---
title: A/B testing
slug: product-recommendations/docs/ab-testing
docTags: 
createdAt: 2026-07-30T20:41:31.415Z
---

To run A/B tests that test your current setup or existing recommendations against Optimizely recommendations, request additional A/B test information by adding the `abTestContent` property.

| Name          | Description and usage                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       |
| ------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| abTestContent | To run A/B tests th Activate A/B test output. \* **summary** – Returns only A/B test name and the page visitor's group. \* **full** – Returns all available information. If you specify the property name with an empty string, summary is used by default. |

To request full A/B test information, set the `abTestContent` attribute in the tracking request to full, as shown below.

```csharp
{    
      "type"          : "home",
      "ip"            : "10.42.37.139",
      "session"       : "new",
      "cuid"          : "new",
      "site"          : "retailer",
      "clientToken"   : "1234abcd5678",
      "channel"       : "web",
      "lang"          : "en-gb",
      "currentURI"    : "www.retailer.com/home",
      "previousURI"   : "https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=retailer",   
      "userAgent"     : "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/56.0.2924.87 Safari/537.36",
      "abTestContent" : "full"
    }
```

This results in the following info section being returned in the response.

| Name   |                |         |          |          | Descriptions and usage                                                                                                                                                                                                                             |
| ------ | -------------- | ------- | -------- | -------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| abtest |                |         |          |          | An array of A/B test product records.                                                                                                                                                                                                              |
|        | \<productname> |         |          |          | The product name where \<productname> is one of:<br />- smartRecs<br />- smartContent                                                                                                                                                              |
|        |                | name    |          |          | \[String]<br />A/B test name.                                                                                                                                                                                                                      |
|        |                | group   |          |          | \[String]<br />The group assigned to the current visitor.                                                                                                                                                                                          |
|        |                | configs |          |          | A list of all Optimizely A/B test configurations that deliver Optimizely recommendations.<br />**Note**: If the current A/B group does not appear in this list, no Optimizely recommendations are configured to be served for the current visitor. |
|        |                |         | \<group> |          | An array of configurations to be shown for this test group, where \<group> is the test group letter, such as “A” or “B”.                                                                                                                           |
|        |                |         |          | name     | \[String]<br />Item name.<br />The name of the widget, creative, or listing that is shown if the test group letter matches the group assigned to the current visitor.                                                                              |
|        |                |         |          | position | \[String]<br />The position of the item.<br />Describes the page position where the item is shown.                                                                                                                                                 |

## A/B testing example 1

```csharp
{
      "status"         : "OK",
      "pageTrackingId" : "523863900/4ubJYHs6gwcwUz9xCjCmng",
      "session"        : {
                           "session" : "123456789012|a1b2c3d4e5A6B7C8D9E0f1g2h3i4j5F1G2H3I4J5k1l",
                           "cuid"    : "09876543210|Z0Y9X8W7V6z5y4x3w2v1U0T9S8R7Q6u5t4s3r2q1P0O"
                         },
      "info"           : {
         "abtest" : [{
           "smartRecs" : [{
             "name"    : "a/b test",
             "group"   : "A",
             "configs" : {
                           "A": [{
                                   "name"     : "homeA",
                                   "position" : "homejson"
                                }],
                           "B": [{
                                   "name"     : "homeB",
                                   "position" : "homejson"
                                }]
                         }
           }]
         }]
      }
    }
```

To request only the name of the A/B test and the group of the page visitor, set the tracking request's `abTestContent` attribute to summary.

```csharp
{      
      "type"          : "home",
      "ip"            : "10.42.37.139",
      "session"       : "new",
      "cuid"          : "new",
      "site"          : "retailer",
      "clientToken"   : "1234abcd5678",
      "channel"       : "web",
      "lang"          : "en-gb",
      "currentURI"    : "www.retailer.com/home",
      "previousURI"   : "https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=retailer",
      "userAgent"     : "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/56.0.2924.87 Safari/537.36",
      "abTestContent" : "summary"
    }
```

The resulting response includes this info section.

| Name   | Description and usage                 |                                                        |                                                      |
| ------ | ------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------- |
| abtest | An array of A/B test product records. |                                                        |                                                      |
|        | \\                                    | The product name where \ is smartRecs or smartContent. |                                                      |
|        |                                       | name                                                   | To run A\ A/B test name.                             |
|        |                                       | group                                                  | To run A\ The group assigned to the current visitor. |

## A/B testing example 2

```csharp
{
      "status"         : "OK",
      "pageTrackingId" : "523863900/4ubJYHs6gwcwUz9xCjCmng",
      "session"        : {
                           "session" : "123456789012|a1b2c3d4e5A6B7C8D9E0f1g2h3i4j5F1G2H3I4J5k1l",
                           "cuid"    : "09876543210|Z0Y9X8W7V6z5y4x3w2v1U0T9S8R7Q6u5t4s3r2q1P0O"
                         },
      "info"           : {
        "abtest"  : [{
          "smartRecs" : [{
                           "name"  : "a/b test",
                           "group" : "A"
                        }]
                     }]
      }
    }
```

:::hint{type="info"}
**Note**
Each product can have different A/B groups. So, do not assume that a visitor in group **A** for recommendations is also in group **A** for another Optimizely product, such as, Optimizely Promote (legacy).
:::