a publication of · a publication of turn shoppers into buyers fashion conversion rate optimization...

A Publication of

TURN SHOPPERS INTO BUYERS

FASHIONCONVERSION

RATE OPTIMIZATION

ECOMMERCE GUIDEThe

to

The Fashion eCommerce Guide to Conversion Rate Optimization 2

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Intro

Chapter 1: You need a strategy

Chapter 2: Methodology and instruments

Chapter 3: Ideas to increase your conversion rate and revenue

Conclusions

3

4

12

27

46

• Brand Managers• Marketing / Digital Marketing Managers• UI/UX Managers• Conversion Optimization Managers ?WHO IS THIS EBOOK FOR?

Valentin Radu is Marketizator’s Founder and CEO. He is an experienced marketer who has turned into an entrepreneur. With his knowledge and unyielding energy, Valentin helps ecommerce companies grow through the use of conversion optimization. An unbeatable strategic marketer, Valentin uses our amazing software, Marketizator, to transform his ideas into reality.

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Share this ebook!INTRO

The modern marketing is data-driven and requires accurate decisions. Accept this fact, train your skills, and you’ll become a better decision

maker. But what is “good” anyway?

Good marketing decisions are measurable and improve your ROI. No matter what type of marketing you practice, orientate it on performance and results. There is no escape from this.

We wrote this ebook to show you that it’s possible to make accurate marketing decisions. If you read it to the end, you will have the answers to the following challenges:

This ebook will guide you through the process of optimizing your website for revenue. The first chapter gives information about digital marketing and conversion rate optimization strategy. In the second chapter, read about the methods and instruments you need to install . The third chapter, gives you marketing ideas to pick when you decided over your strategy.

• lower your cart abandonment rate;• lower your bounce rate;• increase your conversion rate;• re-engage visitors in the funnel;• increase the ROI of your marketing campaigns.

We also know that there are so many things to change on your website(s). Being distracted by lots of ideas drains you out of energy. The good news are that you can save yourself from this vicious style. Building a system helps you focus on what’s important for you and your organization.

THE SYSTEM ALWAYS WINS.

Companies with a structured approach to conversion rate optimization are twice as likely to see a larger increase in sales.

eConsultancy Report




CHAPTER 1

YOU NEED A STRATEGY


CHAPTER 1 Share this ebook!

Conversion rate optimization is essential to your digital marketing strategy. If you manage to increase the conversion rate -- the percentage

of visitors who make a purchase on your website -- from 1% to 2%, you manage to double your sales.

Given the large variety of things you can optimize on fashion e-commerce websites, the best manner is to approach this subject systematically, so that you can do the first things first.

So, let’s understand this business from a helicopter view: on a side, we have the customers (most of the times, the women with their hopes, needs, desires - emotions), which is WHO you need to address.

On another side, you have the assortment of products, which is WHAT are they looking on your website. As the competition grows, we differentiate 3 kinds of fashion e-commerce websites according to their products (and crosses between those, of course):

CHAPTER 1: YOU NEED A STRATEGY

• outlet;• shopping clubs;• full season;

And, on the last side, you have your website, which is HOW you show off your products.

1. WHAT DO CONVERSION RATES REALLY TELL US?

Jeffrey Eisenberg is the CEO of BuyerLegends.com and a recognized authority and pioneer of Internet marketing strategy.

The top 25% of online retailers convert at 5.31% and the top 10% of online retailers convert at 11.45%.

According to a 2015 study from Millward Brown Digital, Amazon Prime members convert 74% of the time on Amazon.com. Compare that to 13% for non-prime members.




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Amazon’s user interface isn’t 22x better than average. Amazon’s copy isn’t 22x better than average. Amazon’s design isn’t 22x better than average. Amazon’s prices aren’t 22x better than average. Amazon isn’t average, and it doesn’t think about average conversion rates or average customers. Amazon’s stated goal is to be “the most customer-centric company on earth.”

This fits with how we define conversion rate.

“Conversion rates are a measure of your ability to persuade visitors to take the action you want them to take. They’re a reflection of your effectiveness at satisfying customers. For you to achieve your goals, visitors must first achieve theirs.”

Jeffrey Eisenberg

To increase the conversion rate of your website, you need to create a strategy meant to persuade visiors to take the actions you want them to take. Because they’re in different stages of awareness when they visit your site, you have to map out a funnel and optimize it.

2. HOW TO BUILD A CRO STRATEGY

Manuel da Costa is the founder of Digital Tonic, a UK based Data Driven Conversion Optimization agency, which has also developed Effective Experiments- the project management tool for CROs and Conversion World - The online CRO conference

Due to untrustworthy metrics that might ruin your efforts to put the customer in the centre ofyour optimization strategy, it is better to look at a site through a funnel. So, before you start optimizing your funnel, you need to map it out effectively.

To visualize your site’s funnel, use your analytics software to create each step. You’ll see where drop-offs actually are and what percentage of visitors you are losing at every step.







To find why your visitors are leaving, you will have to deploy surveys on your website and ask visitors questions like: “Is there anything preventing you from completing your purchase today?” or “Did you find what you were looking for?”

Though, it is unlikely they will buy from you the first time around. If you optimize your funnel for micro-commitments, this will increase your chance of turning them into a customer further down the line (and maybe even a loyal one).

Micro-commitments could be giving an email address or taking a survey. This starts the relationship with this potential customer, and you can use every opportunity to gain their trust. In the long-term, this will pay off.

STEP 1. VISUALIZE THE GOALS

Your funnel is the most accessible and easy to use way to visualize your goals. Build your funnel based on what you want your website’s visitors to do on your website. On an e-commerce website, you’ll want your visitors to take the following actions:

1. View the product pages; 2. Subscribe to newsletter;3. Add items to the cart;4. Make a purchase;5. Return and buy again;6. Promote the brand.

STEP 2. MEASURE YOUR GOALS

To measure if the website’s visitors goals meet your goals, use Enhanced Ecommerce in Google Analytics to see the drop-offs at each step. Make sure to measure these key performance indicators on each funnel stage:

1. CTR of site search elements, Product Page Views - to measure the percentage of visitors who land on your product pages and become shoppers;







2. Subscription rate - to measure the percentage of visitors not interested yet into buying your products, but ready to make a micro-commitment;

3. Add to cart rate (the click rate of the main Call To Action on the product page) – to measure the percentage of visitors who add items to their cart;

4. Cart abandonment rate, Checkout abandonment rate, Conversion Rate – to measure the performance of your site in the bottom of the funnel;

5. Customer Lifetime Value, Repeat Purchase Rate – to measure the value of the buyers;

6. Net Promoter Score – to measure the likelihood of repetitive buyers to become raving fans and promoters of your brand.

Knowing the current situation of your KPIs helps you identify the first strategic actions you’ll take to achieve the desired conversion rate.







3. HOW TO INTEGRATE CRO IN THE MARKETING STRATEGY

Claire Vignon, Director of Optimization Strategy at WiderFunnel. She’s an experienced marketer able to provide value to her clients and knowledge and inspiration to her conversion team.

Marketing is all about better serving the customers’ needs, and CRO helps understand these needs. The one thing we know about potential customers is that they experience more anxiety when they’re shopping online than when they’re browsing in a store.

Online shoppers need as much information as possible -- especially visual information -- about what they’re buying in order to feel confident about their decision. You could have an e-commerce site without text or descriptions, but you cannot have an e-commerce site without images.

Let’s give you an example of how CRO fits into the marketing strategy of a retailer. We worked with a top lingerie e-commerce retailer, testing images on the product listing page. In one of our tests, we increased the size of the product images and saw a 15.3% lift in conversions.

In this case, we learned about the customer and used that insight to refine the brand experience in other marketing media, such as social media and email marketing, by adding more high-quality images.

What’s next? Now that we see sensitivity around images, it’s a good opportunity to test visuals in other parts of the funnel, see which ones resonate best with customers, and use the best performing ones in email and social media campaigns along with banner ads.

The next step in integrating CRO within the digital marketing strategy involves setting up intermediate goals to achieve the marketing goals. Also, the marketing goals help you achieve the business goals.

The over-competitive and mature fashion e-commerce market is forcing companies to align to the latest technology discoveries and implement innovative solutions. Nowadays, fashion e-commerce store managers have to be remarkable at doing the following things:

4. THE PARTICULARITIES OF CONVERSION MARKETING STRATEGIES FOR FASHION E-COMMERCE SITES







• treating the best customers like VIPs with personalized offers• using amazing images on their site• telling stories through the content used across all the digital

channels• having an impeccable user interface and navigation• partnering with the right influencers to choose the suitable brand

ambassador• going mobile• getting the price right and always offering coupons• choosing to promote a lifestyle and communicating it across all

the channels

These general marketing strategies aim to align to what the best players on the market do. Though, remember that your site and business is unique, and some elements are more important for your growth than others.

To make sure that you achieve your marketing goals through a successful CRO strategy, you should consider these specific conversion marketing strategies:

1. PERSONALIZATION

From the landing pages that receive traffic from ads to the personalized pop-ups and personalized emails, you must personalize the entire journey of your customers.

2. FOCUS ON GROWTH

To see if your site’s performance grows at the desired rate, you need to focus on results, instead of intuition.

3. OPTIMIZE BASED ON THE FUNNEL

Random optimization doesn’t get you anywhere. Make sure that you always analyze your results across all funnel steps to achieve constant growth.

4. ALWAYS TEST THE VISUALS

Constantly test on the images of your fashion e-commerce website. Though, when testing images, don’t forget that image size isn’t everything. You should also consider the context of your images or videos, showing different angles of the same product and using zoom-in.







5. INTEGRATE CRO IN YOUR MARKETING

Content marketing, PR, and social media are important in your digital marketing strategy because they attract attention to your brand and traffic to your website. Though, the attraction is only the first part of the funnel, and if you don’t continue optimizing your website, you’ll lose customers and money.

With a strategy you can move the mountains. Conversion rate optimization doesn’t generate results if you’re doing it random. Instead, create a strategy and stick to it to increase the conversion rate on an ongoing basis on the long term.

5. THE ROLE OF GROWTH HACKING IN CONVERSION RATE OPTIMIZATION

Kunle Campbell is an E-commerce Growth Advisor at 2XeCommerce. He specialises in scaling mid-tier online retail businesses and accelerating growth of funded ecommerce startups.

The growth hacking mindset is grounded in funnel analysis driven by a partly left-brain approach (i.e. very metrics experimental driven and analytic) and also right brained (i.e. creative, somewhat anecdotal, yet curiously experimental).

For fashion e-commerce, here are the most effective channels at each stage of the funnel you can apply growth hacking to:

1. USER ACQUISITION - BUILD AN AUDIENCE AND BRAND AWARENESS

• Instagram: Influencer marketing both on Instagram and other visually driven platforms;

• Personalised Segment based exit overlays for email acquisition;• Paid acquisition channels remain a strong due to their targeting

precision, retargeting and scalability. Instagram and Pinterest join the ranks of Facebook ads and Google Product Listing Ads.

2. USER ACTIVATION - DRIVE MORE SALES

• CRO - through A/B splits tests, qualitative and quantitative analysis;







• Product page quality - produce copy that converts in product descriptions, photographs, video and user generated reviews;

• Device agnostic - reduce mobile purchase friction (mobile UX) and persistent shopping carts.

3. USER RETENTION – ENCOURAGE REPEAT PURCHASES

• Single view customer lifecycle email marketing for personalised triggered messaging;

• Hack customer services (think Zappos and Amazon): customer happiness should be integral to your business – measure your Net Promoter Score;

• Content marketing in combination with social: own a content type (visuals, video, lifestyle blog) and utilize social media to scale content distribution.

4. WORD OF MOUTH (WOM) MARKETING - CREATE MORE BRAND ADVOCATES

• Great packaging together with great products, hassle free returns and customer service will provide more incentives;

• Rewards based ‘Refer a friend’ modules that use Facebook, Twitter and Email to drive brand awareness virality;

• Unboxing videos on YouTube: in collaboration with influencers whose audience match your target demographic.





CHAPTER 2

METHODOLOGY AND INSTRUMENTS



CRO is about turning your data into insights to find solutions for problems. Turn data into information, and you’ll get solutions. Just look at data

and pretend you get the idea and you’ll only lose money. Bummer!

CRO is also about understanding how people use the internet to achieve their goals. It requires expanding your knowledge about human behavior and psychology.

For example...

The average attention span in 2015 is 8 seconds. Back in 2000, it was around 13 seconds. Give too many options to your website’s visitors and their focus will immediately move onto any of the other open tabs in their browser.

Another interesting fact is that on a desktop the human eye can clearly perceive only an area of around 200x200 pixels. That’s the foveal area surface.

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY AND INSTRUMENTS






The kind of thinking that you should approach is transforming data into valuable information. For example, the following stats regard aspects of human behavior on the internet:

Market data:

• almost 30% of visits last no more than 10 seconds (source)• the average cart abandonment rate in ecommerce is around 70%

(source)

Internal data:

• 2 out of 5 visitors see the product page in a session• visits with filters convert 3 times better than those without filters• visits with page depth greater than 20 pages are more likely to

buy

Now, what will you do with the data?Transform them into insights, like we do in this example:

• People are just passing by on my website, doing what others call “window shopping”.

• I’m unable to communicate too personal with my website’s visitors. Probably they are frustrated with the irrelevant offers I’m showing right now.

• It’s expensive to pay for getting attention. Buying traffic or hiring expensive contractors can cost me more than trying to keep the visitors on my website.

98% of the people who visit my website get distracted by other things. It is a journey that I want to optimize, not only the conversion rate.

1. CRO IS A PROCESS

Ewoud Uphof runs EJAU, a growth & conversion agency based in Amsterdam, NL. He believes companies can grow faster with insights from data. Ewoud is also the founder of ConversionGym, an online course to become a growth hacker.

CRO is the process of convincing visitors they should not hesitate when




http://padicode.com/blog/analytics/the-real-bounce-rate/

http://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate



buying your products. If shoppers had no hesitations or anxieties about purchasing from your site, you’d have a conversion rate of 100%.

The hard thing about having an online store is the incapacity to talk to the visitors. The good thing, though, is that they leave traces through data, both quantitative and qualitative.

The process of CRO involves taking specific steps. These are:

1. Doing research: using quantitative and qualitative data to generate insights;

2. Prioritizing hypotheses;3. Testing and Personalization;4. Implementing;5. Repeating.

2. HOW TO DO RESEARCH

Not all data is important, nor does it give you valuable insights into optimizing your website. Not every visitor that arrives on your website is important; likewise, not any page of your site is test worthy.

To make sure you get only the high-potential insights from your research, make sure to follow these tips.

1. QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH

You can gain two sorts of insights concerning the performance of your site from the users’ point of view:

• positive insights that show what works on your website, such as observing that visits with search convert at a higher rate than visits without search;

• negative insights that show you the things that do not work, like identifying that visits from Internet Explorer 9 convert at a lower rate compared to other browser versions.

The main sources that offer you insights in Google Analytics are:

• Technology (Browser & Oparting System);




http://www.slideshare.net/valentinra/how-to-find-hidden-gems-in-google-analytics-to-convert-more



• Behavior;• Geo (Location, Region, City);• Results;• Acquisition (All traffic, Source).

Besides analyzing the pre-determined segments in analytics, you can also build custom segments. For example, build segments based on the Page Depth. You’ll have segments like these ones:

• < 5 pages• 5-10 pages• 10-15 pages• 15-20 pages • 20-25 pages • 25-30 pages • 30-40 pages • > 40 pages

Not all these segments are important, but only the ones with the highest share of visits and revenue. You’ll understand how many pages the visitors who spend the most need to see to make a purchase.

Another valuable report regards the segments using filters. You need to compare one against another based on the Page Value. This kind of research will give you a clue about which filter to show first. Put this hypothesis to a test and see if it applies to all the traffic.

2. QUALITATIVE RESEARCH USING SURVEYS

Like the insights you get from the quantitative analysis, surveys provide two types of insights from the users’ perspective:






• Positive: what and why they like certain products, offers, or site elements;

• Negative: what and why they dislike about certain products, offers, or site elements.

Surveys can offer awesome benefits, but you need to get enough responses to build a healthy hypothesis. On average, a good response rate is about 20%. If you want to get responses from 20% of the people who see your surveys, follow these tips:

1. Write the survey’s copy based on segment, page and funnel step;2. Ask direct questions;3. Maximum 5 questions;4. Formulate short, concise questions;5. Trigger surveys at exit on the key pages;6. Prioritize surveys based on the biggest pain identified in the

funnel.

Once you got these tips covered and start to understand better your audience, you are able to create a list of hypotheses, ready to be tested on your website. Check out our quiz especially built for e-commerce websites. You’ll also get a free audit with ideas of optimization, further explained in the third chapter of the ebook.

This is an example of a dynamic survey to gather insights about the purchase intention of your website’s visitors.






3. HOW TO CREATE AND PRIORITIZE TESTABLE HYPOTHESES

Bobby Hewitt is CEO&President at Creative Thirst, US based agency that offers conversion rate optimization services. Bobby has an experience of over ten years of practicing web design, web analytics, internet marketing and conversion rate optimization and always aims for perfection.

Not everything on your website is worth split-testing. The key to getting the most impact to your fashion e-commerce revenue is to only test the biggest opportunities through a systematic scientific process that starts with formulating a testable hypothesis.

The actual split-test itself is simply a way of observing what happened, which will either prove or disprove your hypothesis.

There are two ways to arrive at a testable CRO hypothesis: by using deductive thinking or inductive thinking.

• Deductive thinking starts with observing your visitors, seeing a pattern that’s common among them. This usually comes out of the research stage and then writing down some questions based on what you observe that you can form into a testable hypothesis.;

• Inductive thinking starts with a theory up front, usually from intuition or an already solid understanding of the customer, then using observation to confirm that your theory is worth testing, which you’ll finally form into a hypothesis to test.

“Your split-test is only as strong as your hypothesis.”

Bobby Hewitt

In either case, the question comes first. Before you make a hypothesis, you have to clearly identify the question you are interested in answering.

To formulate your “testable” hypothesis, first think about the one single question you are trying to answer. Not something like, “how do we get more sales or even how do we sell more red shirts?” but questions about your prospect’s psychology of buying.






These are some questions to answer:

• What could be causing some anxiety in the mind of the visitor around this area of the page?

• Is this traffic source more motivated by social proof or scarcity?

Avoids using words like “I”, “think”, “believe”, “all”, “never”, and “sometimes”.

Here’s a testable hypothesis framework that you can use:

IF…THEN…BECAUSE

If ___ [visitors do this] ___ then ___ [this] ___ will happen and this ___ is why.

As a good rule of thumb to ensure you’re testing something that has the impact, always write down all of your hypotheses first and strive to make them crystal clear. A good hypothesis is written in a clear and simple language. Also, try reading your hypothesis out loud to a peer. You can tell if your hypothesis is a testable one if the listener can tell exactly what you expect will happen if the test wins.

Finally, make sure your hypothesis follows this checklist to validate that it’s a testable one and that you’ll also get a learning from your test, even if your test loses or is inconclusive.

HYPOTHESIS CHECKLIST:

Does your hypothesis focus on something that you can actually test?What impact will this recommendation have on the business? (If the answer is you can’t tell, then it’s probably not a good idea to test)How many things will change if we test this idea? (If the answer is a lot, then you have a lot of hypotheses to work through)Is there enough traffic to test? (You can test low traffic pages, but the approach is different)How will we measure the results? (If the answer is I don’t know, do some more research)Is there evidence to support this idea? (If not, choose another thing to test)Will you learn something, even if your hypothesis is incorrect?






Finally, when you have a clear idea about how your test will look like, it’s time to set up the test. But first, you need to understand some basic rules of A/B testing. Because it’s a scientific method, you have to avoid doing some mistakes.

1. STATISTICAL CONFIDENCE

To make an accurate decision in your marketing, you want to know exactly its impact on the results. Testing allows you to do it, but not with 100% confidence. In the testing practice, a statistical confidence of 95% tells you that you can be 95% confident in the results.

When you have two versions with statistical significance, choose the version that has the bigger value for conversion rate and for the improvement. For instance, if Version B has 12.5% conversion rate and improvement of 20%, and the version C has 16% conversion rate with an improvement of 27%, then implement version C.

4. HOW TO RUN A/B TESTS

A/B testing is the most popular conversion otpimization solution, and it allows changing an element on a page and testing it against the default control version of the page. Splitting the traffic (50-50) gives equal chances to both versions to demosntrate how they affect the performance of the website.

Through split-testing, you can be almost 100% sure the change will generate positive results on an ongoing basis. Most of the time, 1 in 5 tests generate big improvements in conversion rate in the long-term.

Follow these rules to avoid running further iterations after a test and see an increase in conversion rate constantly.

2. SAMPLE SIZE

Determining by yourself the appropriate sample size for an A/B test is too technical and time-consuming. Nowadays, good split-testing software allows you to set up a minimum number of visitors included in a test, and it calculates the confidence level.




https://www.marketizator.com/



If you aim for a 20% lift in conversion rate in a test, then you have to wait until you get a 95% statistical confidence and 20% lift on the variation. Also, the number of visitor per each variation should be at least 1000.

You can set up a minimum number of visitors in the split-testing software.

3. TEST DURATION

Waiting for a test to reach statistical significance is not your job either. Though, make sure to let the test run every day of the week, including the weekend. Also, if, after 7 days, confidence was not achieved, let it run for another 7 days. Once again, if after 14 days you don’t have a confidence level of 95%, let it run for another 7 days.

4. TRACK YOUR A/B TEST THROUGH THE ENTIRE FUNNEL

Tracking the conversion rate for the next step can be a trap. If you have a successful A/B test and want to implement it on your site, make sure to check if the conversion rate of the funnel’s steps was affected. You can see this in your web analytics dashboard.

To see how a change affects the conversion rate per segment of traffic, send data to your web analytics tool through custom variables. Thus, you will be able to see how different segments of traffic (such as new vs returning) reacted to the control and the variation of the page included in the test.

5. DON’T RUN MULTIPLE A/B TESTS ON THE SAME TRAFFIC

If you want to make a test on the homepage, category page, and product






page, the traffic is likely to overlap, and you won’t get accurate results. To make sure that you implement only the “good” changes, test a lot, but keep one test running constantly, not too many at a time.

6. BE AWARE OF EXTERNAL EVENTS

Your website’s results are affected not only by your users’ behavior but also by competition, holidays, and weather. Pay attention to external events that might impact your visitors, like a variation during Christmas, shocking news, etc.

Finally, if you want to test more than a single element on a page, you need to run further A/B test iterations or try Multivariate Testing if it’s worth the cost and other resources.

5. HOW TO CREATE PERSONALIZATION WORKFLOWS

1. WHY A/B TESTING IS NOT ENOUGH

To maintain a virtual dialogue with your visitors, it’s not enough to use A/B testing. You also have to provide relevant content to your website visitors to build a relationship with them.

Personalization is providing relevant content via dynamic insertion into creatives, such as pop-ups, ribbons, and interstitial overlays for recognized segments.

While A/B testing is a validation tool, because it requires a significant representative sample to scale the results to the whole website, personalization is a tool that gets you results on short and medium term.

On the other hand, personalization is not scalable, because it’s triggered on a subset of traffic, reduces the sample size, and it does not apply to the whole traffic.

Finally, personalization makes your website more likable: you can show tailored content regarding your commercial offer to segments of traffic that have different preferences.






Valentin Radu is Marketizator’s Founder&CEO. Marketizator is the first conversion rate optimiztaion tool built for marketers who can implement their creative ideas without coding. Valentin has an experience of over ten years in digital marketing, especially e-commerce.

The most effective way to use personalization is through scenarios. As the manipulator of the whole set of instruments and insights about your audience, you have to build strategic virtual conversations.

To build a scenario, think about a series of events that you’d like to be accomplished by your website’s visitors. Choose the events based on your funnel.

Here’s an example of scenario:

Let’s suppose that the returning visitors of your website convert well on a page of your website. This insight is an opportunity to get these visitors to become customers.

In your scenario, you’ll want your visitors to take the following actions:

2. HOW PERSONALIZATION WORKS

• the visitor sees a pop-up that shows a “welcome back message” with a UVP and a short question about what is he/she looking for on the website, providing the categories of products as answers;

• the visitor clicks on one of the categories of products, happy that he/she doesn’t have to search for it throughout the whole website;

• the visitor adds the item to the cart;• the visitor starts checkout;• the visitor becomes buyer by placing the order.

In an ideal world where all the anxieties encountered by your website’s visitors are eliminated, you’ll get a 100% conversion rate with this experiment. But, the reality is not an ideal world, and you need to make sure that you stop your visitors from escaping from your scenario.






In our example, when visitors arrive on the category page, they have several options: leave the page, click on “Quick View”, view the product on the product page, use the filters and so on. No matter what, don’t let them leave. Here are some solutions:

• find out why they leave with exit surveys;• offer a discount;• offer other benefits;• do whatever it takes to remain encrypted into their memory

(funny message, gift, etc.)

3. RULES AND BEST PRACTICES OF PERSONALIZATION

Implementing personalization is not as complex as you might think. It just requires constantly getting insights about your audience to group them and create segments you’re going to target with messages.

There are a set of rules and conditions that assure the success of personalization campaigns. When you start creating your first experiments, keep in mind these tips:

A. APPLY THE INSIGHTS FROM TESTING LARGERSEGMENTS OF TRAFFIC

Your survey insights are critical to both your A/B tests and your personalization flows too. Also, the A/B testing positive results represent a great resource of insights to apply further in your personalization experiments.

B. SEGMENTATION MAKES IT ALL

You’ve probably seen fashion sites that welcome their visitors with a survey, asking questions about their intentions. Other sites use lifestyle or celebrity quizzes.

Use the insights about the best-converting segments of traffic from other experiments on your site to create segments for personalziation. The criteria could be related to:

• Demographics: name, age, etc. (you can take the information from your database);




https://www.marketizator.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Introduction_to_personalization_final.pdf



• Psychographic aspects: attitude, preferences;• Past behavior: responses to a survey, cookies, etc.

If you’re a newbie in personalization, you can start your first personalization experiment with a question and a call to action that gets visitors to a page based on their answer. The instrument that helps you do this is the branching logic survey.

C. TARGETING

Targeting refers to the rules that you need to create to automate the process. Here is a list of criteria to use in personalization experiments:

• location;• weather temperature(Celsius or Fahrenheit) or condition

(sunny, rainy);• country;• region;• city;• cart value;• traffic source;• cookie;• referer URL;• the type of visitors: new or returning;• URL visited in the current session;• device type IP address;• java variables;• browser version;• screen width;• operating system;• days since last conversion;

D. AUTOMATE THE PROCESS

To have success with personalization, you have to think about the scenario that includes segments and targeting rules, create the design and copy of the creatives (pop-ups, ribbons, etc.), and then let the technology do its job.




https://www.marketizator.com/surveys-features

https://www.marketizator.com/surveys-features



E. MEASURE THE RIGHT METRICS

To measure the effectiveness of your personalization experiments, you should measure the effect over these metrics:

• bounce rate• funnel drop off rates• conversions• engagement• revenue

Finally, choose your segments, target them with messages, and test the effectiveness of the messages on the metrics you measure in your personalization campaign. It’s important to follow these rules to get the most out of personalization. Otherwise, it will be just another failed trial.

F. USE THE RFM MODEL TO CREATE LOYALTY PROGRAMS AND INCREASE RETENTION

According to RJ Metrics, after 36 months of activity, more than 50% of the revenue comes from returning visitors. Repeated purchases in e-commerce are the signs that show that retention becomes more important than acquisition. Thus, focusing on increasing retention will have a positive effect on your business.

The RFM pattern is a great marketing technique that will help you identify the most valuable customers, that bring the highest conversion rate. RFM is an acronym for:

• Recency - How recently did the customer buy?• Frequency - How often do customers purchase?• Monetary analysis - How much money do customers spend?

With this model you’ll filter your data base considering most recent purchase date (recency), number of orders (frequency), total revenue generated (monetary analysis). Using this three modules, you’ll identify customers who have recently bought from you, customers who buy more often from your website and customers who spend more money.

Here is a free RFM Model Template that you can use.




https://rjmetrics.com/resources/reports/2015-ecommerce-growth-benchmark/

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UR5AfnKtKrD3ay5xXgLcDogjn2fZnHNqJ1qD3ec5HZQ/edit#gid=1653204281



After you add your data in the spreadsheet, this is how the data base analysis results look like:

• Clients with high recency are more willing to buy rather than those who haven’t bought anything in a while;

• Clients that frequently buy are more willing to buy again rather than those who only bought once;

• Clients that usually spend lots of money are more willing to buy again and generate revenues;

Now, you have the most important customers and it is time to start communicating them what they want to hear.

Build conversational scenarios in Marketizator and address each segment according to the funnel phase, as I showed you in the beginning of this chaper.




CHAPTER 3

IDEAS TO INCREASE YOUR CONVERSION RATE AND REVENUE



This chapter is a list of ideas to use in your experiments. Use this list with templates to guide you through the creation process. Also, make

sure to share this list with anyone responsible for the CRO strategy and its implementation.

CHAPTER 3: IDEAS TO INCREASE YOUR CONVERSION RATE AND REVENUE

Survey A/B testing Personalization Email Subscribers

A. SURVEY IDEAS

1. Find out if your website is friendly.

Survey visitors upon exit to find out how what they think about the site’s navigation. You have two ways to do it:

a. With an open question to get qualitative insights.

Q1: Have you found out what you were looking for on our site?

YesNo

If Yes, then show a “Thank you” message.If No, next question

Q2: What were you looking for?

Thank you message: Thanks you for telling us. If you want to receive personalized offers, put your email address here.

b. With a closed question with unique choice to confirm your hypothesis.

2. Figure out why visitors abandon their cart.

Leaving with items in your cart? What’s the reason?






I found a better offer on another siteI encountered technical problemsI didn’t find the right colorThe size I was looking for is not availableI’m worried about the payment optionsIt’s hard to place an order from mobile/tabletI don’t understand the delivery costsSomething else:

3. Study competition

Q1: Have you ever made a purchase on our website?

YesNo

Q2: From which of the following stores have you made an online pur-chase?

Competitor 1Competitor 2Competitor 3

4. Find out the average amount of money your visitors are willing to spend.

How much are you willing to spend on purchasing clothes online?

Less than $100$100-$200$200-$300More than $300

5. Study your target audience demographics without hiring contractors.

Q1: What type of clothes do you prefer to buy online?

Office CasualParty

Q2: How old are you? (This stays between us)






<20 20-3030-4040-5050-60>60

6. Figure out why visitors leave your website (without items added to their cart).

We’re so sorry you’re leaving? What we did wrong?

Survey visitors upon exit on all the important pages (category page, products pages) and segments of traffic.

7. Survey visitors before launching any limited campaign.

Surveys can give you the exact instructions to launch a successful marketing campaign for your season sales.

Q1: I’ve put aside for Christmas presents for my family and friends about:

Y<$100$100-$200$200-$300>$300

Q2: Most likely I will buy:

ShoesBootsDressesCapsJacketsOtherpersonalized offers, put your email address here.

8. Get insights to test hypotheses on the category pages.

If you decide to optimize the category pages, first ask visitors how they prefer to visualize them.






Q: How would you like to see the products displayed on this page?

All the product on a long pageMultiple pages with products (>1,2,3,etc.)

9. Use post-purchase surveys to measure the Net Promoter Score.

Although the Thank You Page is the place where the conversion happens, it is an opportunity for you to pick up the conversation again and make a new conversion, create a friendly closing, or offer a discount and contribute to customer’s loyalty.

But most important is that you can set up a survey to assess the situation, and then dig further and find out what exactly makes customers unhappy or unresponsive to your offers, through more complex tools and activities.

B. A/B TESTING

HOMEPAGE

10. More Prominent Search Bar for visitors who want to buy

In a Baymard Institute study evaluating top 50 U.S. e-commerce sites, less than 50% of the sites didn’t have a search functionality easy to find. It’s a shame to miss this opportunity on your site, because visits with search convert at a higher rate than those without search. And they spend more too.

Here’s what to test on the search bar:

Button designColors that convert wellCopy (the small text on the button)Option to search in the product categories for sites with a lot ofproducts/categories (dropdown)






Additional site search optimization tips:

Use autocomplete and search suggestions to quicken the searchprocessOffer multiple filtering options on the search results pageInclude product reviews, availability, and call to action buttons onthe search results page

11. Special Offers and product categories

Most online stores use the space below the hero image to showcase product categories and special offers. These two options represent a filtering option for shoppers. Try these ideas on your homepage:

Showcase special offers above the product categories and viceversa;Use an image and category name or image, category name and afew details;Insert short value proposition near the title of the showcase box.

ASOS uses image + title + value propositions to showcase special offers and categories.

12. Unique Value Proposition

Along with the hero image, your UVP provides the essential reasons that directly influence the decision to continue navigation on your website. There are several ways to communicate why you are different and what you deliver to your prospects.






Show 3 key benefits above or below the hero imageTest a different UVP near your logo

An example of how ASOS uses a welcome message with a UVP, a short copy, and their two main categories.

13. Hero Image above the fold

If the homepage is cluttered with too many offers or irrelevant sliders, your chance to make them click decreases. Make your visitors think too much, and they leave your website instantly. This web usability principle is explained by Steve Krug in his book Don’t Make Me Think.

Here’s what to test on the search bar:

Product images vs People imagesEliminate the automatic scrolling of the slider (if you have one)

14. Test which filter should appear first

Make sure you have created segments of traffic for each filter of your site, such as color, size, nuance, etc. Then, analyze your web analytics data to see the highest page value and test the appearance of that filter as the first one in the section.






CATEGORY PAGES

15. Test the display of the products

Category pages are important areas of your website that can transform simple visitors into qualified prospects and eventually buyers. There are several ways to optimize your category pages, but you need to test them first.

The opportunity of testing the category pages is discovering new insights about the way visitors use your site. For instance, you can find out if the visitors prefer scrolling until all the products are displayed on the page or if they like seeing a limited number of products on a page. No matter what, you should first measure the potential of testing the idea then create a survey and, in the end, test it.

Here’s what to test on the category and sub-category pages:

the number of products displayed on each row;products appear at scroll;limited number of products per category page.

16. Add descriptions

Adding a bit of detail below the product image on the category pages can generate more product page views.

CATEGORY PAGES

17. No social buttons on the product page

Most digital marketers believe that social sharing has a positive impact on the conversion rates of a website. Though, it’s not a certainty, and you should test it on your product pages. Social sharing buttons can harm your conversion rate in these cases:

They distract visitors from clicking the call to action button.There are not enough shares to benefit from the social proof effect.






18. Testimonials

Testimonials build trust and overcome the “anxiety of being lonely.” Good testimonials show the benefits of using the product presented on the product page. So, set up an A/B test with testimonials gathered through email autoresponders post-purchase and target only the new visitors.

19. Images with people

Neuroscientists from MIT discovered that the human brain can identify images in as little as 13 milliseconds. If you’re using images of people on your site, test age, gender, atittude (people who smile, have a straight face, or a sexy attitude, depending on your brand values).

20. Add videos

Videos get you out of the crowd. They can become a differentiator because there aren’t many online stores using them. Also, approx. 96% of consumers find videos helpful when making decisions online, according to a survey conducted by Animoto.

21. Big, page-dominant images

Big, detailed images contribute to a greater user experience, according to research done by the Nielsen Norman Group. Though, to obtain visual hierarchy (a basic design principle) you can emphasize only one element of a page that dominates the other ones. Bear in mind the basic design principles when you decide to test a change like this one.






22. Recommendations of similar products

The recommendation of similar products is one of the most popular solutions used to increase e-commerce conversion rates. If you’re using a solution to recommend “products like this” to your site’s visitors, test the following ideas to improve your KPIs:

no recommendations;recommendations placed beyond the fold.

Like social sharing buttons, recommendations can distract your visitors from clicking on the call to action button and moving forward to placing an order.






23. Pricing

Testing the pricing can be scary, but there are ways to do it right. The way you display it on the product page can have a positive impact on the conversion rate. Here’s how you can do it:

End prices with “.99”. Including commas can change the way theprice is perceived;Display the price closer to the call to action button (Add to Cart);Add benefits closer to the price (30 days money back, free shipping,next day delivery).

CART PAGE

24. The checkout button

The checkout button on the cart page is the portal that gets shoppers to the next level: buyers. If visitors can’t see it, they can get distracted by other elements and abandon the cart. Here’s what to do to avoid losing their attention:

• repeat the button above and below the fold;• use a (really) contrasting color;• make it big;• provide more space around it.

25. Include a link for promo codes

If you have coupons and want to use them as incentives for visitors to proceed to checkout, you can try testing this idea. To avoid giving the user too many tasks on the cart page, include only the micro-copy on the cart page and give the code on the next page.

26. Recommending (or not) similar products

It depends on your goals as to whether or not you’ll keep the similar products section on the cart. If you’re trying to increase the AOV, then this change may help you. Here are some ideas to test:

• removing the recommended products;






• recommending only products from other categories;• placing recommendations only for carts over x amount.

CHECK-OUT FLOW

27. Options for starting the checkout

At the beginning of the checkout process, visitors are highly interested in placing the order. They’ve made the decision to buy and want to get it done rapidly. To get the users down the funnel, avoid giving them thoughts to leave.

• Show fields for only one option• List short value propositions for all the options• Use a headline to let visitors know they have more options for

checkout, like “Start checkout: Select an option below”• Hide unnecessary fields (when the billing information required is

the same as the shipping information)• Test the larger texts or adding graphics to emphasize the

important messages, such as those regarding the payment

Zappos hides fields for new customers and uses short value propositions to show the benefits of creating an account or logging in with Amazon.






Zappos hides fields for new customers and uses short value propositions to show the benefits of creating an account or logging in with Amazon.

28. Inline validation

The form fields present an opportunity for errors. To minimize form abandonment, it’s worth testing inline validation either by showing green signs or error notifications after the field is completed.

C. PERSONALIZATION IDEAS

29. Use weather personalization to increase average order value

Description

A “Complete your look” approach is suitable and effective when you want to increase the average order on your site. For instance, if it’s a sunny summer day, you can recommend glasses or other accessories. In case it’s a rainy day, show customers a proper outfit and do not forget about the umbrella.

How to implement

If the temperature is >30 degrees then show a pop-up on the product pages to all the visitors. Choose an “in URL text variable” such as dresses, tops,






etc., and the system will display it in the pop-up. The message can sound like: “Be fabulous today! Add this pair of glasses for any top ordered on site.”

30. Reduce cart abandonment

Description

Use the value of the cart to show them a reminder that they can benefit from free shipping (or other benefit) if they place the order. Marketizator allows you to use the variable that measures the value of the cart in real-time as a segmentation criterion. So, users who fit into this segment will be exposed to the pop-up.

How to implement

If cart value is > $X, then show a pop-up to all the visitors who fit into this segment. The message should clearly communicate a benefit, like in this example:




http://marketizator.com/



31. Create personalized surveys

Description

To increase the chances of collecting enough valuable insights about your audience with surveys, use variables that personalize the shoppers’ experience.

How to implement

If visitors intend to leave the product page, trigger a survey to all the visitors, asking about something concerning their interest in the product: when they want to buy, how much are they willing to spend, or more information if it’s a complex product, etc. It will help you understand better how to run successful campaigns, using all the channels available (Social Media, Adwords, Email, etc.).

32. Use the UVP and product categories in pop-ups

Regardless how big your e-commerce store, use the moment of the arrival of visitors on your site to make the best impression. Pop-ups with personalized message have a huge potential to increase the likeness for your brand and revenue in the short and medium term. Moreover, the click on the pop-up is another micro-commitment made by the visitors of your website.

33. Personalize based on traffic source or channel

Show a welcome pop-up with a discount based on the channel: Facebook, Pinterest, etc.

An example of personalization based on channel.






34. Use pop-ups with filters

Insert filters, like price, size, and color, into pop-ups triggered on scroll on the category or sub-category pages to ease the search for your users.

TinaR showed a pop-up to the visitors on the category of products “Dresses” to encourage them to use the filters and also find the products easier.

Modlet used widget pop-ups at scroll to drive more visitors to the next stage in the funnel.

35. Show a pop-up with 3 benefits to increase the add to cart rate

When visitors arrive on the product page, show a ribbon on the right of the screen to emphasize the three benefits of ordering immediately. Scarcity is great to use in this type of pop-up.

MeliMelo used a ribbon to show visitors 3 benefits of placing the order right away and increased shopping cart entries by 61.5%.






36. Welcome pop-up triggered to the new visitors based on country

37. Increase repeated purchases

With the results from a Net Promoter Score on the Thank You Page, you can create a personalization campaign targeted only to your promoters to encourage them to become raving fans.






You can do this with a pop-up that welcomes them on the website at their next visit. Marketizator allows you to create a segment based on the results of a Net Promoter Score survey.

38. Create a contest

People love new things. They want to try something new every day to escape the routine. You can get out of the crowd with an original approach. Here’s an idea.

To encourage users to browse through your website, welcome them with a pop-up with a message like this:

“Find the x symbol on our site and win a product of your choice from our store!”

D. IDEAS TO INCREASE EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS

Since convincing someone to give you the email address is much easier than convincing them to buy, you should have a strategy to build an email list. Remember that visitors who come to a website are not ready to buy, and you need to build a relationship with them.

Here are some ideas to increase your newsletter subscription rate:

39. Offer a discount for an email address

One of the most popular tactics to get an email address, offering discounts works for visitors who browse your site (the ones who won’t stop scrolling until they leave the website). This type of shopper needs an incentive to make a micro-commitment on your site.






40. Offer free resources as incentives in pop-ups

Pop-ups that allow you to send the email adresses to a database represent a more facile way to grab leads. If you can develop a guide for wearing a black dress, use it as a hook in your email grabbing pop-ups.






Conclusions

To a marketer who has just launched his first serious experiments on a website, there is no such thing as “The End.” This book is only the beginning of a journey meant to discover a repetitive formula that works on your website and customers.

By the time you understand how your efforts affect your website visitors’ emotions, thoughts and actions, you might have forgotten where you began the optimization process. The next thing then is only to realize that CRO is a never-ending process, but also your best ally in growing your profits constantly.

Marketizator’s platform enables you to install on your website any of the ideas presented in this ebook. All of them, without the help of

the IT department!

It takes two minutes to install Marketizator on your website.You can request a demo at anytime by sending an email to

[email protected]




mailto:irina%40marketizator.com?subject=Fashion%20eBook%20by%20Marketizator

https://www.marketizator.com/pricing

https://www.marketizator.com/pricing

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