How to Test for the Conversion Stage of the Customer Journey

Whether you’re a retailer hoping customers will make a purchase on your website or an educational institution looking for enrolments, there are certain tactics that will likely boost conversions. You know great product detail pages will help retail customers find what they’re looking for, while compelling program descriptions will guide students to the right enrolment, or benefits information will help insurance seekers choose the right plan. The catch is: While you know where you need to excel, what works for your brand depends entirely on your customers. So, you can’t truly optimize conversion rates without real-time, wide-reaching A/B testing. Here are some tips to get you started.

1. Optimize Images on Product Detail Pages

The first and often most obvious place to start, product detail pages are what drive most of your visitors to the check out or sign-up page of your sites. Try out different types of images — do your customers respond better to images with people, or images with just a product? Do they prefer to download a PDF or open a new web page? Do they prefer larger images, or images they can manipulate? Try out as many of these as you can, and you’ll start to able to refine your pages to create the best possible customer experience.

2. Determine Special Offer Thresholds

Most businesses employ special offers to give customers value when they need it. Perhaps you offer limited time early enrolment, or discounted prices. If you rely on promotions blindly you may reach a point of diminishing returns. For example, your limited time offer might lose sway if you leave it active for too long. Or you might increase conversion but decrease average order value. You can determine exactly how to position your special offers through A/B testing both the offer itself, and the copy or presentation of the offer. Ensure both your business and your customers get the most out of special value.

3. Compare Vendors for Payment

With so many options for online payment, this can actually be a friction point for customers. If you have too many options for payment are your customers getting distracted before they complete their purchases? If you have too few options are customers abandoning checkout because their preferred method isn’t there? Before you make the investment and install a new payment vendor test how often your customers use it, and see if it helps boost sales. If a particular payment method doesn’t give you a good ROI, then it’s not worth it.

Kate Orchard works directly with SiteSpect users as a CRO to help them get the most out of the platform and their brand. She also happens to be a real life Commodore, and we think that gives her an extra heir of mystery and authority.

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