Conversion Rate Optimization Increases Online Revenue By 73% For National E-Commerce Retailer

Sara Kear
| Category

With rich data compiled from advanced testing methods, we helped our client improve their conversion rate and increase online revenue by 73%. Here are 5 key discoveries that led to big wins for our client. 

Conversion Rate Optimization played a key role in the very impressive digital growth of one of our clients, a national luxury retailer. How key of a role?

Year-over-year, our client increased online revenue by 73% and increased ecommerce conversion rate by 25%.  This was a 170% increase over the previous year's growth rate (27% revenue in 2014). This revenue growth is especially impressive considering website visitors only increased by 26% during this time.

After a positive return-on-investment on Conversion Rate Optimization efforts in 2014, the client decided to double their investment in CRO from 5% total marketing budget to 10%.

Identifying What Worked

What Conversion Rate Optimization strategies deployed produced this superior level of performance? While assessing the year in review with the CRO team, it was determined that the two game-changers were:

  • Smarter testing fueled by a deeper understanding of this client’s website visitors
  • Increasing the quantity of tests launched

The Importance of Deeper Analysis to Seed Hypotheses

With the client's increased investment, we were able to double the number of tests completed over the course of the year. We were also able to complete additional research with user testing, exit surveys and an online chat evaluation to better inform our tests. This deeper-level analysis yielded richer data inciting better insights and stronger hypotheses leading to bigger wins.

The ability to communicate directly with website users allowed our team to understand the mindset of visitors and the psychology behind the data in Analytics. Ultimately, it provided context to help answer questions about visitor behavior and create hypotheses that wouldn’t have been possible without user communication.

5 Examples of Key Findings, Hypotheses & Results From Our Tests

As a part of our analysis, we identified 5 key test findings that resulted in impressive wins for our client. While this list certainly isn't applicable to everyone as it's highly tailored to our client's specific site visitors, the following serves as a springboard of ideas for your own testing strategies.

Finding #1: Users highly valued this company’s free shipping & free returns policy. 

  • Insight Source: Exit Survey
  • Hypothesis: Some visitors may not see the offering in its current placement in a ribbon at the very top of the page. If we move the content to a more noticeable location, additional visitors will become aware of this offering and it will improve purchase rate.
  • Test: We tested a prominent placement of ‘Free Shipping & Free Returns’ in the header of the site.
  • Result: +44% total revenue

Finding #2: The site's visitors want to view the various colors of products without clicking-through to the product page.

  • Insight Source: User Testing 
  • Hypothesis: Creating the functionality for visitors to view the products in available colors while on the catalog page will streamline the funnel, improve user experience and increase conversion rate.
  • Test: We tested multiple versions of the catalog page with the functionality to view products in their available colors by clicking a color swatch below the product.
  • Result: +23% increased conversion rate

Finding #3: Visitors were using onsite search to look for discontinued products and the site wasn’t yielding any product results.

  • Insight Source: Onsite Chat
  • Hypothesis: Visitors using site search would benefit from recommended and related products especially if the product searched was a discontinued item.
  • Test: We optimized site search to recommend similar products.
  • Result: +40% increased conversion rate on visits with site search 

Finding #4: This site's visitors love video on product pages. 

  • Insight Source: User Testing. 
  • Hypothesis: A design change to focus attention on the video will increase video plays resulting in increased purchases.
  • Additional Research: We combined this information with Analytics data to discover that users who watch videos on product pages are 15% more likely to purchase.
  • Test: We redesigned the product page to better highlight videos.
  • Result: +12% increased revenue/visitor

Finding #5: European visitors wished the site listed prices in their local currency, product dimensions in the metric system and offered information on international shipping.

  • Insight Source: Exit Survey
  • Hypothesis: The site already converts some customers from Europe, but it is still a highly untapped market because of the poor site experience for these shoppers. The purchase rate of EU shoppers will increase if we create a user experience specifically for them.
  • Additional Research: SEO & Pay-per-click teams completed additional research to assess the opportunity for marketing and determined it is a viable market.
  • Result: We are in the process of building an European version of the site!

In addition to smarter testing, the visitor evaluation has had a larger impact on our client's business as a whole. In addition to the Europe site project, the client adopted feedback & insights gleaned into product development, merchandising & overarching marketing strategies.

Because of the success they saw last year, the client once again doubled their investment in CRO from 10% to 20% of their total marketing budget. They are on track to beat their growth goal of another 50% increased revenue year-over-year.

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