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A test’s state decides what you can do with it. Most tests follow one path: draft → preview → active → closed. While a test is active, you can pause and resume it. You can put the launch and the end on a timer instead of clicking the buttons yourself. See Schedule a test.

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When to use it

  • You want to know what happens before launch. Use this page to understand draft and preview behavior before shoppers enter a test.
  • You need to pause, resume, end, archive, or duplicate a test. The state table shows which actions are available at each step.
  • You want to preview a storefront change safely. Preview applies the change only to your session, so shoppers keep seeing the original.
  • You need to decide whether to edit or start a new test. Use the live-test rules to avoid mixing two setups into one result set.

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When NOT to use it

  • You are choosing what type of test to run. Start with the tests overview.
  • You are reading performance results. Use Analytics once the test is active and data is collected.
  • You need to change price, shipping, offer, checkout, template, theme, or content setup. Open the guide for that test type.
  • You need audience filters or traffic allocation details. Use Audience targeting.

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What each state means

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Preview before you launch

Preview shows a variant on your live storefront, scoped to your session only. Real shoppers keep seeing the original, so you can walk the buyer journey and confirm everything looks right before a single visitor enters the test.
1

Open the test

Start a new test or open an existing draft, then go to the final review step.
2

Click Preview

Click Preview. ABConvert opens your storefront in a new tab with the variant applied to your session.
Review step showing a Preview Test card with a Preview button

The Preview button on the final review step.

3

Walk through the buyer journey

Browse as a shopper would. Visit the affected pages, add to cart, and step through checkout. Confirm the change displays the way you designed it.
Storefront in preview mode with the ABConvert preview widget open

Browsing the storefront in preview mode, with the ABConvert preview widget showing the active variant.

4

Check each variant

Switch between variants from the preview widget and confirm each one looks right.
Preview widget variant switcher toggling between Control and Variant A

Switching between variants in the ABConvert preview widget.

5

Decide what's next

When everything looks right, click Launch to go live. To change something first, edit the test and click Update preview to re-check.
Preview before every launch. No two storefronts are identical, so a preview is the best way to confirm your variant looks and works the way you intended on your store.

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What Preview confirms

Preview is your check on what shoppers see:
  • Display. The change renders the way you designed it.
  • App conflicts. No other app overwrites the same part of your storefront (price, shipping, checkout, or theme).
Preview does not verify analytics. Tracking starts only when the test is Active and real visitors are assigned, so confirm your numbers in the Analytics dashboard once data begins arriving.

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Edit a live test

While a test is Active, you can change its name, hypothesis, variant names, and traffic split.
You can’t change the variant configuration (the price, shipping rate, theme, content, or offer you’re testing) or the audience while a test is running.
This restriction is deliberate. Changing what you test partway through mixes two setups into one result set, and the numbers stop meaning anything. To test a different change, end this test and start a new one.

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Pause a live test

Pause is your emergency stop. If a live test looks wrong, pause it right away. Common reasons: a display bug, a conflict with another app, or results you don’t trust. When you pause, ABConvert removes the test’s changes from your storefront. Every shopper sees your original store again and no new visitors are assigned. The data you’ve collected so far is kept. Resume puts the variant back and starts assigning visitors again.
Pause stops your test from gathering results, so use it to fix problems rather than to take a healthy test offline for a long time.

File a support ticket

Paused because the variant isn’t behaving the way you expected? In the app, go to Help > Support > Open ticket. Include your store and the test, and we’ll look into it.

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Common mistakes

  • Skipping preview before launch. Preview each test group on your storefront before shoppers enter the test.
  • Changing what a live test measures. You can edit the name, hypothesis, and traffic split, but not the tested setup.
  • Pausing a healthy test for too long. Pause is an emergency stop or fix window, not a way to collect cleaner data.
  • Treating a duplicate as continued data. Duplicate as draft creates a fresh draft with no data of its own.

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Duplicate as draft

Duplicate as draft copies a test’s setup into a new draft so you can adjust it without rebuilding it from scratch. It’s available from any test, in any state, and the copy always starts as a fresh draft with no data of its own. Use it to try a tweaked version of a test: duplicate it, adjust the draft, then launch. It also lets you branch a new idea off an existing test or recover the setup from an archived one.