Previewing Variation of Your A/B Test in VWO – VWO

In this article, you’ll learn:

About the functionalities offered in the Preview tab in your VWO testing campaigns
How you can preview your variations

Before making the variation of your A/B test live, it is a good practice to ensure it retains all the changes you've made. The PREVIEW tab in your VWO testing campaigns provides a convenient way to quickly check and validate your variations without having to dig through the test settings. It typically ensures that your variation has no broken links or sections, and functions as expected for your website visitors.

For example, Assume you've designed a test for users in a specific geographic area. In this case, the Previews option allows you to load the test pages as it will load for the targeted segment of visitors. This helps to stimulate the experience, allowing you to ensure that the test for targeted visitors is implemented correctly.

How to Preview a Test Variation in VWO?

To preview the variations of your test, follow this:

Procedure

Login to your VWO account.
Go TESTING and select a testing type, say A/B.
From the dashboard, select the test you want to preview and go to the PREVIEW tab.
From the Variation dropdown, select the variation you want to preview.
In the Preview URL field, enter the URL on which you want to preview the changes.

NOTE: If your test is running on multiple pages, you can preview them individually.
If you have configured targeting conditions in your campaign, an options to Ignore campaign targeting conditions in previews appear right below the variations dropdown. This option allows you to preview your variations irrespective of the targeting conditions that your campaign targets.

NOTE: By default, this option is enabled. If you wish to preview the variations complying with the targeting conditions, disable this.
To preview your variation, click Preview in a new tab.
In the preview, a Preview Mode pop-up appears in the lower right corner which displays the information about your test. To view this information, click on the Campaign name in the pop-up.

NOTE: In the preview mode, the variation changes, goals, and other variation-specific modifications will be displayed even if the VWO Smartcode times out. Whenever the time-out happens, a warning message is displayed in the preview pop-up. To know more, refer to Why Does VWO Smartcode Time-out and How to Resolve It?

Previewing Screenshots of Your Variation

Using the Screenshot Previews section present in the PREVIEW tab, you can view the screenshots that VWO generated for your test variations. Here, the screenshots of all your variations appear as thumbnails. To preview the screenshots of your variation, perform this:

Procedure

Go to the PREVIEW tab, and from the panel on the right click Screenshot Previews.
NOTE: By default, the Live Previews section is selected.
To view a screenshot, hover on the screenshot thumbnail and click VIEW SCREENSHOT.
On the screenshot that appears, you have the option to view the screenshot of your variations in specific browsers. To do this, select the variation and browser from the respective dropdowns and click Go. Alternatively, you can also use the SELECT BROWSERS dropdown present in the top right corner of the Screenshot Previews section to preview your variations in different browsers.

NOTE: While viewing screenshots for the first time, it may take a few seconds to generate depending on the server load.

Additionally, you can also group your variations based on the Browsers and Variations using the GROUP BY screenshot settings present in the panel on the right.

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