Have someone try to navigate your site after a couple of drinks. They should understand everything about what you're selling and why they need it. Then have someone with gray hair try it too — they're great for making your cart and checkout process flawless.
You have to treat your customer like they're Kim Kardashian on a red carpet, and you, as the brand, are the assistant. You need to have everything ready for your customer to read, understand, and learn. You cannot expect them to navigate around the website and learn for themselves.
When we added 'ADD TO CART' buttons on the Collections page at Hint, not only did our conversion rate skyrocket, but our AOV also went up, and we were able to increase forecasts by 7-figures.
A portfolio company told me they always get asked in ad comments if their products are TSA-friendly. My response was to put that in the ad copy and the website. The conversion rate went up.
On-site conversion rate for a test launch lets you know how enticing your product is. The average is 2.5%, but a good sign is 20-50%. The higher that number is, the more confident you should be that this product will do well when it launches.
We've seen that whether you're selling with an AOV of $50 or $800, BNPL helps increase the conversion rate in the cart — the spot where most online shoppers drop off. It also helps increase AOV.
Shorten time to collect reviews, and double the frequency to ask for the review. This makes sure the customer actually sees it.
When our team launched JUDY, we found one specific unlock: making the BNPL payment option clear in the ad AND on the site. It increased click-through rate and on-site conversion rate. The BNPL customer cohort also held a higher AOV than the typical customer.
Customer service tickets are easy to lower when you figure out why 80% of tickets are asking the same question — and then answer that question on your site.
The more you can minimize clicks for your customer, the better off you will be with the conversion rate.
Build your AOV. If it's $40, figure out how to increase it. Can you add high-margin items that make sense as easy upsells? Brightland's bottle spout is a great example.
Choose review quotes that push a specific benefit. Instead of 'This skincare routine was exactly what I needed,' use the one that says 'This cleanser took off all my makeup in one go, I didn't need anything else.' The latter converts.
Is your website conversion rate over 2.8% if your AOV is under $100, and over 1.5% if your AOV is over $100? Those are the benchmarks.
Your website load time should be under 2 seconds at minimum, ideally less.
Does your website tell a story or just sell a product? Would someone who has never heard of your brand have to leave your site and use Google to understand the brand or its efficacy? If yes, you're losing customers.
Reviews bring a perspective from different viewpoints that you, as a merchant, can't provide. How does it feel on dry skin? How do the pants fit someone who squats 275? How does the shoe size compare to Nike? If you answer these yourself, most consumers won't believe you.
With eCommerce, you're selling to someone you've never met IRL, and it's your job to help them get through your store without knowing who they are. With ad costs going up, maximizing each visitor's experience is even more critical.
For brands with an older customer demographic, social proof from publications like Town & Country and NYT works better. For younger customers, switch to POPSUGAR, Refinery29, or Business Insider.
Brands that focus on collecting, displaying, and amplifying reviews — like Caraway with 30,000 reviews — naturally see a much higher conversion rate. 'If this has a 4.8-star rating with 30,000 ratings, the odds of me NOT liking it must be really low.'
The number of times I've gone to a DTC brand's website to find the closest place I could buy it right away and been unable to find a store locator is mind-blowing. Make it easily known in your navbar, homepage, PDPs, and footer.
The goal isn't to trick customers, it's to show them how valuable your product can be to them. You want to convert customers through education. That's how you keep high lifetime value customers in the long run.
I've worked on a ton of beverage and alcohol brands, and because of weight and rising acquisition costs, we've always focused on bundling versus selling lower quantities. Across Hint, 21 Seeds, Juneshine, Orgain and others, bundling has almost never increased acquisition cost, but it always increases the ROAS and AOV.
When you google some beverage brands you see reviews from Total Wine and Drizly with star ratings, so there's a good chance you're losing that sale just because they have stars and your site doesn't.
Upsells are huge, especially if your AOV is under $100 — upsells can make or break your paid media traffic campaigns. The conversion rate for post-purchase upsells is about 20% when it's a strong brand.
If you're unsure what should be living on your homepage, go into your Instagram DMs, customer reviews, and press reviews — see what people love about your product the most. Focus on highlighting that.
The product page should have benefits and the add-to-cart button above the fold for desktop AND mobile. Too many sites try to pack a ton of information before getting to the ATC button — don't let someone think it doesn't exist.
The product description up top should focus on benefits, not features.
Change the name of your shipping. Don't call it 'Standard 5-7 Day Shipping.' Change it to 'VIP Shipping' or something on brand. It takes 13 seconds and makes your checkout more fun.
One of the top 3 biggest levers to make more revenue, while everything else stays the same, is increasing your conversion rate.
Instead of a silly 10% off coupon in exchange for an email, Jolie lets you enter your name, email, and zip code, and they'll run through the US government's API for water quality and send you a localized water report. Genius email collection.
If you're selling a non-consumable product, your main lever for bundles is price. But you also need to educate WHY someone should buy it all together versus just a one-off.
92% of people open push notifications. ~2.4x increase in CLTV. 40% higher in-app conversion rate vs website. 3x lift in session frequency. Push notifications today are what email open rates were in 1997.
Two easy site tests: The Intoxicated Test — can someone intoxicated learn everything about your brand, what you sell, why they need it, and get to checkout efficiently? The Grandma Test — can your grandma do the same?
App adoption among consumers is 40% higher during peak season. An app is the perfect complement to your holiday strategy because it amplifies and extends the ROI on your promotions.
During BFCM, you're going to get so much additional traffic. Put it to use by lighting up A/B tests with small percentages of traffic. Look at site visitor recordings with Microsoft Clarity — it's free.
If your business has a return rate higher than 15%, it will net you more revenue to have an automated returns tool installed rather than processing through customer service.
Most of your post-click drop-off can be lowered by simply making sure that whatever is in your ad is also available on the page it's driving to — down to the color of the clothing or the flavor of the beverage.
For every additional option you give on the shop section, you lower their chances of converting. Have you been to In-N-Out? Keep your menu simple and do the work of telling someone what they should get. If you force them to figure it out, they'll leave to do research, and a competitor may swoop in.
When we tested a landing page showing just the price versus the price AND price per day ($1/day) for an electrolyte powder, we saw the conversion rate increase by 60% on the page showing the price per day.
If you have 2 products on your store that are essentially the same but separate for backend purposes, combine the reviews. Stronger social proof and more reasons to buy.
Add gamification to the cart around free shipping or unlocking gifts/rewards at new cart totals. Use badges and stickers on the PDP that encourage higher quantity.
Merchandise your products smartly: make a 'Best Sellers' collection, a 'New? Start here' collection, and bundles based on what people buy together or for different occasions.
If your grandparents would struggle to understand or buy from your store, it's probably not simple or optimized enough.
Shopify holds the payment token for a few minutes post-purchase, so customers can click 'add' to a post-purchase upsell and it adds to their order with no need to check out again.
Scroll-depth maps tell you where people start to leave or bounce. Fix those sections first to plug existing holes in the customer journey.
Some sort of guarantee if they don't like the product — 'Hassle-free returns' or '60-day no-fuss returns.' Payment financing logos in the footer, slide-out cart, PDPs, and checkout. State when the order ships, where it ships from, and how long it takes. Show everything that comes inside the box. These are non-negotiable trust builders.
The cost per usage reframe is powerful. With Hydrant, I used to say 'Less than $1/day.' Or: 'You can drink a $6 latte every morning because you're tired, or you can sleep on Eight Sleep for $5/night.' The $5/night is just the amortized rate of the bed.
Make the discount obvious. Include graphical call-outs, use strike-through pricing, or change the CTA to read 'Save 20% & Add to Cart' or 'ADD TO CART FOR 20% OFF | $18 $20'. The more reassuring you sound, the higher your click-through rate will be.
An Eight Sleep mattress amortized over 36 months comes out to ~$2.10 per day, which is cheaper than the latte you have to chug because you don't get good sleep already. $2,245 feels a lot more expensive than $2.10/day.
Make the variant selector simpler. Nothing is more annoying than choosing color, size, flavor, scent, or weight and the selector requires too many steps. Aim for MAX 2 decisions — color + size, or size + flavor. In-N-Out is the best inspiration here: just keep it simple.
My rule of thumb: if someone has to make more than 2 decisions on a shop section, you're going to lose them. Getting someone to make 3 decisions is not easy.
Customer reviews are an amazing form of social proof. The best reviews are ones you can't fake — real tweets showing love, IG posts from happy customers, embedded TikTok videos from random customers. Customer content also highlights what people are surprised about most, which signals what you should focus more on in your marketing.
If the CTR is low, it's your messaging and creative. If it's Add to Cart that's low, it's your offer. If it's Initiate Checkout, you're not hammering your benefits home as you should.
Although auto-applying coupon codes reduces friction, there's psychological enjoyment in people entering 'BF30' themselves and visually seeing the discount happen. It's a small tweak but more brands should try it.
Does your PDP make it easy for your grandma to understand why she should buy or gift this item? Can a 5th grader understand your ad and tell their parents why they want to buy? That's the bar for clarity.
Your ad experience must match what viewers see on your landing page or PDP after clicking. Mismatched expectations kill conversion.
Setup post-purchase surveys after an upsell to begin gathering data as soon as you can. Develop an FAQ on your PDPs to tackle common questions before they stop someone from buying.
Jolie's water report shows a consumer their problem in 10 seconds or less and offers a one-click solution. It's personalized to your exact zip code. When I saw my report, I told my parents and friends — they immediately wanted their own.
Most users from cold or ad traffic only scroll 30-50% down the page. This is why making your offer super clear upfront is so important.
Optimize your entire campaign mobile first — copy, creative, and LP experience, primarily the above-the-fold offer and CTA. The majority of paid social traffic comes from mobile.
Use the TRACE framework: Technology, Reporting, Audience, Creative, Experience. Real CRO is about the full-funnel customer journey — who you're targeting, on which channel, with what creative, leading to which landing page.
Reduce clicks to purchase. Every new click dramatically increases bounce rates. Aim for every product to be purchasable in 2-3 clicks or less.
Start with copywriting. Changing the copy on your ads and LP can be the biggest lever to increase CVR. You might not need any other changes beyond updating the copy, angles, and positioning.
Declutter your collections pages. My framework: a 10-year-old or your grandma needs to be able to navigate your site successfully.
Treat the cart page as its own landing page. Include risk reversals, reviews, testimonials. This is your final challenge for conversion.
Speak in benefits, not just value props. Value props are features like non-GMO or organic. Benefits are how this product changes your life. Benefits sell more than features do.
With a 1% conversion rate from $1M in ad spend at $2 CPC, you get 5,000 customers. Increase CVR to 5% and you 5X orders without spending a single dollar more on ads.
Trump's donation page lets you cover processing fees: 'I would like to cover the processing fee so 100% goes to the committee.' Genius framing. More brands should frame fees as a shared mission, not a cost.
Never feel shameful about adding upsells. Trump's page nudges visitors one level up — click $10 and it says 'Make the most impact by donating $25.' Every brand should do this dynamically.
Trump hits you with an exit-intent pop-up: 'Wait, before you go!' One last attempt. More brands should be using exit-intent popups.
Instead of a percentage off on the first order, offer cashback. Promix Nutrition offers $15 as cashback instead of dollars off. It can convert better because the money stays in your ecosystem.
J.R. Watkins invented the concept of 'risk reversal' more than 150 years ago by etching a trial mark on bottles — use less than that amount and get a full refund. That concept changed marketing and sales forever, and it's still one of the most powerful conversion tools you have.
The average email capture rate is 1.95% according to Sumo, with the top 10% around 4.77%. Most eCommerce brands hover around 3–5%.
For email pop-ups: 8 seconds was the best timing. For evergreen offers, dollar-off beat percentage-off, but for promos over 20%, percentage-off won. Best imagery showed the product solving a problem. Best CTA was 'Get the code' or 'Get $X off.' This got us to about 8% opt-in.
Between the free shipping threshold, bundles, and site UX pointing people to bundles, we got an AOV that was 7x the cost of a single unit. There's a baked-in discount, but it gives you way more room to scale. And profit — as a bootstrapped biz, that matters.
Mismatching on-site offers leads to what I call tremendous consumer confusion — TCC for short. Copy, imagery, and offers need to be consistent across the entire site.
If you're sending someone to a funnel with a discount, proactively apply the code for them. The code should be easy to remember, easy to spell, and not look confusing when written out.
One of our best findings from customer research: understanding what questions people had before purchasing. We built a FAQ module on the PDP to counter every objection. The site more than doubled conversion rate.
For top-of-funnel awareness, use custom events for time on site (5-10 seconds), scroll depth (pixel fires at 50% scroll), or specific button clicks. This helps the algorithm optimize for higher-quality traffic versus users who just bounce.
HexClad's AOV hovers around $400 through strategic bundling — individual pans start at $150, but sets range from $300 to $3,000. Bundling boosts AOV and improves margins for DTC.
Reviews are probably the single biggest lever to increasing sales and boosting CVR. 95% of consumers read reviews before purchasing. 54.7% read at least 4 reviews. 58% said they'd pay more for products with good reviews.
When sending millions of people to your site, one of the most responsible things you can do is review heatmaps and dive into revenue per site element — buttons, modules, sections.
You need to collect reviews whether you're launching or doing $100M/year. Reviews and social proof are one of the most important factors for conversion rate, understanding customers, and spotting what you're missing.
The fastest way to increase conversion rate by 10-20% is optimizing site speed. Lower bounce rate, higher conversion rate, and because of better site engagement, lower CPMs on Meta too.
At Hint Water, the 3-case new customer offer allowed us to increase AOV from 1 case at a discount at $15 to 3 cases at a discount for $36.
Reinforce social proof near the add to cart button — include review stars, add a quote from a customer addressing the benefits, or add something like 'Over 100,000+ sold!' My favorite sneaky one is what airlines do: '6,734 people purchased this in the last 24 hours.'
Add a guarantee for those who aren't sure they'll enjoy the product. Magic Spoon has a 'Happiness Guarantee' that promises a refund within 6 months if someone doesn't like the product.
When I worked with a supplement brand, I realized that the 30-day supply for $29 was better worded as 'Less than $1 per day!' It increased conversion rate dramatically.
I was skeptical about Network Offers on the thank you page, so we ran a test. There was no difference in AOV or return rate for customers shown the offers vs. those who weren't. The only difference is that the brand made more money at 100% margin.
If you sell a consumable, include your price per use — '$1/bottle when you buy a 24-pack' or 'Less than $1/day for a greens powder.' It reframes the purchase decision completely.
Add quotes that call out benefits, not just features. A good quote says 'I love the teal color and that it's machine washable.' A great quote says 'Upgrading to the 64oz tumbler changed my life. I drink more water, feel healthier, have more energy, and sleep better.' Great quotes speak to lifestyle changes.
Study dead clicks and 'rage clicks' — where users click multiple times expecting to go somewhere but aren't redirected. Where are they trying to go? Why isn't this section clickable? How can you fix it?
Organize your product page like you would organize your physical storefront. What items do you want customers to see first? What is the associated photo and sign? How would you merchandise this product in a physical store? Think the exact same way on your site.
Make your page load in under 1 second. I saw multiple pages in my LP teardown that took 2-3 seconds to load. This is not fast enough — consumers will bounce.
Add social proof directly to the checkout screen. As someone is checking out, it should say '500 happy customers also bought this!' or have a customer quote right there.
The single most important thing you can do for conversion rate is make duplicates of your page and split test copy, images, and offers on the same traffic source. The only way to dramatically boost CVR over time is to test and iterate at scale.
If needed, build additional modules on the PDP that help explain the product better — what it does, how it works, what comes in the box, how to use it, common FAQs. Think of the PDP as a landing page.
Implement a follow-up flow for buyers offering a larger discount to make a second purchase within seven days. This two-click buyer flow can increase revenue by up to 10%.
When I think about a new site visitor, I always presume they need 3 checkboxes: 1) Good product, 2) A sense of trust, 3) Proof that it works. If your conversion rate is low, you're lacking in one of the three.
If your homepage above-the-fold experience doesn't have an easy navigation menu, a hero section that clearly explains who you are and what you're selling, and social proof — you're already 3 steps behind.
Most people never customize their checkout. You're getting someone through the finish line of their shopping experience — the least you can do is create a nice checkout. Branded banner at the top, secure checkout badges, social proof, reinforcing reasons to buy.
Consumers spent $50 billion last year using Buy Now, Pay Later — a 30% YoY increase from 2022. Enable it today if you haven't.
Comparison charts are one of my favorite empathy-first modules. Compare your product to the competitive category, compare price or density to others, compare the convenience against doing it the hard way. They're easy to skim and people still get the gist.
Have an empty cart? Show social proof, category blocks, or a new customer offer. Have items in cart? Upsell complementary products. Set a free shipping threshold — it always drives up AOV. Add free gift options at different cart thresholds. True Classic does this beautifully.
One of my favorite hacks for consumable products: show the price per serving or per use. A $29 daily immunity supplement becomes 'Less than $1 per day.' Lets people justify the purchase in their head.
On Jolie's homepage, the first press quote says 'My hair and skin never looked better' from Apartment Therapy. It speaks directly to the benefit they know people are looking for. Choose your social proof deliberately — feature the quote that addresses your highest-converting benefit.
If you have the means, create custom animated iconography for your website. It adds to the branded experience, looks more trustworthy, and — surprisingly — animated icons increase conversion rate.
Why bullet points win: they're easier to read, they don't look intimidating, you get right to the point, and people can skim and still get the gist.
All visuals, text, and CTAs need to be optimized for mobile first — larger text, shorter copy, simple CTAs. Make sure your site loads for a grandpa's iPhone 11 with terrible internet connection.
'Sold out 7x' is one of the highest click-through rate headlines you can write. That copy crushes.
When you ask someone for their birthday or shirt size in an exit-intent pop-up, they feel they have a higher shot of winning a free thing. That extra data field actually increases conversion.
RARE Beauty had disclaimers on their site that most brands didn't have during BFCM. Does it feel like you're lowering your conversion rate with legal language? It might, but I promise it doesn't. When you do the math of chargebacks and refund claims, having disclaimers always wins.
Revolve and iHerb brought Amazon-like elements into their collections pages, showing how many units were sold in a set period of time. iHerb even took Amazon's exact review star and yellow color.
One of the best lines of copy a brand can use is 'Over 100,000 5-star reviews.' Just like you set goals for monthly sales, follower growth, and site traffic, you should set goals for number of reviews collected.
For high-AOV products, the funnel is: Problem awareness → Problem education → Brand & product introduction → Boxing out competitors. 1-day click / 1-day view dashboards don't work here. You need to approach the funnel more empathetically.
Only a few brands put out clinical studies. When you're just launching and don't have reviews, the next best thing to share is clinical studies.
An empty cart should never stay empty. When you open the empty cart on mobile, show categories to shop. That's valuable high-intent real estate.
ATF content should answer three questions: What exactly is this? Why should I care? How do I buy it right now? If you assume someone knows the answer, you've lost them.
Right now, 98% of your site traffic is anonymous to you. Meta knows who they are because they decide who to send your way. But once they hit your site and you don't get their email, they're gone. That $2 CPC you paid — nothing came from it.
First-person CTAs like 'Yes, I want this!' enhance conversions. Use as many CTA copy variations as possible — don't have more than 2 of the same CTA copy on a page.
Ensure the social proof you display matches the consumer. A press publication won't work with Gen Z. A TikTok Shop review screenshot won't work with a Boomer. Make it reiterate a singular main benefit.
Anchoring effect: begin pricing discussions with higher-priced comparisons to enhance perceived value. You typically see this with starter packs and gifts with purchase.
Components like 'shop the look' make a Shopify site feel like a billion-dollar brand. Same-day pickup optionality does wonders for conversion rates across all industries.
Address objections upfront. You can get a lot of inspiration through your customer service DMs, Instagram DMs, or internet forums — Reddit, TikTok, YouTube comments. That's where real objections live.
Match your social proof with the audience and platform. If driving traffic from YouTube, your social proof should be video-first and feature YouTubers. From TikTok? Include screenshots of TikTok comments and embed TikTok video reviews.
Think about the grandma using a small iPhone with terrible internet. That is 75% of your traffic. They're not all like us with blazing-fast WiFi and the latest iPhone.
If you aren't driving significant conversion with the 'Buy with ShopPay' button, remove it. It's a standard Shopify option but doesn't always drive conversions — it may just be taking up real estate.
Most of the conversion lift from a new page design or rebrand is actually from positioning. If you're not having luck, ensure you have a smart angle for why people should try the product.
Even a 0.1-second improvement in mobile page speed can increase conversions by about 8%. Every additional second of load time can slash conversion rates ~7%. Speed equals money.
Mobile visitors often make up 70%+ of DTC traffic, yet mobile conversion rates (~2.9%) still lag desktop (~4.8%). Close this gap and you capture revenue you're currently losing.
Shoppers who use internal site search are 2-3x more likely to convert than those who don't. Up to 30% of visitors use search. A robust search bar is a goldmine for high-intent buyers.
Product pages with videos converted up to 80% higher than those without. A quick demo or 'how it works' video can address buyer concerns and dramatically increase add-to-cart rates.
Displaying reviews can boost conversion rates by 190% for lower-priced items and up to 380% for higher-priced products. 97% of consumers check reviews before buying.
Extra costs are the #1 reason for cart abandonment. 80% of online shoppers will add more items to qualify for free shipping. Set a free shipping threshold and advertise it sitewide.
The best checkouts have around 7-8 form fields, whereas the typical site has 15+ by default. 18% of US shoppers have abandoned an order purely because checkout was too long or complicated.
Adding Buy Now Pay Later options increases checkout conversion by 20-30% on average for higher-ticket items. Don't lose a sale because you didn't offer someone's preferred payment method.
Amazon generates 35% of its revenue from its recommendation engine. Upsells and cross-sells are a classic revenue booster every DTC brand should implement.
It's okay to have a horrible V1 of your site, as long as you're willing to improve it. If you have no changes to make after reviewing heatmaps, you're lying to yourself.
I have never seen a comparison chart on a site that didn't increase conversion rate. In one test, a subscription cohort's LTV was higher because of a comparison chart. So simple — I don't know why anyone wouldn't have one.
Always add buyer's remorse-friendly language. Answer: Does it ship today? When does it arrive? What's the return policy? I always think, 'If my girlfriend thinks this was a stupid purchase, am I protected?'
A great review quote speaks to lifestyle, not features. Bad: 'I love the teal color.' Great: 'Upgrading to the 64oz tumbler changed my life. I drink more water, feel healthier, have more energy, and sleep better.'
One of the best, easiest, most reliable, and psychologically-friendly ways to increase AOV is to create merchandised bundles. Whether it's a Best Sellers bundle, a 'Founder's Favorite' bundle, or the NYC Apartment bundle — yes, we actually did that — people love it when you help them make decisions.
Before my mom buys anything, she checks the return policy. My favorite example is Magic Spoon's 100% happiness guarantee. Costco does so well with introducing new products for the same reason — everyone knows they can return it 6 months later.
Make sure your site includes FAQs — they are a huge saver of site abandonment. Take it a step further and make FAQs specific to the page a user is on. Homepage FAQs focus on the brand and trust. PDP FAQs focus on the product specifics.
Everyone feels entitled to free shipping — thank you, Amazon. If you don't want to promise free shipping to everyone, set a realistic threshold. If you do it right, you can raise your overall AOV too.
In a world trained by Amazon Prime, customers wonder: 'If I hit buy, when will this arrive?' Address it upfront. 'Ships within 24 hours' or 'Delivered by Tuesday, Oct 28 if you order today.' It matters more than brands realize.
I HATE PDPs that have countdown timers to pressure people into buying. The goal is never to trick someone. If your product is good — which it should be, or don't sell it — and solves a real problem, then you just have to explain why.
Optimize for the thumb-radius. When you hold your iPhone, you can see how far your thumb easily reaches. All your CTAs, variant selection, and review-swiping need to be easily done in that little corner radius.
Find higher forms of social proof beyond reviews: industry expert quotes, doctor reviews (like FrontRow MD), and lab-testing random batches (with LightLabs). These are things only GREAT products can do — it immediately puts you in the top 5% of brands.
When consumers are shopping, they assume you are 'guilty until proven innocent.' You need to give them all the validation that they're not making a stupid decision. When that box arrives and their friend asks what they bought, you don't want them embarrassed.
Syndicate your reviews across Google Search and Google Shopping. With iOS 14.5 changes, Google's platform for merchants is becoming very powerful. It takes minimal effort to make your collected reviews show up within Google's platform. Caraway does a phenomenal job at this.
The headline in the hero section of your site should have proven results — in testing it had the highest CTR. The four featured products should be the ones with the highest sell-through rate. By testing each element in your web design, you'll improve user experience, decrease bounce rate, and increase sales overall.
On your PDPs, include 'How to use the product' — you'd be shocked how many people have no idea how to use products they buy and then blow up customer service. This one module reduces CS tickets and increases satisfaction.
Use a top-of-funnel pop-up question instead of a generic discount. Immi's blog used 'Want to win a free year of ramen?' instead of the traditional 10-15% off. A more exciting offer captures emails from people earlier in the funnel.
Create separate pages for existing customers to easily re-order and stock up. They're already bought in and just need a simple page. It's like going to the grocery store with a mission to get that 1 product and get out. Fast and simplified.
The pre-flight DTC checklist should include: Is your website conversion rate over 2.8% if AOV is under $100, and over 1.5% if AOV is over $100? Is your site load time under 2 seconds? Is it designed mobile-first? Do your PDPs tell the full story for someone who's never heard of you?
For multi-SKU brands, know your highest sell-through product combo for new customers and lead with it. JuneShine leads with variety packs. Snif leads with a candle variety pack. COVEY leads with The Routine. Make it easy for new visitors to start with what converts best.
At Hint, we focused the homepage on pushing a 3-pack bundle. It helped AOV, units per transaction, and ROAS — but it was also a better first-time customer experience. They got to sample flavors, figure out what they liked, and it led to higher subscriber conversion.
When you google some beverage brands, you see reviews from Total Wine and Drizly popping up with star ratings — there's a good chance you're losing that sale because they have stars and your site doesn't. Get product and site reviews going ASAP.
9 bundle frameworks every brand should test: new customer bundles, re-order bundles, new flavor launch bundles, behavior-specific bundles, promotional bundles, like-minded product bundles, moment-centered bundles, and build-your-own bundles. Take one, build it, and send traffic to a dedicated landing page for each.
Behavior-specific bundles convert because they feel personal: 'NYC apartment cookware bundle,' 'starting a new job skincare routine,' 'becoming a plant parent bundle.' They're tied to life moments, not product categories — and they're way more fun to market.
Jolie Skin built an interactive tool showing people what's in their water based on zip code. Interactive tools like quizzes and assessments are incredibly effective mid-funnel — they're educational, personalized, and give you first-party data all at once.
Syndicate all your reviews with Google so they show up in organic and paid search results. Most brands collect reviews but never take this step — it builds trust at the exact moment someone is searching for your product.
When Cadence first launched, we optimized the email pop-up on a weekly basis — better imagery, better copy, % off vs $ off vs free gift, better CTAs, even adding the ability to copy the coupon code. The CVR for that pop-up put it in the top 1% of pop-ups for data capture.
Use your pop-up to gather zero-party attributes — think of these as 'adjectives' to your customer record (the 'noun'). Fabletics and Jones Road Beauty are great examples. This data powers segmentation for everything downstream.
Digital products as lead magnets have near-100% margins. Options include FB Groups, phone wallpapers (free, but you get the customer record), a 30-day fitness challenge PDF. The more valuable the offer, the higher your pop-up conversion rate.
Payment financing options are a hidden conversion lever. Put the logos of Shop Pay Installments, Affirm, etc. in the footer, slide-out cart, PDPs, and checkout. State when the order ships, where from, and how long delivery takes. These trust signals drive purchase confidence.
Change your CTA to include the discount — 'Save 20% & Add to Cart' or 'ADD TO CART FOR 20% OFF | $18 $20.' The more reassuring you sound, the higher your click-through rate. Strike-through pricing and graphical call-outs make a measurable difference.
A haircare brand hit a 7% conversion rate. A supplement brand hit 6% CVR. Generally, the higher AOV or more novel the product, the lower your conversion rate. But 3 out of 100 visitors purchasing is a healthy baseline for most ecommerce stores.
If you have multiple products to display on your homepage, make sure product titles, review counts, review stars, pricing, and 'best seller' or 'award winner' labels are ALL clickable to the PDP. Many 'dead clicks' happen because not all elements lead to the PDP.
Customer experience isn't a part of retention marketing — it starts the second someone lands on your website. Your website is your digital storefront on 5th Avenue. Would you use a lame, duct-taped-together shed on your 5th Avenue real estate?
If CTR is low, it's your messaging and creative. If Add to Cart is low, it's your offer. If Initiate Checkout is low, you're not hammering your benefits home. Each step in the funnel tells you exactly where the problem is.
If you could only change one metric about a business that's not contribution profit or ROAS, change your conversion rate. With $1M in ad spend at $2 CPC, going from 1% to 2% CVR doubles your customers without spending a single dollar more on ads.
Within heatmaps, click maps reveal 'dead clicks' — areas where users click expecting something to happen but nothing does. These dead clicks are gold mines for CRO because they show you exactly where users are confused or trying to navigate to something broken.
For Try Before You Buy, set a maximum cart size (e.g., 6 items, not 60), use a double opt-in flow so customers understand the terms, and create custom entry points so only certain visitor segments see the TBYB button on your store.
Social proof that cuts through the noise: instead of just reviews, try a stat like 'Shared over 10,000 times on social media.' It's a different form of proof that stands out because everyone else is showing star ratings.
Meta QBR benchmarks by category — Art & Custom Frames: ~4% CVR, sub-$100 AOV. Bedding & Home Textile: ~2.6% CVR, $175 AOV. Toys & Baby Goods: ~2% CVR, $100 AOV. Kitchen items have the strongest performance overall.
Whoever is in charge of collecting reviews should have a bonus structure tied to the number of reviews collected. Treat review collection like a KPI with real compensation attached to it.
True Classic has people add what size they bought, what size they normally buy, and their height/weight to reviews. Because their brand promise is about fit, these characteristics attached to reviews make it dramatically easier for new customers to convert.
Traffic from earned media channels — influencers, publishers, affiliates, newsletters — is higher-intent. Adjust your email pop-up timing, the offer you display, and how you position messaging accordingly. Don't treat them the same as cold paid traffic.
When you launch a new product, update your slide-out cart and Shopify checkout extensions to prioritize the new product as the first upsell. Update your on-site pop-up to include messaging around the new product whether or not you offer a discount.
Every site visitor needs 3 checkboxes: 1. Good product, 2. A sense of trust, 3. Proof that it works. If your conversion rate is low, you're probably lacking in one of those three. Build dedicated proof pages — before and afters, clinical trials, walls of love — like Solawave, ARMRA, Jolie, and Eight Sleep do.
Compare your product's price or density to competitors on your PDP — not just standard benefits. David Protein does this. Compare the convenience your product offers against doing it the hard way, like MirrorMate does on their homepage.
Most shop modules on PDPs are too plain. Push for bundles, promote upsells, and mark what's 'Most Popular' or 'Customer Favorite' with badges next to variants. Those badges imply multiple other people have made the purchase, tried it, and enjoyed it.
Caraway's gamified cart amount bar was site-wide, not just in the cart. Simple, not intrusive, and I bet it incrementally raised AOV. They also added the offer as a tile in the collections page with holiday badges.
Gruns' pricing layout is beautifully done: one-time purchase, subscription, cost per day, and savings in each option — all visible at once. Showing cost-per-day reframes the value equation from a lump sum to a daily investment.
If you spend dollars on performance marketing to drive single-SKU sales, you're irresponsible to your wallet. Everything should be focused on bundles — more products, at a good margin, in one shipment with a fixed shipping fee. The single-SKU purchases will still happen as gravy on top.
For high-AOV products ($2,000+), 1-day click / 1-day view attribution dashboards don't work. The funnel needs to be: problem awareness → problem education → brand and product introduction → boxing out competitors. You need to approach the funnel more empathetically.
For POV Beauty, we offered customers three paths to products in the navigation: individual products, shop by skin benefit, or shop by skin concern. Assume someone coming to your website knows nothing about where to start.
Product carousel hover states are underused real estate. On POV Beauty, hovering on desktop changes each product image to a graphic showing clinical trial results with the product in action — demonstrability is huge in beauty and personal care.
On launch day, your new product should appear in site search as a suggestion before the customer even finishes typing. Collection page merchandising should slot the new product into position 1.
Interactive 'Shop the Routine' modules — where customers hover over each product and see it applied as if the screen were a mirror — create higher site engagement and time on site. The responsiveness and quick movements matter for younger demographics used to fast digital devices.
Before redesigning a site, conduct your own customer journey audit, then interview store associates and ask 'But why?' questions. Use site data plus qualitative insights to map personas, create customer journeys, and anticipate every shopper need.
ATF content on every PDP should answer three questions: What exactly is this? Why should I care? How do I buy it right now? If you assume someone knows the answer to any of these, you've lost them.
Social proof shouldn't just live at the bottom of your PDP where only 15% of visitors scroll. Insert it everywhere: selected reviews highlighting benefits, best-seller badges, UGC content, press mentions, and authority figure quotes throughout the page.
Match your CTA copy to the funnel stage. If the action is higher up in the funnel (like on the homepage or ad), don't use lower-funnel CTA copy like 'Buy Now!' Use contextual copy that matches where the customer is in their journey.
White-background product images in 'Best Sellers' sections are wasted real estate. Add badges like 'Customer Favorite,' 'Best Seller,' or 'Over 30,000 sold!' — they drive the message that thousands of happy customers came before you.
The checkout should reiterate inside the UI why someone came to purchase in the first place. A customer should never have to make more than 2 clicks to check out from a landing page. Simplify ruthlessly.
The middle of the funnel is the least-trackable part of marketing. That's exactly why so few brands put emphasis there. Four tools to combat it: email/SMS with strong pop-ups, retargeting ads with segmented creative, CDPs that customize the site based on shopping activity, and custom programs like Warby Parker's at-home try-on or Oura's $7 sizing kit.
GLP-1 brands add a phone number at the top of their landing pages, which significantly adds trust and legitimacy. If your product has any complexity or high consideration, a visible phone number signals you're a real company.
Comfrt Clothing reportedly does almost $1 billion a year in revenue through a very basic Shopify site. It's not winning any web design awards, but it's one of the most efficient shopping experiences out there. Proof that fancy UI bells and whistles are less important than a clear, conversion-driven UX.
Design sticky CTAs for the right thumb — 85-90% of the population is right-handed. On mobile, always have a persistent CTA button visible once a user scrolls past the hero. A sticky footer bar with product name, price, and a bold CTA keeps checkout one thumb-press away at all times.
Exit-intent rescue offers are criminally underused — I rarely see this activated (last time was on Immi's site). If a visitor shows exit intent, trigger a last-second hook. You'd be surprised how many almost-buyers you can save. We're not begging, we're extending a friendly last offer.
Micro-commitments work wonders on landing pages. Get your visitor to say a small 'yes' before the big 'YES' — a quick quiz like 'Find your perfect bundle in 3 clicks' or a build-your-own-bundle step. For email opt-ins, ask a question first before asking for the email. This foot-in-the-door tactic makes the eventual purchase feel easier.
Add micro-trust elements next to the add-to-cart button: 'In stock, ships within 1-2 days,' '6,000+ sold,' or '600 ordered in the last 30 days.' Simplify variant selectors to no more than two decisions — ideally size + color. Every additional decision point is friction.
Parachute called out sales within the nav bar itself — depending on which category you hovered over, you'd see the sales highlighted within. Design like this reduces clicks, which in turn increases conversion rate.
80% of what converts is UX, positioning, messaging, and how it's all framed — not just the listed value-props. Cohesion is not a 40-page brand guidelines PDF sitting in a Dropbox folder nobody opens.
I was working with a brand that had a 1.8% CVR on their landing page. We didn't touch the page. We just aligned the ad creative, the landing page headline, and the email follow-up to tell the same story with the same language. CVR went to 2.6% in two weeks. Same traffic. Same offer. Same page structure. Just cohesion.