Flag deliveries in Optimizely Feature Experimentation

Using a feature flag delivery, you can complete the following:

Deploy a flag to a percentage of your user traffic.
Roll the flag back if needed.
Target your delivery to custom audiences so that only a subset of users (for example, users in Spain) get access to the flag.

Deliveries take effect immediately without a code deployment. All of this functionality is available with microsecond performance impact through easy-to-use, open-source SDKs and Agent.

Flag deliveries are a type of flag rule, as are A/B tests. The following table compares A/B tests and flag deliveries:

	Experiment (A/B test)	Flag delivery
Purpose	Lets you gather metrics data so you can compare multiple flag variations.	Lets you deploy a flag that you have already tested or measured some other way, such as qualitative feedback.
User impressions	When a user is assigned to an experiment, Optimizely sends a decision event to record information in your test results.	When a user is assigned to a delivery, Optimizely does not send a decision event. This means that extra network traffic and test results are not generated.
Variations	Test multiple variations—"on" versus "off" or a multivariate test of different configurations.	Each delivery exposes users to one variation. You can have multiple deliveries per flag.
Started by	Decide method	Decide method

Advantages of using flag deliveries

Flag deliveries help you mitigate risk. For example, if you want to be sure that a new feature does not degrade the visitor experience, launch the feature flag to a small percentage of visitors and then increase it. Decrease the percentage exposed to the flag if you encounter problems with the new feature.

Deliveries also let you launch winning flag variations that you identify through experimentation. After you find a winning variation, use a delivery to gradually expose the variation to your visitors in a controlled fashion.

Deliver to multiple audiences

Often, you want to deliver more strategically than to a random percent of your total user base. You can use audiences to do so. For information, see Target audiences.

Deliver sequentially to different user bases

First, you gradually deliver or roll out a new feature flag to beta users. Second, you retain the beta user delivery at 100% and roll out to your lowest-value customers. Finally, you roll out the flag for your highest-value customers.