Product Image Testing Overview

What product image experiments do in Elevate A/B Testing, what you can test, and what you need before you start.

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A product image experiment shows different product photos to different visitors and measures which set sells better.

Everything else stays the same. Same title, same description, same price. Only the images change, which is what makes the result attributable to the photography.

How it works

1. You select the products to test, up to 500 in one experiment.

2. For each variation you replace images, reorder them, or both.

3. Visitors are split between variations, and each one sees that variation's images on the product page.

4. Elevate A/B Testing tracks behavior and attributes conversions to the images each visitor saw.

Images are swapped on the storefront by the theme extension. No products are duplicated, and nothing changes in your Shopify product data.

What you can test

Change	Question it answers
Hero image	Does a lifestyle shot beat a product only shot as the first image
Image order	Does leading with a detail shot beat leading with a wide shot
Photography style	Studio, user generated, or lifestyle
Model shots	Does the product on a model beat a flat lay
Image count and detail	Do additional detail shots help or get in the way

The first image is the one that does most of the work. It appears in the gallery, and on many themes it is what a visitor sees before scrolling at all.

When to use it

Use a product image experiment when	Use something else when
You want to know which photography sells better	You want to change the layout of the gallery. Use a Page Experiment.
You are choosing between two shoots, or deciding whether a shoot was worth it	You want to change copy or headings. Use a Content Experiment.
You want to test images across a group of products at once	You want to change the product being offered. Use a Product Experiment.

Requirements

• Elevate A/B Testing installed on your store.

• The Elevate A/B Testing theme extension enabled. Image swapping happens on the page, so the extension is required and the experiment cannot launch without it.

• Alternative images ready, or a clear idea of what you want generated.

Product image testing works on all Shopify plans.

Before you start

Match the format. A variation image with different dimensions, cropping, or background from the control will change how the gallery looks as well as what it shows. That is a second change unless you intended it.

Test one thing where you can. Replacing the hero image and reordering the rest tells you the combination won, not which part did.

Think about where else the image appears. The first image is often used on collection pages, search results, and in some apps. Confirm what changes and what does not before drawing conclusions about why a number moved.

Next steps

• Create a Product Image Experiment

• Preview and QA a Product Image Experiment