Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): Basics for Shopify and Ecommerce

Over the last couple of years, I’ve heard eCommerce business leaders discuss Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). The goals can be unrealistic from a marketing perspective. What business leaders need to keep in mind is that just because one brand went viral from a campaign or a well-timed product, those brands are aspirational but start small and consistent. From my perspective, there is both a science and an art to driving a higher CRO, and several attributes and variables affect conversion. 

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For those who are just launching their store, Direct to Consumer (DTC), or Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) products, here are a few places to start improving your conversion rate to be at or above the 2-3% average, according to Shopify. 

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Let’s find some common-sense ways to boost your conversions without breaking your budget. Many of these things you can do on your own—or if you need a hand, we can help your team via Chasing Creative and our partners. 

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Boosting Conversions on Your Website

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Website Speed That Converts 

What I will say is: the faster the speed, the better in terms of conversions. An easy way to test is by sending the website to a few friends or co-workers and asking them—does this seem quick enough?

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Of course, there are lots of stats out there saying the top sites load in under two seconds, which makes sense. But you should really focus on how the customer feels, which the famed Neil Patel blog supports, stating that 70% of customers say speed affects buying—your conversion.

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And yet, we often don’t attempt to improve the speed—instead, we add more onto our tech stacks, upload unoptimized images, and allow teams to edit freely. We should consider the impacts of these choices and audit them weekly with speed and SEO tools. 

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Education and Information That Converts

What information is most important to your customer? 

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Or let me ask it this way: 

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What information, when your customers learn it, drives them to buy? 

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What is the main thing? 

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Now, most sites like SEMflow will say you need ~300 words (quick demo video) on a page to rank well. But I would challenge you to consider what information is the most valuable to your customer while shopping and often gets them to take another look. 

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Think about when you are in the store in person. Is the representative rattling off 20 facts about the product right when you pick up the item? No. You can keep your landing page or product page as an introduction and follow up with education via an email or SMS series. 

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Route Customers to Proper Store Products

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When I meet with both DTC and B2B customers to work on their websites or improve CRO, the first thing I look at is what I call routing. How are you routing your customers to the right product? 

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If the customer is top of the funnel organic, they will want to see, front and center, your product and its benefits. If they are driven from an ad, then it's important the landing page closely reflects the copy and visuals of that ad to boost conversion. 

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A few tips to support routing: 

- Healthy and easy-to-read navigation 

- Clear H1 titling and copy (don’t try to get fancy, just tell them what the product is called)

- Create clear sections on the homepage to showcase best products along with social proof

- Consider using a chatbot that has routing and journeys built in (we use Warmly AI on our B2B website)

- Consider adding top-visited pages to the footer 

- Consider having a top bar banner during campaigns that links to products 

- Consider testing an exit pop-up (yes, when people go to leave without buying, give them a reason to stay)

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Tracking Conversions and Behavior on Your Website

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Server-Side Tracking, Google Analytics, and Axeptio 

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One way to level up your data tech stack is to use server-side tracking on your eCommerce store. 

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Why add this?

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It allows you to not be solely dependent on cookies in browsers, which can be blocked by different platforms, tools, and web browsers. Think of it as a direct connection that plugs into your website's server, providing more data into Google Analytics, which can then be used for ads, pivot tables, and reporting. 

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You can add this yourself or with a developer in Google Tag Manager, or you can use a third-party app. The ones I am most familiar with and can recommend are Littledata and Elevar. Both of these tools also have other server-side connections for paid ads like Pinterest, TikTok, and Meta. 

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Most leading eCommerce websites are using advanced tracking to help reduce wasted advertising spend and increase conversions. 

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Axeptio and Chasing Creative have also partnered together to make sure that the data captured is compliant with rules and regulations like GDPR. Elevating your consent management experience with a third-party app like Axeptio can help you capture consent and integrate directly with your Shopify Store. Used on over 40,000 websites world wide its a no-brainer to have especially with Google Content Mode v2 being mandatory in the EU. 

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Conversion Tools Like Shoplift and Microsoft Clarity

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Wow, great thought, Blake. 

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Use a conversion tool. Well, I figured this is obvious, but if you haven’t installed Shoplift or Microsoft Clarity, I would jump on that today.

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Shoplift is a partner of Chasing Creative because it allows us and our clients to run A/B tests on product pages and their Shopify store. They have also rolled out Lift Assist™, which analyzes millions of shopper sessions to recommend what converts and automatically generates features like countdown timers, sticky carts, inventory indicators, and more.  

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Microsoft Clarity is a tool recommended by Chasing Creative to all of our clients, and we install it on nearly every one of our projects. The best part is that it is FREE. If you are familiar with Hotjar, it is an alternative for that. It allows you to see real session recordings, scroll behavior, clicks on your page, and more. They even introduced AI summaries for many of their features that give you recommendations on things you can do to improve your website and ultimately conversion rates. 

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Following Up with Traffic on Your Website

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Abandoned Cart Campaigns for Converting

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Your website, tracking, and A/B testing experiments might be doing awesome. But where folks fail to invest time is in running robust retargeting email or SMS campaigns to drive conversion rate increases. As mentioned already, education can happen after the first visit, but you need to capture their email and have a welcome series or funnel developed. 

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Think about adding a newsletter, quiz, or incentive for a discount or gift if your customer shares their email. 

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Ah… yes. Zero-party data is king! 

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Many use Klaviyo due to its ability to integrate with Shopify, templates, and features to address abandoned carts, etc. Find a tool your team is comfortable with and get started on setting up some basic flows to convert the prospects you have now. Also—consider using SMS (if they opted into the journey) in a personalized and unique way to drive more attention. People are busy, and email/SMS can be a great way to boost conversions and complement your marketing efforts.

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Plus, another way you can use this is to drive upsells. Meaning your customer comes to the store and purchases a product. Now, you have an idea of what they like, down to the size, color, and style. Retarget that customer via email or SMS with a similar or complementary product offer after they’ve made a purchase. They will be more likely to buy again.

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Retargeting Ads for Converting

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We mentioned this above when chatting about server-side tracking, but it's important to build out 30, 60, or 90-day retargeting ads via Google Ads, Meta, or other platforms your customers spend time on, like Reddit and Pinterest. 

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We are all easily distracted and bombarded with content daily, especially while on our phones. Traffic drops off your eCommerce store due to these interruptions, and can be easily retargeted with an ad to drive them back to your website for purchase. 

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Nearly every founder and marketing leader I know spends some performance marketing budget on retargeting along with their top-of-funnel campaigns. 

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Plus, testing your creative on these campaigns can help your team understand what your customers are most interested in, with reporting on the creative you are testing. Compare this to the Shoplift and Microsoft Clarity insights to see if there is a throughline in your copy or creative to boost conversions. 

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Boost Reviews for Social Proof and UGC Content to Convert

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As a content creator myself, I would be remiss not to mention leveraging social proof and User Generated Content (UGC) to drive more conversions. It is one of the most important and hardest-to-measure impacts on a brand. Why? Because it’s modern-day word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing that reflects the best referrals businesses can get. 

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I’ve created a free UGC checklist you can get here (ungated) to get started with your campaigns. I can also introduce you to my friends at Mini Social, where you can access a list of micro-influencers to help boost your UGC content to use for social proof across your assets and campaigns. Shoot us an email here. 

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The Takeaway

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Digital marketing today is hard, but we’ve never had more tools and access to customers. Dialing in on what is most important and needs work is the best place to start for Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). New tools and products come out every day, but knowing your customer is what will be most important. How they think. How they buy. And making the purchase process more convenient and personalized will benefit you well. 

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If you need a hand, reach out to our team. We would be happy to offer a FREE introductory call to learn about your eCommerce business and needs. 

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