How do A/B tests work?

Alpha Insights A/B Testing splits visitors between a control and one or more treatments, then measures which version hits the primary goal. Free is always Purchases. Pro can use add to cart, a page view, a custom event, purchase value, or average order value.

Each visitor gets a sticky ID and is assigned on the first matching page view. They keep that variant until you pause or complete the test. Targeted URLs miss full-page cache while the test is running so the correct CSS, JS, or PHP can render on first paint.

Results live on Alpha Insights → A/B Test (all-time per-arm table) and A/B Test → Report (date-filtered charts and significance in Pro).

Quick answers

• Do I need analytics on? Yes. Enable website traffic tracking in General Settings.
• Will this break my cache? Only on targeted URLs, and only while the test is running.
• Can two tests run at once? Pro can run more than one, but a visitor is only in one running test at a time.
• Does preview affect results? No. Authorized preview links do not record experiment events.

Start here: What Are A/B Tests?