Testing With Power and Precision

‍

Testing isn’t a rigid formula—it’s a dynamic framework for uncovering truths about your customers and business. At Shoplift, we believe A/B testing should be simple at its core, but powerful enough to accompany you in search of even the obscurest of those truths.

The foundation of any successful experiment lies in its structure, and for us, that structure comes down to five essential pillars:

1. The Hypothesis: What do you believe will happen, and why? A test begins with a hypothesis—a clear articulation of your assumptions about customer behavior and the outcomes you expect. Without this, experimentation becomes guesswork rather than a path to insight.
2. The Audience: Who qualifies to participate, and why? Identifying the right audience isn’t just about who visits your site but about who represents the behaviors and characteristics relevant to your hypothesis. Granularity here shapes the relevance of your findings.
3. The Trigger: When and under what conditions should participants enter the test? A trigger defines the moment and context where the hypothesis comes to life, whether it’s a page load, an API call, or an action taken by the user. Precision here determines whether your experiment is asking the right questions.
4. The Experience: What specific change on your storefront is shown to participants? The experience is the manifestation of your hypothesis—a carefully crafted alternative that tests your assumptions while minimizing variables that could muddy the results.
5. The Metric: What behavior will validate or disprove the hypothesis? Metrics are the test’s compass, providing the lens through which outcomes are evaluated. They must not only reflect the customer behaviors you’re trying to influence but also align with your broader strategic goals.

Each pillar works in harmony to transform a hypothesis into actionable insights, and together they lead to better test strategies. Yet, how you define these elements determines whether you’re solving trivial questions—or the ones that redefine your business strategy.

These elements form the scaffolding for every test, and Shoplift’s journey reflects this philosophy.

We began by introducing the framework of template testing, offering merchants the ability to experiment with specific types of pages at scale to unlock workflows previously unavailable in ecommerce.

Then, we expanded to theme testing, enabling experiments to run across the entire storefront. To date, nearly 30% of tests are store-wide tests that ask the big questions: how do global navigation changes impact conversion? Which cart experience drives stronger AOVs?

Today, with the launch of our first public API, we’ve reached the next frontier—allowing merchants to define every aspect of the experiment themselves.

Introducing the Shoplift API

Testing with our API transcends the limitations of fixed triggers and predefined conditions. It empowers you to experiment at the level of your unique business model:

• Test logic beyond visual changes: run tests that modify backend logic, such as custom discount calculations or shipping rules to evaluate operational efficiency and profitability.
• Optimize logged in and logged out experiences: tailor experiences to different user states, like rewarding loyalty with faster, more seamless purchases.
• Behavior-triggered experiments: test changes that trigger based on user behavior, such as showing a pop-up after prolonged idle time or offering dynamic upsells based on cart contents.
• Custom UX features: test advanced features like sticky vs. static navigation bars, custom animations, or collapsible menus to improve your store’s usability and interactivity.
• Full funnel testing: run tests that apply congruous changes across several pages at once to optimize towards the ideal funnel.
• Speed Optimization Experiments: test custom optimizations for page load times, such as lazy-loading images or deferring non-critical scripts, to see how speed impacts conversion.
• And much more (explore the Javascript API docs)

These are just some of the experiences that you can create with our API to build towards a better storefront experience. This isn’t just about flexibility—it’s about creating experiments that are as nuanced and dynamic as your customers. Shoplift’s API testing gives you the tools to challenge your assumptions and find answers that matter.

Start building with Shoplift

Other product updates:

• We now support third-party consent management platforms. Learn more →
• You can now provide custom names on your variants to allow an additional level of detail on what you are testing.
• Our URL split testing feature is out of beta, and is available today on Core, Advanced, and Pro plans. Learn more →
• Our one-click GA4 integration is exiting private beta soon. If you’d like early access, apply here.

‍