WooCommerce test orders: what Relvato does with them

When a test order is placed

Only the checkout and logged-in checkout monitors place orders, and only when their depth is “Full order”. They pay by cash on delivery or, on stores without it, with a 100% discount coupon the plugin creates — it works only inside Relvato's signed test requests, never for a shopper. The billing email is your site's verification inbox (…@verify.relvato.com), so the confirmation email can be followed too.

A monitor that runs on desktop and mobile places one order per device on each run.

How a test order is marked

The plugin recognises Relvato's browser by a short-lived signed token on each of its requests. Every order created in such a request gets the order meta _relvato_test = 1 before it is first saved, so other plugins see the mark from the moment the order exists. An order billed to the verification inbox, or placed by the dedicated test customer (relvato-verify), counts as a test order too.

For your own code — a report, an export, a conversion upload — the plugin provides the function relvato_is_test_order( $order ), which returns true for these orders. Developers can widen it with the relvato_is_test_order filter.

Kept out of analytics and ad platforms

A test order is a real order, so every tracking plugin on the store would report it as a purchase — and Google Ads' Smart Bidding would learn from it. Three things prevent that.

The plugin switches the purchase event off for test orders in the tracking plugins in the table below, including the events they send from your server (Measurement Protocol, Conversions API), which nothing in a browser can stop. On WooCommerce 10.7 and later it also keeps test orders out of WooCommerce Analytics.

Relvato's test browser blocks the ad and analytics collection addresses — Google Analytics, Google Ads, Meta, TikTok, Microsoft Advertising, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Snap, Reddit and X — while it places an order, so a tracking plugin that isn't in the table can't send the purchase from the page either. The tag scripts themselves still load, so the page behaves as it does for shoppers.

On a cookie banner, the test browser chooses “Reject all” or “Only necessary” during an order run, not “Accept all”.

Stock and removal

With “Protect stock & auto-remove verification orders” on in the plugin's settings (the default), a test order never reduces stock, doesn't email you, and is moved to the Trash a couple of minutes after the thank-you page. With it off, test orders stay in your order list and reduce stock like any other order — they're still marked and still kept out of analytics and ad platforms.

The Order anomaly monitor leaves test orders out when it compares this hour's orders with the usual number.

Without the plugin, or with an older one

Without the plugin, a full order can still be placed, but nothing on your server knows it's a test: it reduces stock, stays in your orders, and tracking your server sends may report it. Each such run says so. Connect the plugin, or set the monitor to “Reachable”.

Plugin versions before 1.57.0 remove test orders but don't keep them out of tracking plugins or WooCommerce Analytics. Update the plugin — the run tells you when it's out of date.

If test orders already reached Google Analytics or Google Ads

Data already sent to Google Analytics can't be recalled. In Google Ads you can retract the conversions with a conversion adjustments upload, using the order IDs of the test orders. You can find them by the verification inbox address or by the order note from Relvato; trashed orders are under Orders → Trash.