Conversion rate optimization is often the highest ROI activity that growing brands can engage in to continue their revenue growth sustainably. Unfortunately, many brands aren’t taking full advantage.
That’s why we put together this guide.
Included is a breakdown of the fundamentals of conversion rate optimization along with benchmark data to help you see where your brand stacks up against the competition. Once you see how your conversion rates compare with industry standards, we walk you through on-site strategies, tactics, and case studies that will help you design your own plan to optimize your customer journey.
Let’s dive in!
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) involves increasing the percentage of visitors to your website who will complete a specific action. While e-commerce businesses typically aim to increase sales, this process can also target objectives such as boosting add-to-cart rates or reducing cart abandonment.
The CRO metric you measure this process with is called the conversion rate. In order to calculate your conversion rate, you need to divide the number of conversions (actions taken) by the total number of visitors, then multiply that by 100 to make it a percentage.
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For example, if your product page has 1,000 visitors and has 30 sales, your conversion rate would be 3%. This is considered a normal conversion rate, given that the industry standard is from 2% to 5% based on many industry benchmarks.
It’s not hard to understand why CRO is important. Higher conversion rates equal more revenue.
But not only that. CRO is the best way to reduce your customer acquisition costs (CAC) and skyrocket your ROI.
Picture this, you have an e-commerce store and you’re spending roughly $10,000 a month to bring in 1,000 unique visitors. From these 1,000 visitors, only 10 make a purchase. This would make your CAC $1,000 per customer ($10,000 ad spend/10 customers = $1,000).
Imagine you develop a CRO strategy and apply it to your landing pages. This strategy takes into consideration your customer experience and provides them with a more enjoyable buying journey, which encourages them to buy. Your new CRO strategy increases your conversion rates from 1% to 3%.
So now, with the same ad spend of $10,000 monthly, your CAC is reduced to $333 from $1,000.
These are numbers that bring a smile to every marketer's face.
Conversion rate optimization can help you get the most out of your existing campaigns without spending more. Since you know how to measure your conversion rate and CAC, we’ll explain how CRO will benefit your e-commerce website.
As the saying goes, knowledge is your greatest asset. To kick off your website's conversion optimization strategy, it's important to gain deep insights into your customers. The goal? Understanding their preferences, behaviors, and the roadblocks they might encounter on their path to conversion.
A solid CRO strategy relies heavily on data. By analyzing customer interactions, lifecycle stages, and purchase patterns through web analytics, you can tailor conversion-friendly strategies that resonate with your audience and drive results.
By understanding your visitors, you can provide them with a better user experience. If you notice visitors spend more time than expected on a particular step in your funnel, you can work to streamline it.
You can use different tools, such as web analytics and heat maps, to understand where your visitors are spending the most time and where they’re exiting.
In a recent study, it was found that 65% of the decisions that business leaders make are getting more complex. Relying on guesswork is like playing a high-stakes game where one wrong decision can send shockwaves through your company's entire ecosystem.
Here are some questions to ask yourself in order to make more data-driven decisions:
Compared to other marketing methods such as paid advertising or SEO, CRO often demands a smaller upfront spend. Instead of spending money on new visitors, you're investing in improving your website's user experience and conversion funnels. This makes CRO an affordable approach to increasing your bottom line without incurring massive costs.
Benchmarks are strategic metrics and methodologies that can help reduce costs, enhance efficiency and identify opportunities for competitive advantage. But the truth is, there's no one-size-fits-all formula for determining good conversion rates.
In a recent study, good conversion rates vary by industry but the top 10% landing pages convert 3–5 times more than the average.
To figure out whether your conversion rate meets industry standards, compare your performance to that of competitors in the same industry. You may also use tools like Google Analytics to monitor your conversion rate over time and determine trends and patterns.
Here are e-commerce benchmarks to help you define your KPI’s:
E-commerce conversion rates by traffic source are super useful for retailers. They help set specific goals for each channel and focus on the traffic sources that perform best.
Referral traffic is the star player here, showing just how crucial it is for ecommerce retailers to encourage and capitalize on this source.
Referral traffic comes from external sites linking to your store, such as influencer posts recommending your products or comments on blog posts.
According to Statista's 2022 research on the impact of user-generated content (UGC), a study of 1,200 e-commerce websites using UGC technology found an average conversion rate of 3.2 percent.
When visitors encountered UGC while browsing, their chances of conversion increased by an average of 3.8 percent. The impact was even more significant when visitors actively engaged with the content, leading to a remarkable 102.4 percent increase in conversions.
In a 2022 study, it was found that the average conversion rate for UGC was 114.4% but varies depending on the industry.
Coming in strong after referral is email marketing, which converts highly. But this doesn’t mean that if you send an email to your entire database, you’ll hit a gold mine.
A message sent to your entire marketing list will almost always have lower engagement and conversion rates compared to a highly targeted campaign sent exclusively to specific customers.
The latest Klaviyo benchmark reveals a significant gap between the performance of average emails and SMS and those in the top 10%.
The top 10% performing emails converted 5 times more than average ones and brought in 8 times more revenue. And the reason for these numbers comes down to the different batch-and-blast tactics and highly segmented campaigns tailored to be ultra-relevant for a specific audience.
What’s even more interesting in Klaviyo’s Benchmark is that they found that email flows are the secret weapon to email conversions. When compared to campaigns, email flows generated more conversions at every stage of the marketing funnel.
Certain flows brought in more revenue per recipient (RPR) than others. These were the results:
If you're going to implement just one flow, make it an abandoned cart flow. Not only does it drive in the most RPR, but there isn’t much of a difference between the average and best performing abandonment flows.
Given that more than 80% of buying journeys begin on search engines, it's clear why many businesses invest in search ads to attract local searchers and convert them into customers.
However, as search engines like Google continuously change the search landscape and advertising costs increase, it's essential to evaluate the performance of your search ads to achieve the best results for your business.
In Wordsteams Search Advertising Benchmark 2024, it was found that the average conversion rate in Google Ads in 2024 is 6.96%.
The industries that had the highest average CVRs were automotive repair, service, and parts at 12.96%, and animals and pets at 12.03%. The furniture industry saw the lowest average CVRs at 2.53%.
To boost your conversion rate, start by identifying correlations between your conversion rate performance and other PPC metrics. While cost per conversion, conversion rate, and cost per lead are key indicators to prioritize, a low CTR or unnecessarily high CPC can also highlight issues in your campaign, affecting overall performance. Review each KPI both on its own and in the context of the overall results to determine if optimizations can enhance your overall ROI.
Conversions are the lowest for traffic coming from social media, at around 0.8%, according to Monetate.
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Well, here's the scoop: only 41% of social media users actually feel comfortable buying stuff straight from those apps. And get this—just 37% of people trust those platforms enough to share their card details. When it comes to products sold directly on social media, only 21% of users see them as high-quality.
The suspicion arises because consumers often get confused about whether the products being sold are genuine or not. On top of that, a whopping 75% of social media users are concerned about not receiving their ordered products at their doorstep.
So how can you improve your social media conversions?
To build trust with consumers, businesses should first make and stand by customer promises, such as transparent shipping speeds, refund policies, and accessible customer service.
However, these promises alone may not suffice, especially for brands exclusively selling on social media.
Building a trusting community with the audience is crucial, achieved through engaging with comments and questions, sharing relatable content, and encouraging user-generated content.
Another interesting fact to keep in mind is that not all consumers see all social media channels the same. This is very important to know so you know which social media platform to focus your marketing efforts on the most.
According to Hubspot, Facebook is the most trusted platform, at 38%. After that comes YouTube at 17%, then Instagram at 14%. The least trusted are Pinterest at 7% and TikTok at 6%.
Facebook ads remain one of the most effective methods for e-commerce brands, given that the average conversion rate is 9.21% across all industries, according to Wordstream.
Here’s a breakdown of Facebook ad conversion rates by industry:
The highest converting industries are beauty, skincare, fitness and food, which most likely are due to their ability to connect with people through visually appealing images.
A recent study by DataPortal shows that direct traffic is the top source of visits to online stores. This happens when visitors type the store’s website directly into their browser instead of clicking a link. Over one in four visits (27%) come from direct traffic.
Considering this high percentage, e-commerce owners should aim to keep their store name and URL short and memorable.
The latest shopping cart abandonment rate reported by the Baymard Institute for 2024 stands at 70.19%. Using this average as your benchmark can be misleading due to the significant variation across industries.
To effectively address cart abandonment in your e-commerce store, you need to know the average abandonment rate from different angles.
The highest average cart abandonment rates occur in industries such as home furnishings (90.50%), automotive (85.97%), and jewelry (84.49%). This is unsurprising given the higher price points and longer purchase processes.
Telecommunications also has a high cart abandonment rate of 90.76%, according to SaleCycle. Also, essentials like groceries (50.03%), pharmaceuticals (70.06%), and cosmetics (70.11%) experience lower cart abandonment rates compared to other industries.
The device you use makes a big difference in cart abandonment rates. Mobile phones see the most cart abandonment, with 85.65% of transactions ending without a sale.
Tablets do a bit better, converting 80.74% of the time—a 5.7% bump in revenue.
Desktops perform the best, with 73.07% of transactions not going through. It’s pretty clear: the smaller the screen, the more likely you are to abandon your cart.
This is especially tricky now that, for the first time ever, more people are using smartphones than desktops to shop.
Users arriving at e-commerce websites from social media platforms have the highest cart abandonment rate of all sources, at 88.3%.
This is likely because social media users are often in browsing and research mode, early in their customer journey, and not yet ready to make a purchase.
On the other hand, the traffic source with the lowest cart abandonment rate is search (73.6%), followed by direct traffic (76.5%), where users type the website domain directly into their browser, and email (80.4%).
Before you can begin optimizing your website for conversions, you must do a thorough CRO audit to discover areas for improvement.
Here's a step-by-step method for performing a CRO audit:
The optimum time to do a conversion rate audit is when you detect a decrease in your website's conversion rates.
You should also run an audit when your site is first launched or when the design, functionality, or content are significantly changed.
Simply knowing your current conversion rate and comparing it to the average is just the starting point. The true game changer lies in understanding the factors that impact these rates and learning how to adjust them for enhanced performance.
A study by Wunderman Thompson Commerce's Future Shopper Report for 2023 sheds light on what influences shoppers.
Many factors affect conversion rates, such as website design elements and psychological triggers that prompt user engagement.
User experience (UX) design stands as one of the most crucial elements in determining your website's conversion rate. It covers every facet of the end-user's interaction with your online stores and its products.
Studies show that 88% of online shoppers wouldn’t return to an e-commerce website after a bad user experience. And not only that, but 44% of online shoppers will actually tell their friends about a bad user experience.
The e-commerce industry is leaving over a whopping trillion dollars on the table only because of bad UX.
Here are some ways you can increase conversion rates through UX design:
High quality website content not only serves to educate your audience, but also provides authority and trust. For example, if your e-commerce store sells sports goods, creating content around which clothes are more suitable for certain sports, health tips, how-to or the day in the life of a famous athlete will resonate with your audience's interests. Here are a few ways you can create compelling content:
The leading factor that influences online shoppers by 46% are product descriptions. This may or may not come as a surprise. But imagine it like this - you take away your visitors' sense of smell, touch and taste. What are they left with? Sight and hearing.
According to another study, the top two major setbacks online shoppers face is the inability to touch and feel the products - in order to assess their quality.
So how can you tackle these setbacks and try to overcome them? Here are a few ways:
When you’re dealing with online shoppers, one thing you don’t want to take for granted is their patience. Google recommends e-commerce businesses to have an average load time of 2 seconds. Anything under that is even better.
In a recent study by Portent, it was found that e-commerce websites that load in 1 second had 2.5 times higher conversion rates compared to other websites that took 5 seconds to load.
If an e-commerce store is generating an average of $100,000 per day, a one second delay in page load time can lead to a $2.5 million loss in sales.
Here are some strategies to use to speed up your page load time:
Your Call-to-Action (CTA) buttons play a crucial role in directing your visitors through your conversion funnel. And depending at which stage they are, different CTA buttons will help encourage them to take the desired action.
It's evident that presentation is key; therefore, the clarity, positioning, and style of your CTA play a significant role in shaping your website's conversion rate. Sometimes people need a reminder of what to do next. Too few CTAs might make them feel lost.
Here are a few actionable CTAs you can use:
Additionally, regular A/B testing of various CTA designs, positions, and messages could help optimize their effectiveness over time.
Even though the opportunities for boosting sales with CRO are endless, there are tiny, sneaky mistakes you may be making that can be detrimental to your success. It’s important to pinpoint these mistakes so you can avoid these pitfalls.
There are other mistakes that affect your CRO, such as hiding shopping information until the end, bad social proof, unclear product descriptions and more. Keep in mind that CRO is an ongoing process so you will constantly need to measure the data and make new tweaks.
Have you noticed that despite having more mobile traffic, your desktop conversions are higher, or vice versa?
This is a clear indicator that you need to focus your marketing efforts on that traffic source and develop a strategy to encourage consumers to make immediate purchases.
Understanding your mobile and desktop traffic split is essential to measuring your conversion variants and overall digital strategy.
The average American spends almost 5 and a half hours a day on their smartphone, and 71% of that time goes into online shopping.
The latest studies for April 2024 found that 59.57% of worldwide visits come from mobile, 38.41% from desktop and only 2.02% from tablets.
You might think that countless conversions happen because consumers spend so much time shopping online on their mobiles and tablets.
However, the reality is quite different.
According to a recent study, only 2.86% of mobile visitors actually make a purchase.
An overall trend shows that 71% of purchases take place on desktop and only 28% on mobile.
While various factors significantly influence mobile shopping, such as user experience and incentives, here are the most common reasons for this behavior, according to this other study:
The report by Wolfgang Digital discovered a strong correlation between high percentages of mobile traffic and increased overall website conversion rates. This might seem counterintuitive, but it indicates that people often use their phones to decide what to buy and then switch to their computers to complete the purchase.
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A whopping 65% of shopping starts on mobile. If you have any UX issues with your e-commerce store, you’re bound to lose a lot of sales.
This is why enhancing the mobile shopping experience and providing excellent customer service encourages more people to make purchases directly on their phones.
For high-ticket items, consumers often browse on their phones but complete the purchase on their computers.
Therefore, delivering a seamless experience across both devices is crucial. Treating desktop, mobile, and offline channels as separate entities can undermine your overall business strategy.
Most e-commerce businesses use Google Analytics to track and monitor their customer journeys across multiple devices. You can learn more about how to set up cross device reporting here.
Reflecting the major shift in consumer behavior, e-commerce brands are adapting a mobile-first approach to their business. This means that their website performs smoothly and looks incredible on mobile devices first, and is later adjusted to satisfy desktop users as well.
Here are some interesting stats that will grab your attention:
Half of all the traffic in the world comes from mobile. Just this statistic alone should make you seriously consider your mobile-first approach. Like with all statistics in e-commerce, it varies between industries but still, almost everyone is using a smartphone.
This is why businesses should focus more on allocating a larger portion of their budgets to UX design and web development.
Not only is mobile traffic increasing, but screen dimensions are also expanding. Mobile devices are becoming more powerful and pleasant to use, with much more finger space. As forward-thinking e-commerce brands continue to craft enjoyable mobile experiences, they'll seize and convert a significant portion of this traffic.
With the convenience of one-click payment options through digital wallets like Google Pay and Apple Pay, along with trusted payment providers such as Stripe, and Ayden, consumers are increasingly placing their trust in e-commerce brands and feeling much more at ease when making purchases.
A study by Merchant Savvy only sets this information in stone, showing that payments through digital wallets are the most popular payment option among consumers. Digital wallet payments are projected to take over 53% of online POS transactions.
There are several ways to interpret this large number. It's possible that the integration of digital wallets in mobile devices makes completing a purchase on that device the most convenient choice.
People can research products on a laptop or desktop computer, but then make the final choice and complete the purchase in a more comfortable and ideal decision-making environment.
There are likely to be many possibilities that lead to this outcome. But they all emphasize the necessity of optimizing the buying process on your website.
It most likely implies incorporating new payment choices. It surely involves ensuring that your website runs smoothly across a variety of smartphones.
CRO for mobile is a method that involves increasing the number of desired actions performed by mobile users. It’s no secret that more and more people spend the majority of their time on their smartphones so you can only imagine how much of that time they spend on online shopping.
In 2024, it’s projected that the mobile e-commerce industry will be worth $2.5 trillion and will keep on growing in the years to follow.
Transforming your e-commerce store into a seamlessly responsive mobile platform isn't just a necessity; it's an essential step in thriving within the digital marketplace.
Here are five strategies you can use on your mobile responsive website to boost your customers:
It's crucial to acknowledge that users primarily navigate their mobile devices using thumb movements. Thoughtful spatial planning of elements and surrounding space is strategically vital for optimizing the navigation and scrolling experience.
While often overlooked, the arrangement of links in your menu significantly impacts the user experience and conversions. For instance, visitors may find it confusing to see "About Us" before "Items on Sale." A powerful strategy is to utilize eye-catching icons to direct attention to the menu link you wish to prioritize for traffic generation.
It’s a fact that on mobile, you have limited real-estate to work with, so you need to make the most of it. Leverage analytics data to identify commonly used filters and prioritize them. This ensures a seamless user experience while providing access to the most relevant filtering choices.
The best e-commerce businesses make sure their CTA buttons stand out in order to guide the visitor down the funnel. A common strategy is to use a more distinct color for buttons associated with sales-driving actions and payment processes. You can also add an icon to a button that you want to stand out more.
Enhance the checkout experience on your mobile site by integrating mobile payment solutions like Apple Pay, Google Pay and even ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ apps. Simplify the purchasing process for users on mobile devices, ensuring seamless completion of transactions.
Just “optimizing” for mobile isn’t enough in today's global economy. If you don’t put careful thought into your mobile experience, you’ll give consumers a reason to never return to your website.
Below are common mistakes e-commerce businesses make that pose a massive threat to their conversions. Keep an eye out to see if you’re taking any of these steps.
One of the most common mistakes marketers make is not adopting a mobile-first approach, instead opting to simply copy and paste the desktop website design onto mobile. This oversight can lead to a range of issues, from slow load times to poor navigation, ultimately driving potential customers away.
67% of consumers find it difficult to click on different elements on mobile. Many of them claim their screens are too small. So take that into consideration when developing their mobile experience, as their behavior is completely different from when they are on desktop.
Mobile device users are tech savvy and are used to completing actions without waiting too long. Overcomplicating the checkout process on mobile has far more damaging statistics than on desktop.
In fact, 97% of mobile shoppers abandon their carts. Regardless of the factors influencing this statistic, the vast majority of your mobile traffic leaving without making a purchase is an alarming concern.
According to a study by Capterra, 43% of consumers prefer to check out as guests, while 29% prefer to login with a social profile and the remaining 28% prefer to create a new account.
The clock is ticking and your shoppers expect to complete their checkout purchase in 4 minutes or less! Online registration and creating a new account can complicate the shopping process, leading to 82% of consumers abandoning their carts.
Here’s an example of an e-commerce brand that is doing it right on mobile. Glossier offers its customers an express checkout option, with buttons offering different payment options.
Imagine the number of forms mobile shoppers come into contact with every day. Form fatigue may cause significant checkout abandonment in your e-commerce store.
Fortunately, browsers such as Safari and Chrome enable autocomplete on specific forms, such as first name, last name, and email, which helps save time and effort.
With autofill enabled, consumers may quickly enter shipping information with a single touch.
You can additionally provide an option that asks consumers if they wish to use the same shipping address as their billing information.
Here’s an example of Shopify’s check out page, one with an autofill form and the other with a manual entry form.
Once an e-commerce business has hundreds and even thousands of products listed, it gets harder to reach the right customer - especially on mobile, where everything is smaller.
If you can provide your visitors with an autocomplete search experience similar to Google or Amazon, they will quickly get comfortable with and acclimated to browsing your site.
Once the relevant keyword(s) have been auto-completed, the system should suggest products accordingly. This results in a very high conversion rate since you've simply matched the user's query in seconds, rather than requiring them to wade through numerous results.
And if you want unique customization work for your own brand of items or other specific characteristics, your e-commerce search solution should accommodate this, rather than leave you feeling "stuck" with the preset settings.
When developing your e-commerce strategy, you will most likely consider using pop-ups. However, this is a high-risk step that should be done with caution.
Think of popups this way: Imagine you walk into a store just to browse.
An employee approaches and asks if you need help.
You say you're just looking around.
Then another employee comes over and tells you that all blazers are 40% off.
Shortly after, a third employee interrupts with yet another offer.
Annoyed by the constant interruptions, you decide to leave the store.
This is exactly what your mobile shoppers experience with excessive popups.
Too many of these can drive anyone away, causing customers to swiftly leave your store. Pop-ups are crucial in marketing, but they must be used with caution.
Test out different messages, colors and positions with your popups. Tarte Costmetics displays their popups above the fold for better visibility.
Personalization is a method that customizes the website experience for each visitor through tailored content, product recommendations, promotions and messaging that spark their interest. This way, you’ll be able to create a more meaningful connection with your customers.
With Shogun, you can easily incorporate personalization into your CRO strategy in the following segments:
Another effective way to maximize your ROI is through A/B testing. Shogun’s A/B testing feature does all the hard work for you and allows you to start running tests in minutes! You can create, measure and manage multivariate A/B tests across all pages.
Shogun makes A/B testing easy for you in the following ways:
Real-life case studies can always inspire you to take on new approaches. When going through these successful cases, try to ask yourself questions that start with the word ‘Why.’ Why did this happen? Why did the visitor take this action?
Asking the right questions will enable you to see beyond the surface and develop your own tweaks and adjustments to enhance your conversion rates.
The watch world is full of knock-offs. That’s why ExpressWatches, an online watch retailer, decided to test how much authenticity matters to its customers. They tested it out by adding an authenticity label for extra credibility. The results? A 107% increase in conversions!
Increasing the number of purchases is a common CRO strategy, but increasing the average order value per user is an often overlooked one. Here we have Somnifix, an e-commerce brand that only sells one product - breathing strips.
They showed the value of ordering more strips visually, in a hierarchy. They made their check-out process very simple and streamlined the entire journey. The result? They received an AOV increase of 27% and sold more of the expensive breathing packs.
Australian e-commerce brand, Factory to Home, sells furniture online. They wanted to test out by adding frequently asked questions to the product pages, so visitors wouldn’t need to leave. They added a FAQ popup to the bottom of the product pages on both desktop and mobile.
This small change resulted in a 18.1% increase in completed orders!
This online brand with a wide variety of niche products decided to test their drop bar menu and simplify it with a static menu that doesn’t take up too much space on the screen. This resulted in a 56% increase in conversions!
The online eyeglasses brand Flex + Iris conducted messaging tests, offering a risk-free shopping experience. They informed visitors about their three-step process and provided clear images of their eyeglasses. Due to this simple change, they increased their conversions by 75%.
Take a deep thought about your buyer’s habits. What are they purchasing the most?
By showing your top-selling products near your website's search engine or at the top of your category page, you can make it easier for your shoppers to find what they’re looking for.
A good example of implementing this strategy is Great Jones Goods, where they feature their best-selling product as a dropdown in their navigational menu.
Want to make your items appear cheap without lowering prices? Try price anchoring.
E-commerce stores most commonly use strike-through pricing.
Help your customers envision your product in their lives. Instead of showing your product against a plain white background, use images that demonstrate it being used in everyday situations.
Remember, you’re not just selling a product; you’re selling the benefits and improvements it brings to their lives.
A great example of selling a "lifestyle" is Huel, which perfectly captures this approach.
Are you ready to start understanding your website visitors and optimizing your e-commerce store to make their user experience more enjoyable, all while significantly boosting your sales?
Before you start, you need to always keep in mind that there’s no 100% guaranteed CRO strategy for e-commerce. What works for one business, may not work for yours.
But at the same time, this is what makes conversion rate optimization such an incredible journey for marketers. You have the freedom to select the tools that will aid you on your path, such as utilizing this comprehensive guide and Shogun's personalization feature to deliver customized customer experiences.
With these detailed metrics, methods and case studies - you are fully equipped to start preparing for your CRO audit and developing your unique CRO strategy. Whether it's increasing sales, boosting engagement, or improving user satisfaction, let your objectives guide your actions and inform your decisions throughout the optimization process.
