Smart traffic routing

Smart traffic routing replaces the traditional split test. In an ordinary test, half of your visitors see version A and half see version B until you have enough data to pick a winner. With smart routing, the tool looks at signals such as device, location, referring source and time of day, learns which version tends to work for which kind of visitor, and sends each person to the version most likely to suit them. Instapage and Leadpages are examples of tools that offer it.

Fixed splits waste traffic on the weaker version while the test runs, and a single winner may be wrong for part of your audience. Routing that adapts can improve results without waiting for a clean test, and it can find that one version suits mobile visitors while another suits desktop.

It needs enough traffic to learn from. With only a few hundred visitors a month, the tool has little to learn from and a simple manual test is clearer and easier to explain. It also works as a black box, so you may not learn why a version won, which matters if you want lessons to reuse elsewhere.

• How much traffic does it need before it starts routing, and what happens until then.
• Can you see which signals drove the routing, or only the overall result.
• Can you switch it off and run a normal fixed split when you want a clean comparison.
• How does it define a conversion, and can that be your own goal rather than a default.