Track Goal

The trackGoal API is used to track the goal conversions for the FullStack A/B test experiments. This can be invoked in two ways:

Method:

String variationName = pageSenseClient.trackGoal(experimentName, userId, goalName, userAttributes);

Parameters:

Parameter	Type	Description
experimentName	String	The name of the experiment activated.
userId	String	A unique identifier for the user.
goalName	String	The name of the goal being tracked.
userAttributes	HashMap<String, String>	A map of user attributes used for audience targeting and segmentation.

In a FullStack A/B Test experiment, a conversion event is tracked for a user for a particular goal only when the following conditions are met:

User qualifies for the experiment based on the audience targeting conditions and experiment traffic
User completes the specified goal action

As a prerequisite, you must configure the list of goals associated with the experiment and clearly define the conditions under which each goal is considered completed. Once a user qualifies for the experiment and satisfies the criteria for a specific goal, the trackGoal API must be invoked to report the conversion event to the PageSense server.

If the user qualifies for the experiment, the API sends the goal conversion details to PageSense server. If the user does not qualify, the API call is ignored, and no goal conversion details will be recorded.

This ensures that goal tracking remains accurate, consistent, and limited only to the users who are actively participating in the experiment.

Example code:

Please see the following code to understand how the user conversion can be tracked using trackGoal API.

import java.util.HashMap;
// Create the User Attributes object
HashMap<String, String> userAttributes = new HashMap<>();
// Add the User Attribute values
userAttributes.put("Browser", "Chrome");
userAttributes.put("Device", "Desktop");
userAttributes.put("OS", "Windows 10");
// Activate the FullStack A/B Test Experiment
String variationName = pageSenseClient.trackGoal(experimentName, userId, goalName, userAttributes);

How this API Works

When the trackGoal API is invoked, it follows a structured process to determine whether a variation should be allocated to the user. Below is a detailed breakdown of this process:

Audience Targeting

The API first evaluates whether the user qualifies for the experiment based on audience targeting conditions defined during experiment configuration.

These conditions are typically based on user attributes such as browser, device type, operating system, or any custom user data passed in the userAttributes.

If the user’s attributes match the audience targeting conditions, the API proceeds to the next step.
If the user does not meet these conditions, the API immediately returns null, indicating that the user is not eligible to be included in the experiment.

User Qualification

The next step is to determine if the user qualifies for the experiment based on the experiment’s traffic allocation settings.

The API checks whether the User Storage Service is enabled. If it is enabled, the API will check for any stored variation for the user. If a variation has already been assigned and stored for the user in the User Storage Service, the API retrieves and returns that stored variation.
If no stored variation exists, the API proceeds to allocate a new variation using variation bucketing.
The API applies the MurmurHash algorithm to the user's ID (userId). This hashing algorithm consistently generates a unique numeric value between 0 and 9999 for each user ID, which serves as the user's hash value.
Each variation within the experiment is assigned a specific range of hash values that corresponds to the variation’s allocated traffic percentage.
The API checks if the user’s hash value falls within any of these defined ranges. If it does, the user will be considered qualified for the experiment. If the hash value falls outside all assigned ranges, it means the user is not qualified for the experiment and the goals will not be tracked.

Tracking and Analytics

If the user qualifies for the experiment and achieves the goal, the API sends the corresponding goal conversion details to the PageSense server. This data is used for analytics, reporting, and experiment performance evaluation.

Using trackGoal without user attributes

The trackGoal API may also be invoked without providing any user attributes. The following code demonstrates how to call the API without passing any user attribute parameters.

Method:

String variationName = pageSenseClient.trackGoal(experimentName, userName, goalName);

Parameter details

Parameter	Type	Description
experimentName	String	The name of the experiment activated.
userId	String	A unique identifier for the user.
goalName	String	The name of the goal being tracked.

How the API Works

In this version of the API, only the experiment name and user ID are required.
The audience targeting step is still executed; however, since no user attributes are provided, the user will qualify only for the experiments where the audience targeting criteria is configured as “All Visitors.”
If the experiment includes any additional audience targeting conditions—such as device type, location, or custom attributes—the user will automatically fail the qualification check due to the absence of user attribute data for evaluation.
For experiments that allow “All Visitors,” the MurmurHash algorithm is applied to thee User Id to get the User's unique has value based on experiment's traffic allocation. If the user's hash value falls within the defined range of any variation, that user is qualified for the experiment and the goal conversion details will be sent to the PageSense server.
If the user's hash value falls outside all defined variation ranges—due to the experiment’s traffic allocation configured, the user will not qualify for the experiment and no goal conversion details will be sent to the PageSense Server.

We hope this documentation helps make the process easy for you. Please feel free to reach out to us anytime by dropping an email to support@zohopagesense.com if you need more explanation or have any questions.