Amplitude

Overview:

Amplitude is a powerful digital analytics platform that helps you understand user behavior across web and mobile. It automatically tracks user interactions and provides deep insights into customer journeys, retention, and engagement patterns.

What This Integration Achieves

This integration allows you to use Amplitude-identified users and cohorts for VWO feature flag targeting. By importing user cohorts from Amplitude into VWO, you can roll out or test features for specific segments (e.g. Power Users, Premium users, At-Risk users) and personalize product experiences based on actual user behavior tracked in Amplitude.

Key Benefits

Segment-based targeting: Run feature experiments only for specific Amplitude cohorts
Personalized rollouts: Deliver variations tailored to user properties (e.g., plan, region, engagement level, lifecycle stage)
Cohort-driven A/B testing: Combine Amplitude's behavioral analytics with VWO's experimentation engine
Data-driven decisions: Leverage Amplitude's rich user behavior data for more effective feature rollouts

Step 1: Enabling the Amplitude Integration for Your VWO Account

To enable the VWO-Amplitude integration on your VWO account, follow this:

Log in to your VWO account.
From the left panel of your VWO dashboard, go to Configurations > Integrations.
Click on the Amplitude integration and enable it. Once enabled, the Amplitude screen within the VWO’s Integration section looks like this:
You will be auto-navigated to the Config tab.

5 .Enable "Enable use of Amplitude cohorts for visitor targeting".

Click Save.
Copy/note the API key that VWO auto-generates. You'll need this to configure Amplitude.

Step 2 - Configure VWO as a Destination in Amplitude

In Amplitude, navigate to Data > Catalog > Destinations > VWO.
Click Add another destination.
Enter a name for the destination (e.g., “VWO Production”).
Paste the API Key from the previous VWO step.
For the User ID, select the property that best identifies your users (typically Amplitude's Device ID or User ID, as appropriate for your organization).
Click Save.

Step 3 - Sync Cohorts from Amplitude to VWO

In Amplitude, go to Users > Cohorts.
Select an existing cohort or create a new one using Amplitude’s segmentation builder.
Click Sync for the cohort.
In the Select Destination popup, choose your VWO destination.
Choose the sync frequency:
- Enable Scheduled Sync: Recommended (syncs automatically, keeps targeting up to date).
- One-Time Sync: Use if you do not want to keep syncing changes.
Click Sync.

Step 4 - Import & Activate Amplitude Cohorts in VWO

Back in VWO, within the Amplitude integration settings, click Add Cohort.
Search for or select the Amplitude cohort(s) you just synced.
Click Add.
First sync may take up to 24 hours depending on the size of cohort. Subsequent syncs are automatic (every 24 hours by default), but you can also trigger manual sync.

Step 5 - SDK Setup (Node.js Example)

5.1 Install and Initialize the VWO FE SDK

Install the official VWO FE Node SDK:

npm install vwo-fme-node-sdk

5.2 Setup Gateway Service :

Reference: VWO Gateway Service Doc

5.3 Initialize the SDK in your application with gateway service:

Reference: SDK Initialization Doc

const vwo = require('vwo-fme-node-sdk');

const vwoClient = await vwo.init({
    sdkKey: 'YOUR_SDK_KEY',
    accountId: 'YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID',
    gatewayService: {
        url: 'YOUR_GATEWAY_SERVICE_URL'
    }
});

Note: The gatewayService is mandatory for Amplitude integration because the SDK itself does not store your Amplitude cohort data. When you evaluate a flag, the SDK uses the Gateway to check in real-time if the user belongs to the synced Amplitude segment.

Step 6: Setting Up Pre-Segmentation for Amplitude-Synced Segments

Once your Amplitude segments are imported into VWO, configure pre-segmentation in your feature flag to target those users.

Configure Pre-Segmentation in the Feature Flag

Navigate to Feature Experimentation → Feature Flags in VWO.
Click Create Feature Flag (or open an existing one).
Add variables and variations as per your use case.

Example:
- Variable Name: Your_Variable_Name
- Type: Datatype
- Default Value: “Default value”
Choose a primary metric to measure conversions or engagement.
Go to the Rules tab → Click Create New Rollout Rule.
Under Audience, choose Custom Segment.
In Attribute, select Custom Variable.
Enter the identifier name used for targeting.
Choose Operator → In List.
Select the Attribute List corresponding to your Amplitude segment (e.g., amplitude_premium_users).
Save the rule and toggle ON the rollout rule.

Finally, copy the SDK Key — you’ll need it for SDK initialization.

Step 7: Implementing Amplitude Segment Targeting in SDK

After configuring pre-segmentation in the VWO app, ensure your SDK passes the appropriate user context for evaluation. Let’s see an example of using Amplitude Segments in feature evaluation.

Once the SDK is installed, do the following

Add the Amplitude user identifier inside customVariables while creating the user context.
Pass this context to getFlag() so VWO can evaluate the feature flag using Amplitude cohort pre-segmentation.

let context = {
    id: 'UserID',
    customVariables: {
        "your_variable_name": "value_for_variable"
    },
    ipAddress: 'user_ip_Address',
    userAgent: 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/130.0.0.0 Safari/537.36'


};

const featureFlag = vwoClient.getFlag('featureFlag', context);

if (featureFlag.enabled) {
    console.log("Feature enabled for Amplitude-segmented user");
} else {
    console.log("User does not qualify for the Amplitude segment rollout");
}

Explanation

The key "your_custom_variable" must exactly match the identifier defined in your VWO pre-segmentation rule.
If the value Identifier exists in the imported Amplitude list, the segmentation passes and the user qualifies.
If not, the segmentation fails and the rule remains disabled for that user.

Notes & Best Practices

Ensure the custom variable key in your SDK context matches the one defined in VWO’s rule configuration.
If you have multiple Amplitude Cohorts, create separate rollout rules for each to maintain clear targeting logic.
Always use recurring sync to keep segment data updated between Amplitude and VWO