How does Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) provide the ultimate eCommerce competitive advantage?
It’s undeniable: Online shopping has grown steadily in the past ten years but exploded since the pandemic.
What does that mean for eCommerce brands?
Opportunity.
However, your store has to outperform the competition to succeed in this highly competitive landscape.
Enter: eCommerce conversion rate optimization (CRO), the ultimate competitive advantage for eCommerce businesses.
Not sure what eCommerce CRO is, or how it can help you get ahead of the competition?
In this article, we’ll break down the basics of conversion rate optimization (CRO), so you can better position your business to take advantage of the online shopping boom.
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What is Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)?
If you’re getting enough traffic to your eCommerce website, but your site has low conversion rates — where site visitors are not buying products or completing other goals — you have an eCommerce conversion rate optimization (CRO) issue.
Conversion Rate Optimization, or CRO, is the strategic process of evaluating, testing, and optimizing websites for improvement toward goal achievement.
Goals or conversions are the specific actions you want site visitors to take on your site, especially those that increase sales, revenue, and profits.
What Are Examples of eCommerce Conversions?
A conversion is defined as the point at which the target of your marketing completes an action. This can be as simple as signing up for SMS, as important as making a purchase, or whatever goal fits your strategy.
Popular examples of eCommerce conversions include:
- Add to cart
- Product purchases
- Finalizing an abandoned cart
- Saving products to Favorites or Wishlists
- Downloads and lead-generating calls to action
- Leaving a review
- Newsletter registrations
Although these are just a few examples, the options are as countless as your goals. The best conversions to track, however, are the ones that matter to your business’s bottom line.
Why Does CRO Matter?
CRO is a powerful method for eCommerce businesses to make and save money.
How?
By optimizing your eCommerce store and having high conversion rates, you can make more money with less traffic, a smaller budget, and the same number of visitors.
Conversely, a low conversion rate can cause you to lose money.
Poorly designed sites and customer experiences — from confusing customer journeys to sales-stopping funnels — can negatively affect your conversion rates, sales, revenue—even your brand.
Now that you understand the what and why of CRO, let’s learn the math behind it.
What is a Good eCommerce Conversion Rate?
There is no single “good” conversion rate across industries.
Conversion rates vary from industry to industry, site to site, and study to study. However, in 2021, the average conversion rate for eCommerce sites was about 2-3%, and that’s a good benchmark to refer to.
How is Conversion Rate Calculated?
Conversion rate (CR) is a calculation used to determine the percentage of visitors who took a desired action divided by the total number of visitors that had the opportunity to take that action, multiplied by 100%.
Conversion Rate Metric: Conversion Rate = (conversions / total visitors) X 100%
Examples of eCommerce Conversion Rate Formulas:
(1) Product Views / Total Visitors x 100%
(2) Add to Cart (ATC) / Product View X 100%
(3) Purchased Products / Add to Cart (ATC) X 100%
How to Get Started with eCommerce CRO
1. Focus on 1-3 Key Areas of Your eCommerce Site to Optimize
Based on data, goals, and customer feedback, focus on areas that impact the customer experience and revenue generation, like the sales funnel and checkout process.
2. Choose your CRO tools
A heat-map tool like HotJar and Google Analytics can help diagnose and get the complete picture of the issues impacting your conversion rates.
3. Design Conversion Optimization Test Plans and Experiments
To maximize efforts, use Experiments with Google, Optimizely, or other A/B and multi-variant tools to design effective test plans and run valid experiments.
Uncertain about which tools to use? Our Conversion Rate Optimization specialists can help! Contact us today to learn more or get started.
4. Evaluate Results
Evaluate results to ensure they are statistically significant and worth investing the time and effort to fix.
5. Optimize and Re-test
Fix issues based on test findings. Then, re-test to ensure that the improvements helped achieve the intended goals. Once you reach the desired result, move on to the next experiment. Always be testing.
6 Easy Ways to Improve Your eCommerce Conversion Rate
Conversion Rate Optimization is about incremental improvements over time, but here are six easy ways to jumpstart your site’s conversion rates today:
1. Perform a CRO Audit
A Conversion Rate Optimization audit allows you to understand what’s currently bringing in the most sales, find areas of opportunity to promote specific products and update parts of your site that aren’t working in your favor. There are ways to do this yourself, but an agency can provide a deeper look and extended roadmap for future success.
2. Have a Fast-Loading, Responsive Site
If you do nothing else, ensure your site loads fast and is optimized for mobile shopping.
According to a recent Think With Google Consumer insight survey, “59% of shoppers surveyed say that being able to shop on mobile is important when deciding which brand or retailer to buy from.”
3. Improve Product Information and Pictures
Images and product details sell products online. In fact, 85% of shoppers say product information and pictures are deciding factors when choosing between brands (Think With Google Survey).
4. Add Product Videos, Especially for New Or Complex Products
Video helps customers understand products and how to use them. Consumers who watch product videos are 144% more likely to add products to their cart.
5. Remove Friction From the Checkout Experience
Anything that stops your customer from buying a product is friction. Walk through the checkout steps to look for optimization opportunities. Simple changes, like the color of the ATC button, can improve conversions.
6. Add Trust Signals
According to a TrustedSite survey, half of consumers abandon carts due to a lack of site legitimacy. Build trust by adding social proof, like reviews and customer testimonials; including money-back guarantees and liberal return policies; and displaying trust symbols, like SSLs.
Now that you know how to leverage eCommerce Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) to build a stronger customer experience and grow your brand, try some of the recommendations.
Or, contact us today. We’ll perform a CRO audit, create a plan, and execute experiments to drive sales and marketing performance.
