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Testing Post Purchase Upsell: Pre-Conditions and Setup Options

Check the key requirements and explore two safe ways to test your campaign - in staging or in a live store.

Katharina Andres avatar
Written by Katharina Andres
Updated this week

Overview

Before you test whether your Post Purchase Upsell campaign appears correctly, make sure your setup is fully valid — both on the technical side and based on your targeting rules.

There are two supported ways to test:

  • In a development or staging store using Shopify’s test payment method

  • In your live store, but limited to just you

This guide walks you through both.

General Pre-Conditions (Required for Both Options)

Before testing, make sure:

  • Your Post Purchase campaign is live and enabled in the correct Nosto account

  • You’ve assigned an audience segment that your test customer actually matches

  • Your campaign logic isn’t too narrow (e.g. product availability, audience filters, recommendation fallback)

  • The checkout is completed using a supported payment method (no wallets, no 100% gift cards)

  • You’re testing in your store’s main currency

If these aren’t in place, the upsell step will be skipped automatically.

See: Requirements and Shopify Limitations

Testing in a Development or Staging Store

This is the best option if you’re working in a non-production environment and want to safely run test orders.

Steps:

  1. Enable Shopify's Bogus Gateway
    Shopify’s test payment method lets you simulate a real payment without charging anything.
    → Shopify's setup guide

  2. Make sure your Post Purchase campaign is live

    • Log into Nosto for your dev or staging store

    • Ensure your campaign is set up, enabled, and assigned to the right audience

  3. Confirm that your test user fits the campaign criteria

    • Check that you’re browsing from a location, device, and profile that matches your campaign targeting

    • Example: If your campaign uses the "Personalized Algorithm", browse around first to give Nosto some behavior to work with

  4. Add a product to cart and complete checkout using test credentials

  5. Watch for the Upsell page

    • If it shows: you’re good

    • If it skips to the Thank You page: check your targeting, currency, payment method, and fallback settings

Testing in a Live Store (Only for You)

If you’re testing in production, use Nosto’s audience segmentation to limit visibility to just your own session.

Step 1 - Create a 1-Person Segment in Nosto

  1. Go to Nosto Admin → Experience.AI → Audience Insights & Builder

  2. Click Create Segment

  3. Set:

    • Name: e.g. Test Segment - 1 Person Only

    • Persistence: Single Session

    • Time period: All time

    • Targeting option:

      • External Signals → Customer Attribute

      • Attribute: email

      • Value: your email address

  4. Confirm you're assigned to the correct Segment

    • Go to your store

    • Open the Nosto Debug Toolbar by adding "?nostodebug=true" to your URL

    • Login into the toolbar

    • Open: Features → Segments

    • Look for your created Segment and confirm it's active for you

.

Step 2 - Apply the Segment to Your Campaign

Assign this test segment to your Post Purchase campaign as its audience.

Step 3 - Complete a Real Checkout

  • Sign into your live store with the same email

  • Complete a real order (follow your internal testing process — e.g. omit street number, add a note, etc.)

  • Cancel the order in Shopify afterward if needed

Recap

Still not seeing the offer?

See: Troubleshooting: Why Isn’t My Upsell Showing?

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