Previewing and QA
After you save an A/B test, the editor lists a preview link per variant. Open those links while logged in as a user who is allowed to use Alpha Insights. Preview forces that variant for the request and does not record eligibility, assignment, or exposure events.
Preview URL
?wpd_ai_preview_exp={experiment-slug}&wpd_ai_preview_var={variant-key}
Example: https://example.com/pricing/?wpd_ai_preview_exp=pricing-headline&wpd_ai_preview_var=treatment
The editor builds the link from the first specific path rule when it can. If targeting is site-wide, the link starts at the homepage — add the query args to any URL you care about.
Who can preview
Only authorized Alpha Insights users. Shoppers and logged-out visitors who hit the same query string are ignored (no forced variant, no special logging skip beyond the usual rules).
QA checklist
- Preview control and confirm the live theme is unchanged.
- Preview treatment and confirm CSS/JS/PHP (or theme-branched markup) looks right on desktop and mobile.
- Click through cart and checkout if the change could affect them.
- Confirm you are not still in preview when you start the test (use a private window as a shopper).
- After start, load a targeted URL as a shopper and confirm an exposure appears on the A/B Test list within a minute or two (refresh the list; it uses all-time warehouse data).
- Place a test order if the goal is Purchases, purchase value, or average order value, then confirm the conversion (and revenue / AOV, on Pro) lands on the same arm.
Common QA issues
- Preview does nothing — you are not an authorized Alpha Insights user, or the slug / variant key is wrong.
- Everyone sees control after start — page cache is still serving HTML. See Page Cache and Running Tests.
- List shows zeros, report shows hits — the report is date-filtered. The list is all-time. If both are empty, analytics may be off or the visitor was holdout / excluded.
- Your own admin visits inflated results — exclude your role from analytics, and use preview (not a normal visit) for visual checks.
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