In the world of eCommerce, CRO (conversion rate optimisation) is often seen as the less glamorous Jabba the Hutt-like counterpart to its sleeker, lightsaber-wielding cousin: ad creative.

But, much like Jabba, CRO has a crazy amount of influence in the galaxy of driving conversions. While it may not be the sexiest side of eCommerce, CRO is destined to improve your growth strategy when executed correctly.

You know a winning ad can reduce your CAC by 24%, but so can CRO - with an arguably higher ROI and added longevity. So why not implement it?

My goal for this blog is to add a touch of glamor to CRO by discussing actionable, quick-win strategies that have been successfully implemented by our clients at SOAR and can be easily applied to your own eCommerce business.

Understanding Your CRO Metrics

Before we put some lip-gloss on CRO, let’s touch on the key metrics that are going to help you measure your success:

• Conversion rate
• Bounce rate
• Average order value (AOV)
• Cart abandonment rate

There are many metrics that will help you understand your conversion optimisation performance, but for now, let’s keep it simple with those four.

Ensure you have a robust analytics system in place to track these metrics, as they will help you identify areas for improvement and measure the success of your CRO efforts.

Since Google announced Google Optimise will face its last day in September of 2023, users should be considering a move over to alternative platforms as soon as possible. At SOAR we’ve got our eyes on VWO and Optimizely but are yet to dive deep into either (stay tuned!).

Importance of User Experience (UX)

A seamless user experience (UX) is the foundation of successful CRO. Let's start turning heads with these quick UX improvements:

You’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again. Improve your site speed: Slow-loading pages are like bad dates - no one ever wants to stick around. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to identify areas for improvement. Ensure you are checking both mobile and desktop.

Minimize friction and maximize navigation: Ensure your site's navigation is intuitive and easy to use, with clear category labels and a search function. Ask a 6 year old to navigate your website and look for a certain product, it needs to be effortless to find what they are looking for so they’re the best person for the job.

Emails are part of CRO: Never neglect emails when it comes to CRO, they form a key aspect of the overall CRO strategy.

Optimise CRO with email flows.

A flow is an automated email which is triggered based on the action of the customer. They’re designed to engage them at specific moments in their journey. For instance, if a customer adds an item to their cart but doesn’t follow through with the purchase, a personalised email would be sent directly to their inbox designed to put them back on track. This could simply be a reminder that they have an item in their cart, or provide a small discount to sweeten the deal.

Here’s a list of flows you NEED to have in your ecosystem

• Abandoned Checkout
• Abandoned Cart
• Abandoned Site
• Abandoned Product Browsed
• Post-Purchase

Now The Fun Stuff: Quick-Wins.

Time to spice things up a little here. Let’s run through some CRO quick-wins that are guaranteed to add incremental value to your conversion optimisation strategy. We’d advise you to A/B test some of the points below on your landers.

Clear calls-to-action (CTAs):

Make your CTAs as irresistible as a box of chocolates with contrasting colors, concise text, and strategic placement. One of our clients saw a 20% increase in conversions after giving their CTAs a makeover.

Look at how Poo-Pouri’s CTA is screaming at you to click it:

Brag bar:

Show-off what you’ve got in the form of social proof. Here we need to be thinking about how we can cater the social proof towards what we know our target audience will love.

For example, if your target audience is mainly retired British females they might not recognise a PopSugar logo but they’d most likely recognise your Daily Mail feature. If you haven’t got any features just simply throw in some reviews or testimonials from a notable figure you know your consumer will resonate with.

Immi have nailed this:

People don’t like math:

If you’ve seen a product for £40 that was originally £50, are you more attracted to save 20% or save £10?

Don’t let people get out their calculators to do the math on what they’re saving when you are running a promotion, just remove all friction points and create a seamless interaction for all users!

TUSHY get the idea:

Comparison charts:

What sets you apart from your competitors is ultimately going to persuade someone to buy your product over theirs. Comparison charts are super simple, super easy ways to highlight your USPs against another product.

Comparison charts are easy to understand and enable you to provide key information, communicate value, and streamline your customers journey. It means they don’t have to leave your site to go and research your competitors when they’re in that pivotal action phase of their journey.

Free shipping thresholds:

Test various minimum order values for free shipping to see which threshold encourages customers to add more items to their cart, resulting in higher AOV and contribution margin.

It’s free money at this point.

Trustpilot at checkout:

Trustpilot is highly underutilised across ecommerce brands yet it’s one of the most powerful forms of social proof at our disposal if used correctly.

On Shopify you can change your checkout logo to an updated version that includes your Trustpilot score. This immediately combats some objections people may have just before we get them over the line to convert.

How to Implement a CRO Strategy

CRO is an ongoing, iterative process that involves testing, analysing, and refining strategies to achieve continuous improvement. This cycle can be broken down into the following steps:

1. Identify areas for improvement: Use analytics data and user feedback to pinpoint areas on your website that need optimisation.
2. Develop hypotheses: Based on your findings, develop hypotheses on potential changes that might improve the user experience and conversion rates.
3. Test your hypotheses: Implement A/B tests or multivariate tests to evaluate the effectiveness of your proposed changes.
4. Analyse the results: Review the test data to determine which version of your website performs better.
5. Implement the winning variations: Roll out the winning changes to your entire website and continue monitoring the metrics to measure the impact.
6. Repeat the process: Continually test new ideas and refine your strategies to achieve ongoing improvement in your CRO efforts.

If you got this far here’s a free hypothesis tracker for you to download to ideate around your hypotheses and keep track of learnings post-test.

There you have it, a comprehensive list of strategies that you can take away today to improve conversions on your site. Even incremental increases in your CVR can dramatically improve your revenue and overall cash position.

In an age where ecommerce is quickly becoming the dominant way to shop - don’t be left in the dust. Make the changes your site needs to keep your competition at bay and dominate your niche.

If you need help scaling your ecommerce store,  book a free call with Joe, Dom, or Freddie today to learn more about how we can help you thrive!