Creating Your First Experiment

Learn how to create and configure A/B experiments using Sidecar without writing code or deploying to production.

Sidecar lets you create and run A/B experiments without writing code or pushing code to production. This guide shows how to create an experiment and review results.

This guide assumes you've followed the previous steps of installing Sidecar, creating a Statsig account, and setting up the API Keys correctly. Refer to Setup for those instructions.

Step 1: Navigate to the web page

Navigate to the web page you want to experiment on.

Sidecar experiment interface showing the main dashboard

Step 2: New experiment

Select the New Experiment button and fill out the details. Selecting New Experiment creates a local, unpublished experiment, so you can configure all the details and verify that everything works before publishing.

Step 3 (Optional): Add URL filter

You can select which pages the experiment runs on. Sidecar evaluates URL filters before any targeting rules configured on the experiment in the Statsig console.

You can configure URL targeting using the following methods:

All Pages - anywhere you install the Sidecar client.
Contains - The page URL must contain the value as a substring.
Exact Match - The page URL must match the exact value you specify here.
Regex - Regular expressions, for example (http|https):\/\/www.statsig.com\/pricing matches pages http://www.statsig.com/pricing or https://www.statsig.com/pricing, and activates this experiment on those pages.

URL targeting configuration interface with filter options

Step 4: Add actions

Select the Add Action button to see a list of actions available for this experiment.

Choose Change content of an element to run an A/B test that changes the content of an HTML element, such as headlines, descriptions, or CTAs.

Add action selection menu with available experiment actions

Use the Redirect action for landing page and split URL experiments

For Landing Page and Split URL experiments, add the "Redirect to another page" action for any test group and specify the destination URL. Sidecar preserves query string parameters and passes them to the destination URL.

Redirect action configuration for landing page experiments

Step 5: Select an element

To run a content change experiment, you need two things: the element to test, and the content to change.

Select the yellow Target element path text box to activate element selector mode.

Move your mouse over the web page to see a red selection rectangle. Select the element you want. This example selects the main Headline.

Element selection with red highlight showing target element

Sidecar now reflects the path of the selected element.

Selected element path display in the configuration panel

Step 6: Update content

Choose the two text values to A/B test. In the Control content text box, add your control text (for example, "Build Better Products"). In the Test content text box, add your test variant (for example, "Experiment Like a Pro").

You can validate these changes in real time by selecting the ▶ button above the text box for each variant. Selecting the button immediately changes the element's content so you can visually inspect the result before publishing.

Content update interface with preview functionality

Step 7: Add more actions

You can add more actions within the same experiment to explore additional capabilities.

Adding additional experiment actions to the same test

You've created your first no-code experiment.

Next up: Measuring Experiments

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