You can now either customize these slots, or, configure the slot settings.
To customize the slots, click the:
Add variant ‘+’ button on the far right to add up to a maximum 10 variant slots, including 1 control slot. Variant slots can be easily re-ordered via drag and drop.
Remove variant ‘x’ button to the right of each slot name to remove it. You cannot remove the default slot, and you must have at least one variant slot in addition to the default.
Variant name to open the Variant Label box where you can begin typing your preferred audience name in order to choose from a list of pre-defined audiences. You cannot assign an audience to the default slot.
Note: Audiences are defined when a set of rules are created based on attributes of the shopper profile, and are then used for personalizing the shopper’s experience. Refer to the Define Audiences chapter for details on creating and working with audiences via the Marketing page.
To configure your slot settings:
Click the Settings icon to display the configuration options.
Choose your slot name and description details.
Click Save to confirm your settings.
Drag and drop widgets from the Components menu to the variant(s) as required.
You must ensure that you publish the changes made to your store after assigning audiences to slots, otherwise the personalized content will not be displayed on the storefront.
