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Experimentation

The Brightspot Experimentation plugin provides a provider-based A/B testing framework that lets teams create, manage, and analyze content experiments without leaving the CMS. It ships with a complete Kameleoon integration—including REST API synchronization and CDN edge functions for AWS CloudFront, Cloudflare Workers, and Akamai EdgeWorkers—so variation delivery happens at the network edge, without front-end JavaScript changes.

Key capabilities​

  • Create content variations directly on any asset and group them into experiments from the content edit page.
  • Configure delivery rules including audience targeting, traffic allocation, and exposure percentage.
  • Target experiments on content that has no permalink of its own to a curated page list, a content query, a path pattern, or every page on the site, with progressive delivery ramps to protect CDN cache capacity.
  • Prevent overlapping experiments from skewing each other's results by assigning them to a mutually exclusive group.
  • Define experiment goals across five goal types—page views, page access, click tracking, scroll depth, and time on site—or reuse a shared goal across multiple experiments.
  • Automatically or manually promote a winning variation to primary content when an experiment concludes.
  • Synchronize experiment state with Kameleoon via a REST API integration, including goals, segments, and targeting rules.
  • Deliver variation assignments at the CDN edge using AWS Lambda@Edge, Cloudflare Workers, or Akamai EdgeWorkers, eliminating round trips to the origin for cached responses.
  • Control access granularly through role-based experimentation permissions.
  • Monitor experiments site-wide from a configurable Experiments dashboard widget.
  • Subscribe to experiment lifecycle notifications, including winner determination, status changes, and MTU limit alerts.

How it works​

When a visitor requests a page, the CDN edge function reads the visitor's Kameleoon cookie, calls the Kameleoon SDK to resolve the assigned variation, and forwards the result to Brightspot via an x-bsp-variations request header. Brightspot uses that header to serve the appropriate content variation. On the response path, the edge function sets the Kameleoon visitor cookie so the same visitor consistently sees the same variation. Experiment configuration—including variations, delivery rules, goals, and status—is managed in Brightspot and synchronized to Kameleoon via the REST API.

Use cases​

Brightspot's experimentation framework supports a broad range of content optimization scenarios. Here are some practical applications:

Editorial and content strategy​

Promo copy optimization—Editorial teams use experiments to determine whether specific, story-driven call-to-action language outperforms generic copy. A homepage promo pointing to a sustainability feature might test:

  • "Read how we're reducing our carbon footprint" vs. "Continue Reading"
  • A headline that names the subject vs. one that teases a reveal
  • Short-form summary copy vs. a longer pull quote

Running these tests directly in Brightspot means editors can create and promote variations without engineering involvement.

Article template testing—Publishers test structural changes to article layouts to measure their effect on engagement and scroll depth. Typical experiments include:

  • Breaking long-form content into shorter sections with more images and pull quotes vs. a traditional single-column format
  • In-line module placement—testing whether a subscription prompt performs better mid-article or at the end
  • Sidebar vs. inline related content recommendations

Media and visual content​

Image vs. video on promos—Media teams test whether a static image or an autoplay video thumbnail drives more clicks on featured content promos. These experiments are particularly common on homepages and category landing pages, where promo format has an outsized effect on engagement.

Thumbnail and headline pairing—News and entertainment publishers test combinations of thumbnails and headlines to optimize click-through rates on content cards:

  • A close-up image vs. a wide scene shot for the same story
  • A declarative headline vs. a question-based headline
  • Showing a publication date vs. hiding it for evergreen content

E-commerce and conversion​

Call-to-action design testing—Commerce and lead-generation teams test button copy, placement, and surrounding context to improve conversion on high-value actions:

  • "Get a demo" vs. "See it in action" on product landing pages
  • A sticky CTA bar vs. an inline button at the end of a product description
  • A form-forward layout vs. a content-first layout that gates the form lower on the page

Product page layout optimization—Teams test how the arrangement of product information affects purchase intent, measuring scroll depth and access-to-page goals to infer intent signals:

  • Product specs above the fold vs. below reviews
  • Image gallery on the left vs. right of the product description
  • Single-column vs. two-column layout for feature lists

Who this documentation is for​

  • CMS administrators—Configuration covers granting experimentation permissions to roles, creating shared goals and mutually exclusive groups, and adding the Experiments widget to a dashboard.
  • Editors and content managers—Using experiments covers creating variations, configuring and running experiments, targeting multiple pages, and interpreting results. Experiment notifications covers subscribing to experiment lifecycle alerts.
  • Developers and ops engineers—Technical reference covers the plugin API, Kameleoon integration classes, and deploying the CDN edge functions for AWS, Cloudflare, and Akamai.

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