WooCommerce Product Testing

WooCommerce product A/B testing is a type of WooCommerce-specific testing in which different combinations of a product’s name, descriptions, images, price and offers (single or variable) are tested, with the intention of discovering which one gets more purchases of that product..

Nelio A/B Testing allows you to create this type of tests easily, keeping track of your visitors to discover with real data which variant generates more sales and revenues.  Install, activate, and configure Nelio and get the most out of your store.

Instructions for Testing Products in WooCommerce

Once you have installed, activated and configured Nelio A/B Testing, follow these instructions to create A/B tests.

Create a New A/B Test for a Product in WooCommerce

1. Under the Nelio A/B Testing menu, click on Tests to view and manage your tests.
2. Click the Add Test button at the top of the screen.
3. A pop-up window will open with all the types of tests you can create. Each of them has a name and an icon
   • Click WooCommerce Product.

Name and Define Your Test

First of all, give a descriptive Name to the test you want to create to help you identify it in the future. In addition, on the right sidebar, you’ll find two additional tabs:

• Status & Management, where you see the status your test is currently in (Draft, Ready, Scheduled, or Paused) and options on when it should start and end,
• Description of the test, where you can indicate what you are testing and what you intend to achieve with it.

How to Create the Variants to Test

An A/B test of a WooCommerce product consists of testing different variants of combinations of name, descriptions, images, prices and offers of a WooCommerce product, either a simple product or a variable product, and finding out which combination provides more sales and revenue.

Select the WooCommerce Product

First, select a product (called “Control Version” or commonly “Version A”) on which you want to perform the test. To do this, you either choose it from the list of options that appears by default, or you look for it by typing its name, its URL or its identifier.

Create New Variants

Then create a “Variant B” (or more than one variant, if you wish) of the product selected above:

1. Name your variant in the field next to the letter indicating the variant you are creating (for example, “Variant 1” or “Product with 15% discount”).
2. By default, each variant created will be an exact copy of the original product.
3. If you want to create more than one variant, click on the New Variant button at the end of the section.

Editing a Variant

When you edit a variant, WordPress will open the variant editor, similar to WooCommerce’s product editor.

In the case of editing a simple product (image above left), you can modify the name, the short and detailed descriptions, the featured image, the gallery images, its regular price and its offer price. In the case of editing a variable product (image above right) you can modify the same features as before but for each of the product variants.

Additionally, when you are editing a variant that belongs to a test, the Nelio A/B Testing section appears on the right sidebar allowing you to:

• Return to the test to which the variant belongs,
• Go directly to edit the control version or any other variant,

Goals and Conversion Actions

WooCommerce product tests, by default, have an implicit goal: a conversion occurs when a visitor purchases the tested product. Visits occur every time visitors see the product under test in a page on your website and conversions occur once the purchase is completed.

However, you have the option to change the conversion goal by selecting any other order status from those available in your store. To do this, simply click on the drop-down list and select the alternative order status of your choice.

You can also check or uncheck (by default it is checked), whether you want Nelio A/B Testing to track the revenue and display it in the test results.

Please note that Nelio A/B Testing uses only tested page views and conversions to calculate its results and compare the different alternatives. Revenues are shown for information purposes only. With multiple orders in a single purchase and different prices for each alternative, it may happen that a winning alternative from a conversion perspective has generated less revenue than the losing alternative.

How to Start the Test

Once you have fully defined your test, you will see that the status of the test will have passed from Draft to Ready. At that point, you can Start it so that your website visitors can see the different variants that you have created and Nelio A/B Testing will start tracking their actions.

Start your test

To start a test, check that it is Ready and, if it is, click on the Start… button in the upper right corner. If it was not ready, you can hover the mouse over the information icon that appears next to the Status to see why your test is still a Draft.

If you do not want to start the test directly, but want to leave it scheduled for a specific date, specify it using the Start field in the Status & Management section.

Once the test has started, the plugin will show you its results page and you will see that the status changes to Running.

Important: tests cannot be edited once they are active, but you can pause, modify them and restart them so they continue to run. Of course, depending on the modifications you make, your partial results may be invalid after restarting the test. If that is the case, it is best to start a new test, duplicating the previous one.

When do you want to end your test

You can also define when you want the execution to end, indicating the End Mode of the test:

• Manual: the test will stop when you click the Stop button, in the list of tests or on its results page.
• Duration: the test will stop automatically after the indicated time.
• Page views: the test will stop automatically after reaching the total number of visits you have specified.
• Confidence: The test will stop automatically when a winner is found in the first goal with the specified confidence level.

How to See the Progress of a Test and Its Results

In the menu option Tests you can see the list of the tests created, the status they are in and the date of their last update. At any time you can see the results of a test that is started or that has already ended by clicking on the View Results link below its name.

Summary of the results

In the right sidebar of the results page you will find the Summary of your test with the following information:

• Status icon. This icon helps you quickly identify the progress of your tests. It is initially in yellow, indicating that there are not enough visits to determine a winner. If the icon changes showing a clock with a heart, there is a possible winner, but statistical confidence is low, so things can still change. Finally if a green icon is shown (with a medal), we have a clear winner. If the icon is red, no alternative is better than the original.
• Some metadata about your test. Specifically, you can see the status of the test, how long it has been running, when it started and how it ends.
• The description and scope of the test are also included, if applicable.

Test Progress

The results page shows, in turn, the following information on the progress of a test:

1. Test Name
2. Evolutionof the Test (you may have two buttons, Conversion Rate and Revenue, which display the following information, respectively):
   • Conversion Rate
     • The evolution of the conversion rate graph shows the conversion rate of the control version and all variants, as well as the total number of conversions, visits to the tested WooCommerce product, and total revenue. Two additional graphs showing the conversion rates of each alternative and its degree of improvement over the original, respectively.
   • Revenue (only showed if tracking revenue has been checked)
     • The evolution of the accumulated revenues graph shows the accumulated revenues of the control version and all variants, as well as the total number of conversions, visits to the tested WooCommerce product, and total revenue.
     • Two additional graphs showing the accumulated revenues of each alternative and its degree of revenue improvement over the original, respectively.
3. For each of the variants of the test we will see a thumbnail image, if available, of the custom post type under test, the number of visits it has received, its number of conversions, the resulting conversion rate and, for all variants other than the original, the degree of improvement (or on the contrary, the worsening) that they have with respect to the control version. In case tracking revenues has also been checked, you will also see the accumulated revenue for all variants, and the degree of improvement or worsening of alternative versions with respect to the control one.
4. Finally, a summary of the conversion goals and actions of the test is shown.

Improve Your Web Conversion

You can end a test manually at any time by clicking on the Stop button found in the top right corner of the results page. Remember that a test can also end automatically if the condition indicated in its end mode is met.

After completing a test, and to improve the conversion of your store, click on the Apply button of the winning variant (if it exists) and the content of the original product will be replaced with the content of the winning variant.