How to effectively use Route53 for online experiments?

Question

As a product owner for a 2million+ unique per month site, I want to do some A/B testing that I can track with Google Analytics goals, without paying the high fees for other online testing services. Using Google's own Content Experiments requires redirects using JS, which I don't want to risk the page load performance hit and have the freedom to use more than the 5 variations that CE limits you to.

This answer piqued my interest in using Route53 to avoid Google Content Experiments:

Google Analytics Content Experiments A/B testing server-side code without page refresh

I would like to know how I can serve and track these variations.

As I understand it now, Route53 functions at the DNS level and can load balance traffic to different IPs, so I could serve mydomain.com 50% / 50% to 200.0.0.1 and 200.0.0.2. I can then use server-side code to determine the IP being used and serve different JS tracking code for Google Analytics.

Then if users do or do not reach my GA Goal page, I can measure the effectiveness of my campaign?

Is that about right or am I missing something within the GA or site setup?

Answer 1

If you are already using Route53 and don't mind tracking different tacking codes separately, then you can use a bit of server side code to select the correct tracking code for that ID. Here is an example in PHP.

<?php
    var $serverIp_trackingCodes_map = array(
        '192.168.1.1' => 'UA-XXXXX-1',
        '192.168.1.2' => 'UA-XXXXX-2',
        '192.168.1.3' => 'UA-XXXXX-3',
        '192.168.1.4' => 'UA-XXXXX-4'
    );
?>

<script type="text/javascript">
    //The usual ga tracking code
    var _gaq = _gaq || [];
    //Pass in the tracking code for that server
    _gaq.push(['_setAccount', '<?php echo $serverIp_trackingCodes_map[ $_SERVER["SERVER_ADDR"] ] ?>']);
    _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

    (function() {
        var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
        ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
        var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
    })();

</script>

But it might be much easier to use one tracking code and set a custom variable with the server name or ip. This can later be used as a filter in reporting.

<script type="text/javascript">
    //The usual ga tracking code
    var _gaq = _gaq || [];
    _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXX-X']);
    _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

    (function() {
        var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
        ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
        var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
    })();

    //Set the custom variable
    _gaq.push(['_setCustomVar', 1, 'ServerIP','<? echo $_SERVER["SERVER_ADDR"]?>']);

</script>