Product Image Testing - Getting Started
Learn how Product Image Testing can optimize your store's visual presentation and boost engagement.
Product image testing lets you experiment with different product photos to see which ones drive more sales. Test different angles, lifestyle shots, backgrounds, image ordering, or entirely different photo sets — and let real visitor data tell you what works.
What Is a Product Image Experiment?
A product image experiment swaps the images on your product page for each variation. Visitors are randomly assigned to see different image sets for the same product, and Elevate tracks which set of images performs better across conversion rate, add-to-cart rate, revenue, and other metrics.
The product itself stays the same — same title, same description, same price. Only the images change. This isolates the impact of your photography on buying decisions.
What Can You Test?
Hero image — Does a lifestyle shot convert better than a product-only image on a white background? Replace the first image to test.
Image order — Does leading with a close-up vs. a wide shot affect add-to-cart rate? Reorder the gallery to find out.
Image style — Professional studio photography vs. user-generated content vs. AI-generated lifestyle images. Swap in different shots.
Model shots — Does showing the product on a model outperform flat lays or product-only shots?
Image quality — High-resolution detail shots vs. standard product photography
How It Works
You select the product(s) you want to test
For each variation, you upload or select alternative images — replacing, reordering, or swapping out the product photos
When a visitor views the product page, the Elevate theme extension swaps in the images for their assigned variation
Elevate tracks how each image set performs
The control always shows your current live product images
The image swap happens through the theme extension — there are no duplicate products involved and no changes to your product data in Shopify. When the experiment ends, everything reverts to your original images automatically.
What You'll Need
Before creating a product image experiment:
Alternative images ready — Have your test images prepared. You can upload new images during the experiment setup or select from images already in your Shopify media library.
The Elevate theme extension enabled — Product image experiments require the theme extension to swap images on the storefront. If it's not enabled, Elevate will prompt you during setup.
A clear hypothesis — What about the images are you changing, and what do you expect to happen?
Product image testing works on all Shopify plans.
Next Steps
How to Create a Product Image Experiment — Step-by-step setup guide
Audience Targeting — Control which visitors see your experiment
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