Shopify Plus A/B Testing Guide: Boost Conversions & Sales

Want to make small changes to your online store that lead to big revenue jumps? It sounds impossible, but it’s possible with Shopify Plus A/B testing. A/B testing is split testing, a scientific method of comparing two webpage or app feature versions to determine which one performs better.

For Shopify Plus store owners, this translates to the ability to systematically optimize everything from product pages to checkout flows, all from actual user behavior. Want to stop guessing and start growing? This definitive guide will equip you with the knowledge and steps required to conquer A/B testing on Shopify Plus and fully realize your store’s sales potential.

What is Shopify A/B Testing?

In simple terms, A/B testing (also referred to as split testing) is a scientific way of comparing two versions of something, just call them Version A and Version B, to determine which one does better. Imagine it as a controlled test for your online store.

For Shopify Plus store owners, A/B testing involves making two versions of a page, an email, an ad, or even a button or headline on your product page slightly different from each other. You display these two different versions to two parts of your audience simultaneously and track which version performs your desired action better.

Here’s a brief rundown:

Version A (Control): This is your current, as-it-is version, what you’ve got right now.

Version B (Variation): This is the revised version with one specific change that you are testing.

By showing both versions to a divided-at-random crowd, you eliminate extraneous variables and can confidently determine if your change in Version B did see a bump (or dip) in measurements like conversion rates, click-through rates, or average order value. It’s about letting your customers’ actual behavior, rather than assumptions, inform your decision-making for optimizing your Shopify Plus store. This data-driven process is what separates good e-commerce strategies from truly great ones.

Why A/B Testing is Important in eCommerce?

With today’s rapidly moving and constantly changing e-commerce world, being competitive is not just a matter of having great products or prices that compete. It’s about perfecting every single interaction between a customer and your online business. This is exactly where A/B testing comes into play.

Here’s why adding A/B testing to your e-commerce strategy, particularly for a strong platform like Shopify Plus, is not only a good thing, but a necessity:

Get Past Guessing: 

Too many times, design or marketing decisions are made based on gut feel, personal taste, or “best practices” that may or may not work for your particular audience. A/B testing exchanges these hypotheses for real data. You get real insight into what your actual customers respond to, so that all the changes you make are data-driven.

Boost Conversion Rates and Revenue: 

Minor improvements in the likes of button copy, image choices, or call-to-action placement can trigger significant increases in conversion rates. Those incremental percentages cumulatively add up over time, converting one-for-one into additional sales and a healthier bottom line without incrementing traffic acquisition costs directly.

Get to Know Your Customers Better:

With each A/B test, there is an opportunity to learn more about the behavior, tastes, and pain areas of your customers. 

Mitigate Risks of Sweeping Changes: 

A full website overhaul or wholesale change without testing can be an expensive risk if it harms user experience or conversions. A/B testing enables you to try changes on a small portion of your audience first, reducing risk before deploying successful variations to all.

Optimize for Targeted Purposes: 

No matter whether your target is more sign-ups, greater average order value, lower cart abandonment, or more engagement, A/B testing offers a targeted approach to optimize certain items to meet those very goals. Essentially, A/B testing allows e-commerce companies to constantly improve, evolve to meet customers’ needs, and achieve sustainable growth through making informed, data-driven choices. It is all about smarter, not harder, work to realize your full sales potential.

Steps to A/B Test on Shopify Plus

It’s not a matter of making random changes and hoping for the best; it’s a systematic process that, when executed well, gives you irrefutable insights for your Shopify Plus store. Although the tools you might employ are different, the methodology itself is the same.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to conduct A/B tests that yield tangible results:

1. Determine Your Objective

Before you take your first step, make a list of your needs. Are you trying to:

• Boost conversion rate on a product page?
• Decrease cart abandonment?
• Increase average order value?
• Enhance click-through rates on a particular banner?

Once your objective is established, create a hypothesis. This is an informed guess regarding what alteration will bring about your desired result. A good hypothesis has a pattern such as: “By [performing this change], we surmise [this outcome] shall occur, due to [reason/data].”

Example: “Changing the ‘Add to Cart’ button color from blue to green should raise conversion rates because green is commonly linked with positive action and is more noticeable.

2. Identify What to Test (One Variable at a Time):

To get reliable results, always test a single variable by itself. If you are altering several factors at once, you will have no way of knowing which single change resulted in the outcome. The high-impact areas for A/B testing on Shopify Plus include:

Product Pages: Product pictures, product descriptions, call-to-action (CTA) button wording/color/location/form, pricing presentation, social proof (reviews, testimonials).

Homepage: Homepage layout, hero banner style, navigation menu structure, featured products section.
Checkout Process: Steps, form field styling, payment method visibility, trust badges.

Landing Pages: Headlines, images, content length, lead form design.

Pop-ups & Banners: Headline, offer, button text, timing.
3. Select Your A/B Testing Tool:

Shopify Plus itself has good features, but specialized A/B testing tools have more advanced capabilities. You’ll likely add a third-party app to your Shopify Plus store. Popular choices are:

Optimizely: Full-featured platform for web and feature experimentation.
VWO (Visual Website Optimizer): Provides A/B testing, heatmaps, session recordings, etc.

Shogun, Intelligems, Shoplift: Shopify apps that provide easy-to-use interfaces, usually with drag-and-drop editors, so that you can design variations directly in your theme.
These all enable you to design versions of your content or design without having to replicate whole pages, and automatically split the traffic for you.

4. Create Your Variations (Control vs. Variant):

With your selected tool, produce two versions:

Control (Version A): Your current page or element, which will act as the reference point.

Variant (Version B): The altered version, which includes the single change you are looking to test from your hypothesis.

5. Define Your Test Parameters:

Set up your test in the A/B testing tool

Traffic Allocation: Generally, you’ll allocate traffic 50/50 between control and variant so both versions are displayed to an equally randomized audience.

Audience Targeting: Advanced tests may target specific segments (e.g., new visitors, mobile users, visitors from a particular traffic source).Goals/Metrics: Identify the top-performing key performance indicators (KPIs) you’re measuring (e.g., “Add to Cart” clicks, purchases, time on page).