Traffic's expensive. Most premium retail brands aren't getting anywhere near what their existing visitors are worth.
Conversion rate optimisation's the art of turning more of the people landing on your site into customers. You do it by looking at the customer’s journey, helping them find what they’re looking for and then clearing the path to purchase.
Done properly it's one of the highest-return things you can spend on.
The traffic's already paid for. The product's already there. Add a quarter of a per cent and you've added revenue without spending another dollar to get it. That's half a salary. That's a good bit of ad money you can pour back into the business.
Why this works so well
Conversion's the engine room of your ecommerce. Your conversion rate's how efficient that engine is at turning every visitor you paid for into a buyer.
And you did pay for them. Even the organic ones. Somewhere back down the line that traffic cost you money or it cost you your own time, and your time's most likely the scarcer of the two. Whether it was your Saturday writing content, or paying Mr Zuckerberg to put a new fish pond in his Hawaii place, you've invested in getting that person through the door.
So what happens when they leave without buying? It's a leaky bucket. All that money and all that time being poured in the top, and it just runs straight out the bottom.
What I see most often is a site that hasn't had a proper look at it in about eighteen months. The product pages were good when they were built. The checkout got set up once and that's where it's stayed. The mobile experience has slipped the wrong way. And the social proof that was doing the job at $500K is looking a bit light now you're at $5M.
And don't forget, all this is happening while every dollar you're spending on ads is working much harder than it has to.
How I think about CRO
Put yourself in your customer's shoes. That's most of it, really.
Can she find the product she wants, when she wants it, on the phone she's holding? Has she got enough information to feel reassured spending the money? Can she finish without having to jump through too many hoops? And is there anything on that page making her pause, or doubt, or just wander off somewhere else? That last one's the killer, and it's the hardest to spot.
Because there's always a reason somebody doesn't buy. Always. Nobody's landing on a product page to pass the time. Either we haven't given them enough information, or there isn't enough social proof for them to feel safe, or it's too expensive for what they can afford, or somebody down the road's doing it better. So the job's ticking those reasons off one at a time.
Where I'd look, in order:
- The product page. This is the biggie, and if it's the only thing you ever optimise you're halfway there. This is where I'd start. Strong imagery, benefits over features, reviews, fit and sizing sorted, delivery and returns answered before your customer has to go looking, and no distractions competing for the one click we want to do.
- The homepage. Within a few seconds: who you are, what you sell and who it's for. Most homepages have all of that on them somewhere. It's usually just too far down.
- The collection page. Can he scan, filter and shortlist without effort? Or is he doing work the site should be doing for him?
- The cart. Has it earned the click through to checkout? Are the upsells helping, or interrupting?
- The checkout. Is your customer confident handing the money over right at that moment? Has she got the express buttons? Is it easy on the phone? And does anything nasty pop up on shipping or tax at the last minute? That's where you lose her.
No single change is going to fix a business. But a lot of little ones stacked up will. These are big improvements from a collection of small tweaks.
But I can't sit here and tell you which version will win, because I'm not your customer. And neither are you, really. We like to think we know. We don't. So we test it.
What working with me looks like
I'd start with a full audit of the buying experience. Homepage to checkout, desktop and mobile, and I'd layer it with whatever data you've got. Analytics, heatmaps, session recordings, reviews, and the customer service inbox, which is usually the most honest thing you've got in the business.
And out of that you've got a list, in order. The stuff I'd do first, the stuff that can wait, and the stuff I'd leave alone. Each one with a hypothesis attached so you can actually tell afterwards whether it worked.
Then implementation. I'd work with your team, or alongside your agency, or get in the platform myself, whichever suits you. And I get the AI to do the donkey work in the audit. Get it to look at the pages, get it to pull the reports, get it to find the gaps. It's brilliant at that. But it doesn't make the decision. Neither do I, really. We test it and see what happens.
Who it's for
Premium retail brands spending real money on media who can feel the site isn't doing its job. Usually $3M to $20M. Brands about to push hard on growth who want to know the conversion engine can take it. And founders who just want someone outside the business to have a proper look at the store.
Who it isn't for
Anyone wanting a one-off heatmap report. Or a list of best practice off the internet. Or a 50% lift off one change. That isn't how any of this works, and anyone promising that is just guessing.
Let's have a look at your site
If you're paying for traffic and you're not happy with what it's converting, get in touch. The first conversation's free, and most founders come away with two or three things they can fix that week whether they end up working with me or not.
But tonight, do this. Open your own product page on your phone. Scroll it like you've never seen the brand before. What's the question you're leaving unanswered?
Key points
- A full audit of the buying experience, homepage to checkout, desktop and mobile
- A list in order, every change with a hypothesis attached so you can tell if it worked
- I'd work with your team, or your agency, or get in the platform myself
- AI does the donkey work in the audit. It doesn't make the calls
- For premium retail brands buying real traffic, roughly $3M to $20M