When growing and scaling your online business, there’s a substantial focus on tipping more traffic in through ads to gain maximum eyeballs on your website. Over time, it’s gradually accepted by many retailers that the conversion rate achieved is “the best it can be” – but more often than not, a critical commerce function is missed – conversion rate optimisation.
We’re exploring how this often talked about, but rarely implemented function drives more conversions and impact than any paid search or social campaign can offer, all by understanding your visitor’s behaviour.
The average conversion rate across all ecommerce sits around 2-3%, with high performers hitting between 10-20% conversions. For the average retailer, that means some 98% of visitors leave without a purchase. Consider this as if you had a physical store, if you only sold to 2 out of every 100 visitors, that wouldn’t be considered a good result – and neither should it be in ecommerce.
Section 1: Decoding the Essence of CRO and Its Profound Impact
Conversion Rate Optimization centres on maximising the percentage of website visitors who take desired actions, be it making a purchase, subscribing to a newsletter, or filling out a form. By honing in on optimizing critical elements, CRO holds the key to unlocking your business’s true potential.
Your visitor is a dataset. While the final objective is to achieve a sale, gaining their email address, visit data, feedback and more helps understand your visitor and how best to deliver what they’re looking for.
Section 2: Magnifying Growth Through CRO Magic
Now, let’s explore the staggering impact CRO can have on your ecommerce business. Research shows that even a 1% improvement in conversion rates can lead to a 10% increase in revenue. Imagine the possibilities when you strategically leverage CRO to enhance your website’s performance! By meticulously analysing user behavior, conducting experiments, and fine-tuning your sales funnel, you can amplify your conversion rates and experience exponential growth.
Often, marketers consider CRO to be exclusively about user experience (UX) and how to get them from homepage to checkout in as little time and clicks as possible. While that’s part of it, there’s a wider commercial consideration. Alongside design, there’s product placement considerations, pricing and stock availability – for example, if a large chunk of your traffic is hitting on a product that’s out of stock, what happens to those visitors? Commercial CRO highlights this, and looks to redirect that traffic to related items.
Section 3: Crafting Customer Delight with User-Centric Experiences
Businesses that prioritise CRO report an average increase of 20% in customer lifetime value. Aside from understanding your audience and providing them with a seamless on-site journey from product discovery to purchase, CRO is wide ranging in its capabilities. Often missed by development-based CRO, commercial CRO looks to delight customers from a position of imagery, descriptions, pricing and proposition, alongside the journey flow and page layout.
Section 4: Gaining a Competitive Edge in the Digital Battlefield
In a crowded ecommerce arena, differentiation is the name of the game. CRO provides the competitive edge you need to surge ahead. By investing in CRO, you craft a website experience that not only meets but exceeds customer expectations. Research indicates that companies embracing CRO witness a 223% increase in ROI. The ability to deliver targeted offers, personalized recommendations, and streamlined purchasing processes sets you apart from competitors, fostering customer loyalty and advocacy.
Conversion Rate Optimization is the secret ingredient to unlocking unprecedented success. Through CRO, you harness the power of data-driven decision-making, achieve substantial growth, and delight your customers with exceptional user experiences.
HikeCRO is a specialist CRO consultancy, delivering commercially-focussed strategies to online retailers of all sizes to improve their conversion rates. By installing a proven methodology across your design, development and commercial operations, HikeCRO’s expert approach helps retailers maximise their ROI from adspend, leading to a more engaged audience and more successful campaigns.