Create a Product Experiment
Step by step walkthrough for creating a product experiment in Elevate A/B Testing, including product groups, duplication, and the pre-launch review.
Seven steps, plus a review before launch.
Before you start: the theme extension enabled, and a decision about whether you are testing against a product that already exists or one you will create by duplicating.
Open Experiments, select New Experiment, then Product Experiment.
Step 1: General Info & Goal
Enter an Experiment name. Description, Hypothesis, and Assets are optional.
Under What do you want to measure?, choose your goal. Revenue per visitor is recommended.
Select Browse all metrics for the full list, or Add Custom Metric to track something else. See Custom Events.
Step 2: Select Products
Choose the products to test, up to 500.
Search by product title or ID. Filter by product type, status, collection, or tag. Status defaults to Active.
Select All takes everything matching your current filters. Upload CSV imports a list.
The counter shows how many you have selected against the cap.
Step 3: Set Variations
Choose the Number of Variations, then pair each product with something to test against.
Each product you selected becomes its own group, labelled Group A, Group B, and so on. The control column lists your original products. The variation column asks you to Select product to test against for each group.
Select Product
Points the variation at a product that already exists
You have already built the alternative
Duplicate Product
Creates a copy of the original that you then edit
You are building the alternative from the original. The usual choice.
Duplicate All
Duplicates every group's product in one action
You are testing many products the same way
Duplicated products are created Unlisted, so they are reachable through the experiment and not through your storefront navigation, search, or collections.
Use the edit control on any product card to change it, and Add products to the group to widen a group.
After duplicating, edit each copy in Shopify to make the change you are testing. A duplicate that is identical to the original tests nothing.
Step 4: Traffic Allocation
Set the split with the slider. Even is the default.
Isolate traffic for this experiment is optional and off by default. See Traffic Isolation.
Step 5: Audiences
Optionally narrow who enters, by device type, visitor type, UTM parameters, traffic source, or country. See Audience Targeting.
Step 6: Enhance Your Variations (Optional)
Skippable. These layer extra changes on top of variations you have already set.
Content Editing Changes
You want to edit text on the variation product page as well
Custom Code
You want JavaScript or CSS applied per variation
Click-Through Rate Tracking
You want clicks on specific buttons or links tracked
Adding these makes the experiment multivariate. A win then tells you the combination worked, not which part did.
Step 7: Review Experiment
Check the setup, then select Create Preview Experiment.
The pre-launch review
Product experiments have a review before launch with five stages, and the middle three exist because duplicated products need work that Shopify does not do for you.
Overview
The experiment setup
Theme Extension
Confirming the extension is enabled
Product Reviews
Copying reviews from your originals to the duplicates
Sales Configuration
Inventory, SKUs, apps, and sales channels
Elevate Review
Final confirmation, then Launch Experiment
Product Reviews
Duplicated products start with no reviews. A product with none against one with hundreds is not a fair test, and the gap will decide your experiment for you.
Elevate A/B Testing generates a message listing every original and its duplicate by product ID. Copy to clipboard and send it to your review app's support team, who will transfer the reviews for you.
Do this before launching, not after. Reviews arriving mid experiment change the thing being tested partway through.
Sales Configuration
Two checks.
Other Apps & Inventory. Make sure inventory and fulfilment are consistent across variations. If you use apps that modify product listings, connect them to your test variations. Update SKUs or other identifiers so every variation is recognised as the same product by your other systems.
Sales Channels. Limit duplicated test products to the online store. On the product page in Shopify, uncheck other channels such as Facebook Shopping and Instagram Shopping, so your test duplicates do not appear as separate listings in those catalogues.
Next steps
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