Creating Trackable CRO Strategies (Conversion Rate Optimisation)

As retailers, you're preparing to enter the busiest time of your trading year. Now is the time to make strategic changes to your website which will lead to higher conversions from organic traffic.

As retailers of any size, you're preparing to enter the busiest time of your trading year. You've likely already noticed an increase in traffic and the beginning of the gift-buying season.

While it's tempting to focus on attracting new traffic during this period, I always recommend optimising your conversion rate. This strategy can add significantly more value to your existing shoppers who are organically visiting your store. This approach not only maximises the potential of your current audience but also proves to be a more cost-effective strategy in the long run.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is a marketing strategy designed to increase the percentage of your audience that completes a desired action, known as a conversion. Often, brands work hard to fuel large volumes of traffic to their site, assuming conversions will naturally follow. In reality, the investment should be on optimising the site from the outset. This initial focus on optimisation will organically increase your conversion rate.

The actions you want your customers to take can vary widely, from making a purchase and signing up for a newsletter to clicking on a specific link or downloading a resource. It's worth noting that you may have multiple “conversion goals” within a single website or marketing campaign, each tailored to different stages of the customer journey.

For this article, we'll concentrate primarily on strategies to boost purchase conversions, as these often have the most direct impact on an e-commerce business's bottom line.

In the competitive market, understanding industry benchmarks is crucial. For most online retail websites, the average conversion rate for orders typically falls between 2.5% and 3%. If your store's conversion rate surpasses the 3% mark, you can consider yourself among the top-performing online retailers. However, it's important to remember that these figures can vary based on factors such as industry, target audience, product type, pricing and customer purchase journey. Regardless of where you currently stand, there's always room for improvement, and even small increases in conversion rate can lead to substantial revenue growth.

Let's explore some effective strategies to enhance your conversion rate, focusing specifically on customers who are already browsing your site:

Product Pages

Product pages serve as the cornerstone of any e-commerce website and present a prime opportunity for conversion rate optimisation. To maximise their effectiveness, consider implementing A/B testing to gauge the impact of various elements. This could include experimenting with different layouts, adjusting the placement of key information, or altering the overall design aesthetic.

Pay particular attention to optimising your product images, ensuring they are high-quality, zoomable, and showcase the item from multiple angles. Refine your product descriptions to strike a balance between being informative and concise, highlighting key features and benefits. Don't forget to infuse your brand voice into these descriptions to create a cohesive shopping experience.

Perhaps most importantly, incorporate customer reviews predominately on your product pages. Recent studies have shown that authentic user-generated content can significantly boost conversions, especially among first-time shoppers who may be unfamiliar with your brand or products. so layer in UGC content, which will scream “happy customers”.

Navigation

The importance of intuitive navigation cannot be overestimated when it comes to improving conversion rates. Ensure that your website offers efficient browsing capabilities through a well-structured navigation bar and powerful search functionality. This allows customers to quickly and easily locate exactly what they're looking for, reducing frustration and minimising the risk of abandonment. This is imperative throughout the peak season. Shoppers are short on time and want to be able to shop with ease, and confidence and be satisfied with their purchasing decisions from the second they have paid - as it was an easy experience.

Consider implementing features such as predictive search, filters, and sorting options to further enhance the user experience. Additionally, make sure your site's structure is logical and your categories are clearly defined. Remember, the easier it is for customers to find and explore your products, the more likely they are to stay on your website longer and result in making a purchase.

Product Photography

In the realm of e-commerce, where customers can't physically interact with your products, the visual representation of your items becomes a critical conversion factor. Invest in high-quality, professional product photography that not only showcases your items in the best light but also highlights their most popular and unique features.

Ensure that your images are high-resolution and can be enlarged without losing clarity, allowing customers to examine details closely. To provide an even more comprehensive visual experience, consider incorporating additional media elements. This could include 360-degree product views that allow customers to rotate and inspect items from all angles, demonstration videos that showcase the product in use, or even 3D models that offer an immersive, interactive experience.

By providing such a complete visual representation, you can help bridge the gap between online shopping and the in-store experience, boosting customer confidence and, consequently, conversion rates. They will feel so confident in having a fully transparent representation of the product that they will confidently add it to their cart and check out!

Announcement Bars

Strategically placed at the top of every page, announcement bars serve as an effective tool for capturing your visitors' attention and conveying important information quickly. These bars, which function similarly to pop-ups but in a less intrusive manner, can be leveraged to highlight time-sensitive offers, showcase new product collections, or communicate ongoing sales and discounts. This is crucial during heightened promotional activities such as BFCM, or Boxing Day/January Sales.

The key to their effectiveness lies in their prominent positioning and concise messaging. Use them to create a sense of urgency or exclusivity, encouraging browsers to take immediate action, or at the very least, click the link to learn more.

For instance, you might feature limited-time offers, free shipping thresholds, or countdown timers for sales events. By regularly updating these announcement bars with fresh, relevant content, you can keep your site dynamic and engaging, potentially increasing the likelihood of conversions among both new and returning visitors.

Product Descriptions

Product descriptions represent one of the most crucial touch points between e-commerce shoppers and the items they're considering. While it might be tempting to craft lengthy, detailed descriptions for each product in your store, it's important to remember that high-converting product descriptions often adhere to the "short and sweet" principle. This doesn't mean sacrificing important information, but rather presenting it in a concise, easily digestible format.

Descriptions that lack key details or fail to highlight unique selling points can lead to increased bounce rates, as customers may feel they don't have enough information to make a purchase decision.

However, overly lengthy descriptions can overwhelm shoppers, potentially causing them to lose interest before reaching the end. The key is to strike a balance, providing clear, simple descriptions that effectively communicate product features and benefits. Focus on answering the most common customer questions, addressing potential pain points, and highlighting what sets your product apart from competitors.

Use bullet points or short paragraphs to break up text and make it more scannable. Remember to incorporate relevant keywords naturally to improve search engine visibility, but always prioritise readability and user experience over keyword density.

Brand Commitments + Social Proof

Building trust is paramount in the world of e-commerce, and leveraging social proof can be a powerful way to establish credibility and encourage conversions. Incorporate customer testimonials throughout your site, not just on dedicated review pages. These real-world experiences can provide valuable insights and reassurance to potential buyers.

Product reviews are equally crucial; ensure they're prominently displayed on product pages and consider implementing a system that allows customers to filter reviews based on relevance, rating, or recency. Don't shy away from negative reviews - addressing them professionally can actually boost your credibility.

In addition to customer-generated content, showcase any seals of approval or certifications from trusted brands or industry authorities. These can serve as powerful trust signals, particularly for first-time visitors.

Another key aspect of building trust is having a clear, customer-friendly return policy. Make sure this policy is easy to find and understand, allowing customers to feel confident in their ability to try out and return purchases with minimal complications. This can significantly reduce perceived risk and increase the likelihood of conversion.

Lastly, consider incorporating real-life product videos that showcase your items in their natural environment or demonstrate them in use. These can provide a more authentic representation of your products, helping customers envision how they might fit into their own lives and potentially increasing their desire to purchase. These do not need to be professional, but using UGC videos will increase social proof and trust.

Abandoned Cart Emails

Implementing an effective abandoned cart email strategy can be a powerful tool for recapturing potential sales and boosting your overall conversion rate. This approach is particularly effective when you can track a shopper's email address from their previous visits to your website. The timing of these emails is crucial to their success. Sending an abandoned cart reminder approximately 24 hours after the initial browsing session has proven to be highly effective for many e-commerce businesses. The logic behind this timing is rooted in the potential for cyclical browsing habits; if a customer was exploring your site at 9:30 one morning, there's a good chance they might be in a similar browsing mindset at around the same time the following day. By timing your email to arrive during this window, you increase the likelihood that it will catch the customer's attention at a moment when they're receptive to making a purchase decision. It's important to note that sending these reminders significantly earlier or later may decrease their effectiveness, as they might not align with the customer's schedule or browsing habits.

When crafting these emails, keep the content personalised, simple and straight to the point, reminding the customer of the specific items they left in their cart. Consider including high-quality images of the products, a clear call-to-action to complete the purchase, and potentially even a small incentive (such as a limited-time discount or free shipping offer) to encourage them to finalise their transaction. Additionally, you might want to set up a series of abandoned cart emails, perhaps sending a second reminder 48 or 72 hours after the initial browse if the first email doesn't result in a conversion. However, be cautious not to overwhelm the customer with too many reminders, as this could potentially lead to unsubscribes or negative brand perception.

To Conclude..

To truly optimise your conversion rate, it's crucial to adopt a data-driven approach. Begin by meticulously documenting your current conversion rates across various metrics. These baseline figures will serve as vital reference points as you implement changes and refine your strategies. Once you have a clear understanding of your starting point, you can proceed to conduct in-depth analyses of different aspects of your digital storefront. This might involve studying customer behaviour patterns through heat maps and user session recordings, analysing the performance of individual products or product categories, or evaluating the effectiveness of your site's design and user interface.

As you explore these areas and implement changes, it's essential to rigorously track your findings and measure the impact of each modification. This data will prove invaluable in informing your longer-term decision-making processes and overall e-commerce strategy.

Remember, conversion rate optimisation is an ongoing process, not a one-time task. Regularly reviewing and interpreting these metrics, understanding their implications for your business, and using these insights to drive continuous improvement will be key to fostering sustainable growth and success in the competitive digital marketplace.