7 actionable tips for e-commerce conversion rate optimization

7 ways to boost your e-commerce CRO efforts

E-commerce CRO isn’t just about the shopping cart. There are opportunities throughout your website and mobile app that require attention as well. The overall customer journey to the cart is just as important, such as discovering products and sales.

Below are seven areas to target, along with practical tips that will help boost your e-commerce CRO efforts.

Optimize the shopping cart experience

Across industries, shopping cart abandonment is a deal-killer. In fact, almost 70% of shoppers abandon their carts at this critical phase. There are many reasons this happens: from a complex checkout process, to lack of price transparency, to forcing account creation and more. In general, these factors can lead to purchase anxiety. A thorough data analysis, understanding and improvement can turn a bailer into a buyer.

Quantitative data analysis is essential to know the number of potential buyers leaving, but knowing why shoppers are struggling is key to making the right changes to have them click “purchase.” One of the fastest and most effective ways to spot problem areas is by using a CRO tool that has qualitative data analysis such as session replay, to see what the customer saw and how they engaged on your site.

Additional shopping cart optimization tips

• Include progress indicators to show customers how far they have to go

• Simplify the check out form and note which are optional or required

• Autofill customer information where possible

• Display shipping, taxes and fees at an early stage

• Offer free shipping, one of the most coveted e-commerce features

• Let customers checkout as guests

Embrace mobile shoppers

Mobile buyers fuel more than half of e-commerce sales, but many app and website users have a poor experience, like slow loading times, crashes and technical glitches. Worse yet, about 25% think less of a brand and will likely move to a competitor–even after one bad experience. Many companies focus CRO efforts on website performance, but should equally focus on growing mobile opportunities. It’s also true that mobile apps are a more complex landscape than websites, with multiple operating systems, versions and other differences.

CRO tools that offer comprehensive mobile app analytics can show where users are struggling including dead taps, tilts and more. You can also track performance analytics for real-time insights and take steps to improve conversions. Proactively monitoring app screens, forms, CTA buttons and other features can help you get ahead of mobile user pain points.

Additional mobile commerce optimization tips

• Provide load indicators whenever new content is loading

• Put return policy and shipping info links in footer

• Make table elements sufficiently large with adequate space in between

• Offer autocomplete suggestions for misspelled search terms and queries

Get to know your customers

The more effort you put into the customer experience–who your buyers are, what struggles they have on your site and other CX data, the more likely your CRO efforts will pay off. A deep understanding of the customer journey will identify which CX changes have the most impact, and then share findings and collaborate with teams to make the needed improvements.

Another way to understand your buyers is to get direct feedback. From Voice of customer (VoC) to on-page feedback widgets, learn about their experience or get a quick pulse on brand sentiment. That data can help you understand conversion blockers and make customer-centric changes.

Additional optimization tips

• Feedback widgets should be short, easy and on key pages (products, cart, etc.)

• Integrate Net Promoter Scores as part of your customer feedback strategy

• Leverage customer service data analytics to gain additional feedback for improvements

• Incorporate live chat transcripts to support and confirm site feedback

Personalize the shopping experience

A great way to boost CRO is by personalizing the digital buying journey. In fact, 80% of consumers are more likely to buy from a brand that offers a personalized experience. The three general types of data to gather are demographic, contextual and behavioral. It’s important to be clear with visitors about what data you’re collecting, how you’re using it and any third party usage.

With customer data from your martech stack and behavioral insights from a CRO tool, you can trigger personalized offers, dynamic content, customize product recommendations and develop a tailored experience overall. Understanding your shoppers’ needs and responding to them has a direct impact on buying more from your business and being a loyal customer.

Additional personalization tips

• Personalize a landing page with the person’s name, location and other details

• Display similar shoppers or complementary products during check out

• Keep the shopping experience going by displaying recently-viewed items

Build for privacy and safety

A lesser discussed but a high impact way to increase conversions is to deliver a comfortable and safe shopping experience. That means communicating to your customers that your e-commerce store is secure and protects your data. Trust signals are also an essential part of e-commerce conversions.

Studies have shown that consumers will abandon their shopping cart if they don’t see a trust badge or feel uncomfortable about security. This also means a third-party platform like a CRO tool running on the website or app should have a robust privacy management in place.

Additional e-commerce privacy and safety tips

• Install single-sign-on (SSL) at checkout and throughout the site where applicable

• Offer digital wallets, like PayPal and Apple Pay, to provide more built-in security

• In addition to security badges, show images of customer-trusted payment cards

Showcase Social Proof

Social proof is an excellent way to increase conversions on an e-commerce store. Originating from the concept that people are more likely to do something if others are doing it, it’s a proven technique in marketing. A customer speaking your praises is a better messenger than your brand to win trust and credibility that your products or services are worth buying.

Each type of social proof layers more confidence onto the shopping experience, from testimonials to user generated content (USG) to case studies, award logos and more. One of the most powerful social proof techniques is the review. Almost 90% of consumers trust reviews as much as a personal recommendation.

Additional tips for showcasing social proof

• Add a CTA link to social proof like “Join our 10,000 happy customers”

• Mine your social media feed for customer social proof opportunities

• Offer customers a small incentive to leave a review

Always be testing

E-commerce conversion rate optimization is all about improving results–A/B testing is an efficient way to compare and measure effectiveness for a revised CTA, different images or a customer pain point to drive buying decisions. A/B testing, split testing and experiments are also great for testing new web or mobile capabilities, new UX design and more.

To amp up the power of A/B testing, combine it with digital experience analytics. By using heatmaps or interaction maps, which are next generation heatmaps, and session replay you can learn exactly how visitors are interacting with your website throughout the customer journey, make improvements and test to find out the highest-performing version.

Additional e-commerce conversion rate optimization (CRO) tips

• In addition to test recipients picking a version, ask for feedback to gain more insights

• Consider more sophisticated multivariate testing for in-depth website or app changes

Collaborate with your product and UX team to design, test and implement changes