The demo videos are compelling, and the pitch is always some version of the same thing: why spend time and money talking to real users when AI can simulate them for you?

We decided to find out if any of that holds up. Over the course of February and March, The Good’s team of UX researchers and strategists ran hands-on evaluations of six AI user research tools.

We tested them against real client projects, comparing outputs side-by-side with findings from our established methods, and sitting through demos with enough pointed questions to make the sales reps uncomfortable.

Our answer isn’t a simple thumbs up or thumbs down. Some of these tools are genuinely useful for the right team, in the right situation. Others are impressive on the surface, with not much underneath. And nearly all of them, once you get past the marketing language, will quietly acknowledge they can’t replace real user testing.

Here’s what we actually found.

First: “AI user research” is not one category

Before getting into the tools, it’s worth noting something that may not be intuitive to all. “AI user research” is a catch-all term that covers fundamentally different capabilities. Just as we have a variety of research tools and methods as an expert UX agency, the AI tool market includes a variety of tools with fundamentally different capabilities.

As we went deeper, we found most tools fall into one or more of these buckets:

• AI-assisted study setup: Helps you design a study or write a test plan.
• AI-moderated interviews: Replaces a human moderator with AI-guided conversation.
• Synthetic users: Generates AI personas that simulate user responses.
• AI follow-up questions: Dynamic probing within surveys or tests based on participant responses.
• AI analysis and synthesis: Themes survey responses, generates summaries, builds highlight reels.
• AI-driven roadmap and recommendation tools: Scans a site and generates prioritized UX recommendations.
• AI-powered heatmaps: Predicts visual attention without requiring real user data.

Knowing which category a tool belongs to matters because it changes what you should expect from it and what you shouldn’t.

The tools we evaluated

1. Synthetic Users

Category: Synthetic users/AI-assisted study setup

What it does:

Generates AI user profiles and simulates how those users would respond to a screenshot or Figma prototype, producing a full usability report with findings, quotes, and prioritized recommendations.

What we did:

One of our strategists ran the same test through Synthetic Users and through PlaybookUX with real recruited participants. It was the same landing page, with the same research questions. This is as close to a controlled comparison as we could get.

Where the findings matched:

• Both groups flagged information overload and cluttered design as major issues.
• Both raised privacy concerns about submitting a phone number.
• Both produced skepticism about the page’s bold marketing claims.
• Severity rankings were similar across both sets, and some of the language in the synthetic “user quotes” was remarkably close to what real participants said.

Where they diverged:

Synthetic Users can only test screenshots or Figma prototypes, not live URLs. No live interactions, form fills, or navigation behavior. In that way, real users provided behavioral data (where they actually clicked, how long they hesitated, what they scrolled past) that synthetic users can’t replicate.

The report itself output eight sections, including executive summary, task-by-task analysis, error patterns, user flows, learnability, satisfaction ratings, recommendations, and sub-sections. Each section largely repeated the same three or four findings in different formats. An experienced researcher would synthesize this into a focused, actionable deck while the tool generates volume.

The bottom line:

Synthetic Users got the big, surface-level findings right. If your question is “are there obvious issues with this page?”, it can answer that quickly. If your question is “how do real users actually interact with this experience?” it falls short. Think of it as a fast, automated heuristic review. It’s useful as a starting point, not a replacement for behavioral data.

2. Uxia

Category: Synthetic users/prototype testing

What it does:

Creates custom AI-generated users based on the audience information and test plan you provide (a step you can review and refine manually before the test runs). Those users then move through your prototype, and the tool automatically produces a synthesized report with ranked themes, findings, and a shareable output. No manual analysis required.

What we did:

One of our researchers gave Uxia’s team a Figma prototype of a site element that we had already tested and synthesized using Lyssna. This gave us a direct basis for comparison between their AI-generated output and our real user findings.

What worked:

The output is genuinely robust. Themes are already pulled and ranked, the report generates automatically, and it’s ready to share without anyone watching hours of recordings first. For an in-house team without a dedicated researcher, that’s a real time savings.

The AI users also flagged the same top finding that we identified in our test with real users. That kind of alignment on a specific, nuanced finding was notable.

Uxia positions itself honestly as a supplement to real user testing, not a replacement for it. They expect their users to be running studies with real participants alongside the tool, and they’re upfront about that. Researchers using their tool actually conduct more research because of the fast turnaround, not less.

Where they diverged:

AI users interpreted placeholder imagery as real content and confused a navigation menu for a standalone page.

Our team’s assessment: it doesn’t have the emotional intelligence a human user would.

What Uxia catches are surface-level friction points, including broken flows, confusing layouts, and missing content hierarchy. What it misses are the nuanced reactions that drive the most valuable optimization decisions.

The deeper limitation is scope. Many of the test types we run with human participants simply cannot be conducted with synthetic users. If 20 out of 30 real users say something similar, that’s a trustworthy signal built from independent behavior. If AI generates 30 synthetic responses that say the same thing, that’s one opinion multiplied.

Price is custom per team.

The bottom line:

Uxia works best as a pre-step. Running a prototype through it before live user testing to catch dead ends early, or to inform A/B test concepts, could be helpful. It’s not a replacement for behavioral research. The tool’s honest positioning about this was one of the more refreshing things we encountered in this evaluation.

3. Maze

Category: AI-moderated interviews / unmoderated testing

What it does:

Unmoderated usability testing platform that’s bolting on AI features, including AI-moderated interviews. Functionally similar to Lyssna, with AI moderation as the main differentiator.

What we did:

Our team ran a full walkthrough and tested its core capabilities.

What we found:

Maze predates AI. It’s a standard unmoderated testing tool that’s adding AI capabilities, not a purpose-built AI research solution. The AI moderation feature is built for teams that run a high volume of moderated studies and want to scale without adding headcount.

The AI follow-up question feature, which probes participants based on their responses, felt shallow in practice. It pulls a word from what someone typed and asks them to elaborate. One of our team members called it “advanced survey piping.” It’s an improvement over a static questionnaire, but it’s not a substitute for a skilled moderator who follows a line of inquiry.

The bottom line:

This is a capable unmoderated testing tool. The AI moderation pitch is most relevant to agencies or in-house teams running dozens of moderated sessions monthly. If you’re already using Lyssna and happy with it, there’s no compelling reason to switch.

4. Strella

Category: AI-moderated interviews/analysis and synthesis

What it does:

Replaces human moderators with AI-guided voice interviews, then auto-generates highlight reels, segmentation analysis, and synthesized findings reports.

What we did:

One of our researchers completed a demo and detailed review of capabilities and pricing.

What we found:

Strella’s synthesis features are genuinely interesting. Auto highlight reels, AI-generated segmentation, and an analysis interface that lets you ask questions of your data are all capabilities that could save significant time for teams running large volumes of qualitative research.

The problem is the price at $5,000 or more per project, not including participant recruitment or incentives. That math only works for organizations doing frequent, large-scale interview research.

We also acknowledge a gap in our evaluation here: we weren’t able to run a direct comparison of a real moderated interview against an AI-moderated one, because we don’t often conduct live moderated sessions for clients. Before making a definitive claim about quality differences, we’d want to test that directly. What we can say is that the tool solves problems a specific type of research operation has, not most in-house optimization teams.

The bottom line:

Potentially compelling for agencies or enterprise teams doing 20+ moderated studies a year. At current pricing, it’s a hard sell for most others. The synthesis capabilities are the most interesting part of the product, and we will be watching for those features to appear in more accessible tools.

5. Baymard UX-Ray

Category: AI-driven roadmap and recommendation tool

What it does:

Scans a website and generates a prioritized UX recommendation report, pulling from Baymard’s extensive research library to categorize and rank issues by page type and severity.

What we did:

We evaluated UX-Ray’s output against a real site, reviewed the tool’s methodology, and attended a Baymard-led NNG webinar where the founders discussed AI accuracy in UX recommendations.

What we found:

UX-Ray generated 342 UX insights for one site, a number that sounds impressive until you’re in the report and realize that quantity isn’t the same as usefulness. Many of the insights are gated behind paid tiers, and without the ability to prioritize by business impact, revenue potential, or implementation effort, a list of 342 findings is as overwhelming as it is informative.

The tool’s presentation is polished: dynamic, clickable, and organized by page type with thumbnail previews. And Baymard’s content library is a trusted source in UX research, whose credibility carries into the tool.

But the more fundamental limitation isn’t accuracy, it’s context. UX-Ray scans your site against a library of best practices and known UX patterns. It has no visibility into who your actual users are, how your specific audience behaves, or where your real conversion friction lives.

Entering a URL without that context assumes a lot. A recommendation that’s technically correct by best-practice standards may be irrelevant, or even counterproductive, for your particular visitors and traffic mix. Best practices are a starting point, not a strategy. That’s as true here as it is anywhere else in optimization.

Mid-tier pricing is $399 per month.

The bottom line:

Useful for teams that want a structured starting point for a UX audit and have the expertise to evaluate and filter the output. It’s not a replacement for a research-informed optimization strategy. The accuracy caveat matters; a list of 342 recommendations that’s 70–95% correct still requires an expert to separate the signal from the noise.

6. Brainsight

Category: AI-powered heatmaps

What it does:

Generates predictive attention heatmaps without requiring real user data, using AI trained on eye-tracking studies to model where users will look on a given page.

What we did: Unlike the other tools in this evaluation, we already use Brainsight in select client work. We’ve used it extensively enough to have a genuine, experience-based opinion.

What we found:

Of all the tools in this evaluation, Brainsight is the one we recommend most readily. But we present it with caveats, because that’s the honest way to use it.

The predictive heatmaps are reliable as a starting point. The tool reads contrast, copy, imagery, and dark areas on screen and makes assumptions about where human attention will land. That works often enough to be useful.

They also compare favorably to DIY AI heatmap alternatives (which our team found consistently unreliable), and the tool is priced accessibly enough to function as a genuine entry point for teams that haven’t yet invested in full heatmap research.

But it’s modeling visual salience, not actual user behavior. A true heatmap might show no heat on a long block of text that the AI flagged as a high-attention area, because real users navigated away without reading it. The AI doesn’t know that. It sees contrast; it doesn’t see intent.

So, this is a good starting point, not a definitive picture. If you want heatmap data you can trust completely, that comes from real users in a full engagement.

Here’s how we’d describe Brainsight to any client considering it: it gets you to 70% of the answer faster and cheaper than doing nothing. You’ll see where attention concentrates, where it drops off, and what’s fighting for visual priority.

The remaining 30%, understanding why users look where they look, what they do next, and what it means for your conversion strategy, is where a full optimization strategy makes the difference.’

Brainsight is also adding AI-generated recommendations following the heatmap output, a feature we haven’t fully evaluated yet. We’ll be watching it closely.

The bottom line:

This is a tool we use and would actively recommend as a starting point. Best positioned as an affordable entry into attention data, with the honest caveat that real engagement data tells you more.

What we learned across all of it

After evaluating all six tools, a few themes cut across the whole category.

They find the obvious. They miss the subtle.

In every comparison, AI-generated findings matched the surface-level issues an experienced researcher would spot in the first ten minutes of reviewing a page, for example, information overload, privacy friction, and confusing hierarchy.

The gap shows up in depth: navigation hesitation, emotional reactions, and the unexpected workaround a user invents that tells you your information architecture is broken. For high-stakes optimization decisions, the subtle findings are where the value lives.

More output is not better output.

Volume was the consistent way these tools tried to signal quality. 342 UX insights. Eight report sections for a single landing page. 12-page persona profiles in under a minute. Quantity without prioritization and context is noise. A skilled researcher delivers fewer, better, more actionable insights and knows which ones actually matter.

They’re genuinely useful for teams starting from zero.

This is worth saying clearly. An in-house optimization team that has never run a user test would benefit from these tools. Getting 70% of the answer is better than getting none.

These tools lower the barrier to research-informed decision-making. The risk isn’t using them, it’s treating their output as final rather than as a starting point that needs validation with real users.

The best use cases aren’t what the tools advertise.

The most promising applications we found weren’t the primary pitch of any tool we evaluated. Running a prototype through a synthetic user tool before live user testing to catch dead ends. Using Brainsight as a fast stakeholder-conversation starter. Using AI synthesis tools to surface patterns in data that a team has already collected but hasn’t had time to analyze. None of these tools market themselves this way, which our team found consistently surprising.

The vendors themselves will tell you.

This was the most telling finding of the entire evaluation. Every single tool vendor, once you moved past the landing page and into a real conversation, acknowledged that their tool won’t replace real user testing. When the sellers aren’t making the replacement claim, pay attention.

When to use AI research tools (and when not to).

AI tools earn their place when you’re tracking patterns over time, when the problem is well-defined and the stakes are low, when you need directional input quickly and the alternative is doing nothing, or when you’re QA-checking a prototype before investing in live user testing.

Keep humans in the lead when the decision is high-stakes, when you need behavioral data (not just stated responses), when you’re entering an unfamiliar market, or when you need findings you can defend with evidence.

For most teams, the answer isn’t either/or. These tools slot into a research process as a first step, a pre-launch check, or an accelerator for analysis you’re already doing. Their ceiling is lower than the marketing suggests, and their floor is higher than the skeptics give them credit for. Use them where they fit.

Frequently asked questions on AI user research

Can AI replace user research?

As of right now, no. And the vendors building these tools will tell you the same thing.

AI research tools can surface obvious usability issues, generate directional insights quickly, and lower the barrier to research-informed decision-making for teams that have never run a study before.

What they can’t do is replicate real user behavior: the navigation hesitation, the emotional response, the unexpected workaround that tells you something important about your experience.

For low-stakes, directional questions, AI tools are a reasonable starting point. For decisions that matter, real users are non-negotiable.

What is the difference between Synthetic Users and Uxia?

Both tools generate AI-simulated users to evaluate a design, but they serve slightly different purposes. Synthetic Users runs AI personas through screenshots or Figma prototypes and produces a full usability report with findings, quotes, and severity ratings, functioning most like an automated heuristic review.

Uxia takes a similar approach but focuses more specifically on prototype testing and positions itself explicitly as a first step alongside, not instead of, real user research.

In our side-by-side comparisons, both tools got the big surface-level findings right and missed the behavioral nuance. Uxia’s honest framing about its own limitations stood out as a green flag.

Is Brainsight accurate?

In our experience, yes. More so than DIY AI heatmap alternatives, which our team found consistently unreliable.

Brainsight’s predictive heatmaps are trained on real eye-tracking data and produce results we’ve found dependable enough to use in client sprint work. That said, predictive heatmaps model where users are likely to look based on visual patterns, they don’t capture actual user behavior, intent, or what users do after their attention lands somewhere.

We use Brainsight as a fast, accessible starting point. Real engagement data from actual sessions tells a more complete story.

How accurate are AI-generated UX recommendations?

According to Baymard’s own founders, AI-generated UX recommendations are generally around 70% accurate across the industry.

Baymard claims their UX-Ray tool performs at approximately 95%, but even at that rate, a meaningful portion of recommendations in any given report shouldn’t be implemented without validation.

The more important point: Baymard itself says all AI-generated recommendations require testing before you act on them. A tool that generates hundreds of insights you still need to verify manually isn’t saving as much time as the pitch suggests.

When should a team use AI user research tools?

AI research tools make the most sense when the alternative is doing no research at all, when you need quick directional input on a well-defined and lower-stakes question, when you’re doing pre-launch QA on a prototype before investing in live testing, or when you have existing data that needs faster synthesis.

They make the least sense when you’re making high-stakes optimization decisions, entering an unfamiliar market, or need findings you can defend with behavioral evidence. For those situations, real users and experienced researchers aren’t optional; they’re the whole point.

Do AI user research tools save time?

For teams with established research processes, the promised time savings largely didn’t materialize in our evaluation. Research teams can build test plans in their sleep and likely use AI to assist with analysis.

The tools that promised speed often delivered volume, lengthy reports that repeated the same findings across multiple sections, requiring a researcher to synthesize the synthesis.

For teams earlier in their research maturity, the time savings are more real: automating analysis and report generation genuinely helps when the alternative is doing it manually from scratch. But they will likely be bogged down in these unnecessarily long reports.

The verdict

We say the same thing about AI user research tools that we say about best practices: they’re a starting point, not a strategy. They get teams that have never done research to 70% of the answer. For a team with established processes and real users to test with, they don’t solve problems we have.

The hype runs well ahead of the utility, and the most dangerous outcome isn’t a team using these tools and getting incomplete results; it’s a team using them and thinking they have the full picture.

The last 30% of research quality, the part that connects real human behavior to your most important optimization decisions, still requires real users, real data, and experienced researchers who know what to do with both.

Not sure where AI tools fit in your research process…or if they should? Our team has done the testing. Book a call and let’s talk through it.

The post We Tested 6 AI Research Tools Against Real Users. Here’s What We Found. appeared first on The Good.

It’s no secret that we need to be partially or fully online to live our day-to-day lives.  

With online interactions at an all-time high, any point of friction or negative experience throughout the customer journey can lead to lost business and, worse, lost customers. Its only natural for customer expectations to evolve with the times, and you need to make sure you are meeting those expectations. 

Customer expectations will be different depending on your market and your industry. However, there are still common factors and trends you should consider. 

In this article, we’ll discuss why customer expectations are important and how you can better understand them through various research methods. We’ll also cover the different types of customer expectations, focusing on digital expectations. 

Why Is It Important to Know About Customer Expectations?

Meeting customer expectations can significantly impact a business’s long-term success. In understanding a customer’s point of view, marketing and sales professionals also gain a window into spending habits and customer behavior. 

However, most businesses don’t understand customer expectations. A study from Salesforce found that 51%of customers believe most businesses fall short of their expectations. 

This presents you with a tremendous opportunity to leapfrog over your competition. Once you know the expectations of your customers, you can begin to optimize your site to meet each level of those expectations. With each level of optimization, you’ll capture more of your target market and increase your overall conversion rate.

Customer expectations are also crucial because they: 

• Impact brand image: When customers see your products or services as top-notch, it improves their overall view of your brand.
• Drive product sales: When customers expect great things from your offerings, they’re more likely to choose your brand, increasing your profits and hitting sales targets.
• Boost brand loyalty: Surpassing customer expectations can make them more likely to buy from your brand again. 
• Outshine competitors: Satisfied, loyal customers may recommend your products or services to others, giving you an edge in a competitive market.

Types of Customer Expectations

Customers can have varying expectations, and these expectations come in different types. Knowing what type of customer expectation you’re dealing with will give you an idea of how to deliver a great experience and help you achieve customer satisfaction.

Explicit Customer Expectations 

Explicit expectations are the defined expectations that every customer has in mind before they make purchasing decisions. These expectations are usually related to price, quality, and delivery time. 

For example, customers have specific price expectations for specific items with specific features. Let’s say a customer walks into a shop with the hopes of buying a new mobile phone. If the price of the product falls beyond the price range they are expecting, chances are you will lose a sale.

Implicit Customer Expectations

Implicit Expectations, on the other hand, are the expectations that customers have based on the feedback they’ve heard about your brand. This could be feedback from family, friends, or even customer reviews they have read online. 

These could also be expectations that your customers have based on knowing the competitors within your industry. It’s only normal for customers to comparison shop, but this doesn’t mean that you should start comparing your ecommerce brand or website to other companies or to industry benchmarks. 

Interpersonal Customer Expectations

Interpersonal Expectations are created from customer interactions with your team members or your employees. Note that these interactions can include in-person, chat, or phone interactions. 

As such, your customer service teams play a crucial role in meeting the interpersonal expectations of customers. If you have excellent customer service and employees who go the extra mile, chances are your customers will be more willing to make a purchase. 

Dynamic Performance Expectations

Dynamic performance expectations are the expectations customers have about the changes in the product or service over time. This means that, as a business, you should always be ready to adapt and shift depending on the overall environment or evolving customer needs. 

It can be hard to determine or keep track of customer needs, but using a customer survey or a similar tool can be an easy way to make sure you are offering positive experiences to your customers. 

Digital Customer Expectations

These are the expectations customers have relating to your website, social media channels, or even email. Digital expectations usually relate to website navigation (how easy or difficult is it to find something?) or the checkout experience (how easy is it to order and make a purchase?).

The evolution of customer expectations has a lot to do with the digital experiences offered by brands. Modern customers now anticipate increasing levels of convenience, speed, and personalization in their interactions with businesses. To align with these expectations, companies must continuously advance their digital experience. 

Brands can meet digital expectations by thinking of the following:

• Offering more options when it comes to payment methods. Customers now expect businesses to cater to their preferred payment choices, offering them flexibility in payment. 
• Providing opportunities for feedback. Your customers want to feel heard. Make sure you are giving them channels to easily communicate with you or your customer service teams. 
• Ensuring seamless connectivity across all devices. In the realm of ecommerce and SaaS, customers expect that they will be able to access your website with any device. This means you not only have to optimize your desktop experience, but you should also make sure that your mobile interface is seamless. 
• Creating tailored offerings and recommendations. Brands should be able to map the customer journey and identify areas where they can personalize the experience. You can leverage data from analytics and customer segmentation to create relevant suggestions for your customers’ needs. 
• Protecting their data and privacy. There’s nothing more important than gaining a customer’s trust and maintaining that trust, which is why it is the foundation of our hierarchy of conversions. In order to keep your customers secure, you need to make sure that you are:
  • Transparent about the data you are collecting 
  • Thorough with the security measures being implemented to safeguard their information
  • Adhering to all relevant regulations pertaining to data protection and collection as required by the law 

Behind The Click

Learn how to use the hidden psychological forces that shape online behavior to craft digital journeys that delight, engage, and convert.

GET YOUR COPY

Understanding Your Customers’ Digital Expectations 

If you’re optimizing a digital product, you may not see customers face-to-face, but there are still several ways for you to better understand and improve the customer experience you provide. 

Usability Testing

What it is: Usability testing is defined as getting customers to test and evaluate a product, feature, or prototype. 

How it works: In usability testing, the facilitator asks people who fit the brand’s ideal customer profile to go on the website and accomplish specific tasks while they talk aloud about their experience. 

How to leverage it: This is a great way to develop a deeper understanding of your customer’s experience on the site because they share first-hand feedback about the overall digital experience. When they can’t find what they’re looking for or get confused by something, they will call this out. You will be able to identify where your customers get stuck and improve it so that they can continue to seamlessly navigate through your site.

If you’re unsure how to properly conduct user testing, there are tools and services available to help you. 

Reviews and Social Listening 

What it is: Reviews and social listening are conducted by analyzing and monitoring what your customers are saying about your brand on various social channels and review platforms. 

How it works: If you want to set yourself up for success, you can use an app that’s dedicated to sifting and collecting information on the web. Apps such as these can aggregate information online regarding your name, demographic, industry, or relevant hashtags. 

How to leverage it: Aside from gaining insight into areas for improvement and customer satisfaction, you can also leverage reviews and social listening to ensure positive brand perception. Brand perception refers to the thoughts and feelings people associate with your brand. Once brand perception is established, it can be difficult to change. 

Session Recordings 

What it is: Session recordings are recordings of actions taken by visitors as they browse your website. Unlike usability testing, users do not talk about their experiences while browsing the site. 

How it works: With the use of a digital analytics tool, you can capture and replay how people use your site and interact with the elements within it. 

How to leverage it: The primary goal of a session recording is to help you identify trends or patterns in customer behavior that can help you better understand them and find out which areas of the site need improvement.

Surveys

What is it: Surveys are a great and simple way to obtain data from your users. Unlike the first two methods, surveys usually provide more quantitative data relating to customer behavior. 

How it works: Another advantage of using a survey is that it can be sent from almost any device. Surveys are usually created as a form and sent to customers to gather information or feedback. 

Another option could be to send surveys to your customer service teams. Service teams interact the most with customers. They often speak to customers about their pain points or struggles throughout the customer journey. 

How to leverage it: With surveys, you can ask very specific and tailored questions depending on what you’re trying to learn about customer behavior or customer experience. Survey results can inform decision-making or hypothesis testing. 

Heat Map Analysis 

What it is: Heat maps show you the part of your site that customers find most relevant or eye-catching. They are presented as data visualizations with different color gradients that represent the level of frequency, density, or intensity of values in a data set. To put it simply, they are a snapshot of how your customers interact with elements or pages in your website. 

How it works: You can still create heat maps by hand or through Excel spreadsheets. However, thanks to the evolution of technology, there are also digital experience tools specifically designed to generate heat maps for users. 

How to leverage it: Heat maps can tell you how to get your customers to take action because they detect what does and doesn’t work for your website. By looking at heat maps, you’ll develop ideas for experimenting with CTA buttons and the position of website elements. With heat maps, you can also see: 

• What content site visitors and customers fail to notice 
• How visitors interact with links, navigation, and buttons 
• What issues they experience on different devices 
• How they get distracted by certain elements 

How To Understand And Meet Digital Customer Expectations 

Once you are able to get a better understanding of your customer’s expectations, you can then take the necessary steps to meet (and exceed) those expectations. You can boil it down to three simple steps.

Step #1: Listen and Respond When Your Customers Speak

First and foremost, listen to your customers early and often. Use surveys to get customer feedback on different aspects of their online experience.

Provide numerous avenues for customers to get in touch with you, such as email, chat, and phone. Few things are more frustrating than not being able to easily communicate with a company when there’s a problem.

If your customers have to go spelunking deep into your menus to find contact information, they’re going to come away feeling frustrated.

When contact your company, and you do nothing about the problem, they’re going to feel even more frustrated. Thus, they will probably communicate their experience to others.

You need to have a systematic process in place to escalate issues raised by customers.

Step #2: Talk Regularly To Customer Service

Ask your service reps to provide some input. They interact with customers on a daily basis, and they probably have the best sense regarding the expectations of your customers.

A customer usually files a complaint when the brand doesn’t meet their needs or expectations.

Additionally, the more communication there is between customer service and the rest of the team, the more likely it is that you can fix inefficiencies.

Fixing the inefficiencies will make customers happy, which, in turn, makes your support reps happy. Ultimately, when it helps increase conversions, it makes your revenue happy.

Step #3: Improve Upon Problem Areas

By consistently listening to your customers and your customer support reps, you create feedback loops. This allows you to identify both the areas in which you’re doing well and the ones that tend to cause problems for your customers.

Once you’ve identified the problem areas, you can begin systematically and strategically using CRO methods to make improvements.

By focusing on reducing friction in the most problematic areas, you can make a significant impact relatively quickly.

Lay the Right Foundation, Meet Customer Expectations

The digital space is constantly changing and evolving, and your customers are changing along with it. In order to survive and thrive, brands need to consistently deliver great customer experience. They have to be customer-centered, data-informed, and insight-driven.

Customers have different expectations for different brands. However, when brands learn to listen to their customers, they can meet and exceed these expectations. They will then be in a position to lay the right foundation for successful customer relationships.

In a landscape where products and services can be very similar, your understanding of your customers and their expectations can be a real differentiator that separates you from competitors. 

If you start with the fundamentals, you can create seamless customer experiences.

And when you do that, you’ll create customers for life.

The post How to Understand and Meet Digital Customer Expectations appeared first on The Good.

About This Episode:

Sending everyone to a Product Detail Page (PDP) without context or information about the brand can be counterproductive in building trust. Landing pages, however, allow for more curated information and more consistent and relevant messaging during the customer journey. 

This is exactly what Jon and Ryan explore in this week’s Drive and Convert episode. They also cover how the lack of educational information on a PDP could make it difficult to convince customers to make a purchase. 

Listen to the full episode if you want to learn:

1. Why landing pages are crucial for building trust and educating customers 
2. Why alignment between ad messaging and landing pages is important
3. How landing pages should be optimized for Google Shopping traffic
4. How context and personalization can improve landing pages and PDPs
5. How to create and optimize landing pages

If you have questions, ideas, or feedback to share, hit us up on Twitter. We’re @jonmacdonald and @ryangarrow.

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Episode Transcript:

Announcer: [00:00:00] You are listening to Drive and Convert a podcast about helping online brands to build a better e-commerce growth engine with Jon MacDonald and Ryan Garrow.

Ryan: Welcome everyone. Today is a fun day because I was wrong and Jon was right and. That happens so infrequently. Actually, no. It happens more often than I’d like to admit, but

Jon: I just told you, hey, every squirrel finds a nut. I just happen to have gotten lucky. Yeah, and

Ryan: this is something I’ve believed for a while, Jon, at Logical Position, we run lots of shopping, in fact, more than anybody else.

So all of this shopping traffic off of Google and Microsoft goes to product pages almost across the board. And I’ve always been of the opinion. Before, you know today I was today years old, learning how wrong I was, that people go from shopping ads to product pages and they expect to see the product page, and it’s been fairly standardized across the major [00:01:00] platforms.

Product image in the middle, put description stuff on the right, buy button above the fold suggests products. Hopefully down there at the bottom you can obviously change things up on landing page, but people expect to do it. No reason to change that and let it go. Why would you invest in a landing page builder?

Because you’re just running your traffic to shopping pages. Who cares? You changed my mind. So the, the main question we’re answering today is why on earth if I’m running all this traffic to my product pages and it’s working. But I even need to invest in a landing page builder and send that shopping traffic somewhere other than the product page.

Mm-hmm. That’s already built. Yeah. So why do I need to do that, Jon? Tell me why I was

Jon: wrong. Yeah, and I’m not gonna get into the weeds about using a particular builder. This is whatever. I mean, really, let’s go higher level than that in terms of, I just want to prove. Why I am right about using landing pages instead of running ads to your product detail pages.

[00:02:00] And I think that’s what we should focus on. Mm-hmm. Because I don’t wanna make you feel too bad and keep going and keep digging that hole for you. But here’s the reality, right? It’s all around context for the visitor. That’s really what this comes down to. The visitor is not gonna know everything about your product or your brand as well as you do as being an employee of the brand, right?

Mm-hmm. So just sending them to that P d P, it’s just making so many assumptions. That the consumer will figure everything out for themselves, and that’s just not true. So due to that, sending them to a dedicated landing page is just often gonna really increase your conversion rates. Got it. And I

Ryan: assume you see a lot more data than I do around conversion rates of PDPs versus landing page software builders.

And I’m also assuming on this then that my shopping traffic that’s going to a product page, I’m interrupting that and I’m sending them to a product page under a landing page builder, essentially. That’s

Jon: fair. You can, and you [00:03:00] should be able to have an option to sell off that landing page, but that doesn’t always need to be the case.

Let’s talk about what’s going on here and I. You know, really when you’re driving traffic to a product page, you’re driving most likely that perspective traffic to a page that immediately focuses on selling. Mm-hmm. And I want to just say, you know, you should have an option to buy, or at least take that next step and convert.

Right? Again, conversion optimization is all about just getting somebody to the next step in the funnel. Doesn’t mean you’re closing the deal with the first step, second step, et cetera. Right? You need a funnel that’s right for your product and however complicated that product is, but, It’s like being on a sales call and someone says, Hey, you can just buy it right now.

Well, you’re unlikely to do that, right? Your sale’s gonna die right there. So why are you doing that with your potential customers? Most people are sending everybody to a P D P and expecting them just to buy. They just need to be ready to buy. Go ahead. You found that in Google shopping, that must mean you’ve [00:04:00] done all your research and you’re ready to buy.

Mm-hmm. That’s very unlikely. Right. Everybody loves to talk about building a brand, but are you really building a brand if you’re just sending people to your p d p? Very unlikely, right? If that’s the first touch. They don’t know, they have no context. They have no idea who you are, what pain you’re solving.

So instead with a landing page, you can really curate that information. I think that’s what’s gonna be key here, is controlling what somebody sees and helping them down that funnel in that journey. So the best part about landing pages is you can curate what somebody sees based on where they came from, and I think that’s what’s really important.

Hmm. So you’re running an ad set. That a, that has a particular message, you should have alignment of that message on the landing page. It is near impossible without a lot of personalization tools that get very expensive and unwieldy it. For most brands to run ad group message and have that message align on A P D P [00:05:00] and then replicate that across several ad groups and messages, it’s just unlikely to happen.

Right? Mm-hmm. So I think one of the things that people need to think about, and I hear this all the time, is like, well, yeah, I built a landing page. I’ve optimized a landing page. There is no limit on the number of landing pages that you can have. So I. Just do one for each message that you’re using in your ads and then have some alignment between those.

Ryan: So yous talking about too, in addition to product pages, like you might land on a category page that we’ve talked through multiple times, but you might build a landing page, Billy, that may make it easier to do some of those tiles. Because I’ve talked to a lot of people over the last couple weeks, even after our last podcast around category pages.

Mm-hmm. Building those tiles isn’t out of the box. Easy to do on Shopify, even BigCommerce, because they’re so stuck on what’s not a product in your feed. Therefore, it’s not gonna show on a category. Right. So even just using a landing page builder on your category landing pages, From [00:06:00] an ad standpoint would

Jon: be, yeah, to replicate that experience, right?

Mm-hmm. And, and be able to customize it how you want, and free product idea for anyone who wants to build it. The good would certainly be a customer, build a Shopify plugin that allows you to add quality

Ryan: tiles. It’s a big need. I haven’t been able to find it or hear about it, so if you’ve got it. Message us somehow.

Let us know

Jon: what it is. Yeah. We always end up doing it manually and building it into the theme, which is certainly an option, but yeah. Okay. So free product idea. There

Ryan: you go. Landing page builder, you would say, Hey, we want to be able to keep the themes, like for example, two of our kids got connected watches so they can text and call us when they’re not in the home.

And if I’m looking for that, and let’s say we went with a company called Gap, but let’s just say my initial search would’ve been like, Smartwatch for kid. Mm-hmm. And I’m gonna see it on shopping and be like, oh, it was half off yesterday, which is why my wife directed me to buy it yesterday. And hey, half off, I’ll take it.

But it was a non-brand search. I didn’t know what I was looking for yet. And so you would [00:07:00] land me on a product page from shopping and mm-hmm. I don’t know. Gab from another thing. So your first non-brand visit to your site. You might want to have something a little bit more about gab or the brand rather than just the product.

Now, if I’m only looking for a gab, watch, maybe you wanna send that more to a product, typical product page. Versus more

Jon: information. Again, that’s a message from a branded search. And if you know you’re capturing that term, you could send them directly to a product page ’cause they’re looking for your product, right?

If you run a search query for particular model number, something of that sort that you’re running an ad against, yeah, sure, send ’em to the P D P. But if I’m looking for kids connected watch. Okay. I’m doing research, I’m in research mode. Mm-hmm. And when you’re in research mode, the page and the resulting page for that click needs to be all around education.

Got it. And that’s the second step here is product pages often have no real educational components to ’em. Mm-hmm. Right? So unless that brand’s really well known, [00:08:00] your product page is just doing a really poor job of teaching people why your brand is different. And what problem you’re sending out to solve and why someone should even trust you in the first place.

And so really education is gonna be key here, and it’s hard to do all that job. You’re asking a lot of A P D P. Mm-hmm. To be the education. And this is why I said not all landing pages need to sell. Maybe the landing page does the education component and then takes you to the P D P to sell. Right. If most PDPs are just doing a horrible job explaining why they should get a share of your money in exchange for their product, I think you really need to focus on more than just details and specs, which is what A P D P is good at, right?

So A P D P can really tell you, here’s the size, here’s the material, here’s what it looks like on a model. Here’s, you know, all the potential use cases maybe. But taking that extra step will really help you sell at a premium price point if it’s a [00:09:00] commodity. Probably don’t need to have a landing page because it’s a commodity.

But if you wanna really set yourself apart, help explain why a product is worth that premium price or whatever you’re charging for it, a hundred percent. You need a different page to do

Ryan: that job. Okay? So if I’m sending traffic from shopping ads on Google, I have to have the price that I showed in the ad and the ability to add to cart that part of the P D P has to still live.

But do you think that if I’m designing a landing page off of Google Shopping traffic, That I probably have to scroll down a few thumb scrolls or scroll down on my screen to get to that product information and the education’s on. On the top, or am I almost splitting the screen and the education’s left product right.

Jon: Well, I think that you should have an easy way for people to purchase right away. I’m just saying don’t make that the only focus of the page. So if you wanna put that up front, Hey, ready to buy, click here and then that’s great. If you need to educate more, I would focus on the education and then yeah, [00:10:00] you could do a side panel or it’s really common.

Lately you’ve probably seen a lot of these landing pages where the add to cart and price, things like that are up in a bar along the top of the page that stays there. It’s like a sticky, almost like a sticky nav, but it’s really not. It’s more of a add to cart, a sticky add to cart. Ah, as you say on it just stays.

Yeah. So when you’re ready to buy, it’s there. Right. You could do it at the bottom of the page. At the top. You could have a sidebar, although that’s less common, especially because of mobile. So I think, you know, you have options, but the key here is you’re focusing. Not on converting the sale. You’re focusing on education.

Announcer: You’re listening to Driving Convert a podcast focused on e-commerce growth. Your hosts are Jon MacDonald, founder of the Good, a conversion rate optimization agency that works with e-commerce brands to help convert more of their visitors into buyers. And Ryan Garrow of Logical Position, the digital marketing agency offering Pay-Per-Click [00:11:00] Management search engine.

And website design services to brands of all sizes. If you find this podcast helpful, please help us out by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts and sharing it with a friend or

Jon: colleague.

Announcer: Thank you.

Ryan: Got it. Okay. I like that idea. What bit? Okay. So I’m gonna go from traffic to a product page, I guess, and the air quotes that came up there.

For those of you that can’t see it, but I’m talking about the brand or the product in a way that lets people see differently than they would by just hitting that typical product page so that, you know, richer content. Mm-hmm. You know, maybe more unique visuals. Okay. I like that. Okay. Yeah, so. Even if you’re selling at a lower price point, there’s still a lot of value.

You can breed that you’re creating a value that’s above the price point, regardless of whether you’re selling premium or less expensive. You’re just making it easier to see, oh, I should click that buy ’cause I can see all this stuff. Exactly. Okay, great. Yep. Alright, so outside of that education, a piece from a, [00:12:00] instead of a product, you’re educating more, what else do I need to be aware of or think through besides, all right, education.

Provide more value. Then I can on a general product page.

Jon: Yeah. Well, I think the last major component really is that PDPs lack this ability to create a page that just aligns with the reason that the visitor is on the landing page in the first place. Right? So what is the angle that your product is selling under?

Again, this ties into what I’ve been saying over and over, which is you need alignment between the message of the ad and the page, right? But, You need to explain here, what’s the benefit for that visitor? What’s the pain or need you’re trying to solve with that product? Even if the need or the pain in some cases is just a want, right?

Maybe it’s just I desire to have this product, right? If that’s the case, you still need to have an angle for why they want it, that aligns with what their search was, right? So maybe [00:13:00] it’s, I want that because you know, all the famous influencers have it. So, I mean, Look at the Stanley Water Cup that everyone has, right?

Ryan: We just had a giveaway for our employees be of Stanley water cups. I’m like, oh my goodness. Like,

Jon: well, there you go. Right? And I bet they all loved it, and they were like, oh’s amazing. It’s

Ryan: probably the best we’ve ever had. Probably.

Jon: Yeah, there you go. What’s funny about that though, is every influencer on TikTok or Instagram has it, so every mom wants it, and that’s where it started that demographic.

Right? But if you tried to sell that to me, As if you were marketing to a mom, I’m not gonna buy it. Mm-hmm. Like I don’t want the mom cup. Right. So think about it in that way. I might buy it as a gift from my wife. Mm-hmm. If she didn’t already have some, but whatever. The whole point here is you can really tailor with landing pages, but if you just try to have your P D P do all of that work on the angle side of why.

Your product is better and who it’s for, et cetera. You’re really just [00:14:00] creating more issues because your P D P just can’t handle all of that. Mm-hmm. You really can’t.

Ryan: Yeah, because there’s gonna be searches, like the functionality of the Stanley Cup can’t deny, like it fits in the cup holder right there still holds 40 ounces.

I drink a lot of water and Good to hear. You’re being healthy. Yeah. I just, I, I’ll drink. I’ve been drinking a gallon of water for probably 10, 15 years, like no

Jon: problem. Wow. I drink a gallon of coffee. Does that count? There’s water

Ryan: and coffee. I actually have to, I monitor it. I’m like, okay, I’ve had my.

Generally three small espressos a day is what my limit on coffee is. And then it’s like I gotta have a gallon beyond that. But one of my struggles with, like right now I’m drinking out of a little soda stream bottle. We have a one of those nugget ice machines. Like, it’s what makes me feel fancy in my house.

Yeah. Like I have a Nugget ice machine. It’s really great getting ice in there is a pain in the ass. But I, I will steal my wife’s extra standard ’cause you know, she has like five and I, there’s always one there, so I’ll steal. Yeah. She’ll never know. Ice gets in there easy. And I’ll drink through this straw.

I’m like, great. This is a really cold, I like it. I’m feeling great. But then it’s like, it’s pink or it’s [00:15:00] like, ah. It’s just, so if I’m going there, the functionality, it does keep it very cold for the 10 days it takes me to drink 40 ounces of water. But you could message that like, I’m gonna search probably differently than my wife.

Like she’s gonna be looking for the influence or color that she saw. Like I just randomly happened to see that there’s some new blue. That is mm-hmm. Gonna sell out. And I’m like, I don’t

Jon: care. Randomly, right? Yeah. I’m like,

Ryan: yeah. I’m talking to my wife about her Stanley things and I’m seeing ads now. Weird.

They’re listening, but you’ll be like, Hey, I need a, you know, insulated. You know, mug or you know, mm-hmm. Maybe I’m gonna look for a black one, or I’m gonna look for something that would be more along the color scheme I’d like than the pink and the yellow that I have to choose from now in my wife’s collection.

You could message that. Or maybe there is a, a way that certain influencers are targeting men on social media. I follow Grill guy ’cause he is funny. Mm-hmm So if Grill guy was like, yeah I got a Stanley mug that we’re a collaboration with Grill Guy Stanley, if you do that, I just send me one. But it would be like, hey Grill guy mug.

That [00:16:00] would be messaged generally across to men. And you’d have a very different appearing landing page than you would for a woman.

Jon: Exactly. So it goes back to the first point. Right. Which is context. It all needs to be about context, and that’s why this is important where A P D P can’t answer every question as much as you may try, and it can’t have context for every single visitor.

So if you have a single demographic with a single pain point that you know your product solves, then sure send ’em to that P D P because you can talk directly to that one customer. Mm-hmm. And if you listen to any copywriting expert, take any course on copywriting, they’re always gonna say, write your copy for one single person.

And that’s what’s gonna perform best, right? So you’re really niching it down. You’re addressing that pain point. You’re using language they’re familiar with. All of that is gonna be helpful. But it’s so hard if you have a product that is going after multiple [00:17:00] demographics. You’re gonna have a really hard time having a great converting P D P on its own if that’s where you’re sending all your traffic to.

Now, if somebody’s on your site and they end up on your homepage or a category page or something like that, which helps with the branding and answering all of these questions we’ve talked about today, then yeah, your P D P can also be optimized to help facilitate the sale, right? But what we’re talking about here is the step up in the funnel.

And too many people are trying to cram the P d P up the funnel when it really is one of those last steps or the last step in the funnel. So

Ryan: that’s, yeah. I fully agree. Non-brand traffic of shopping is massive, and that’s where you get a lot of people doing research since the first touch. Mm-hmm. But in theory, with this process, you could probably shorten up the touch points between first touch on a non-brand shopping traffic.

Page to purchase because you’ve done a better job educating and showing value [00:18:00] and answering brand questions. So that would be what I’d wanna start testing and seeing and, and so on that, what’s the practical, easiest way to test this for, let’s say if you have a ton of money, it’s easy. You’re gonna go buy a really expensive page builder and go full bore, but how does a small Shopify brand test this practically on

Jon: their site?

Even with Shopify, you can set up a new page template that you just replicate, right? Yep. So set up a new page template that you’re gonna use as your landing page. And it doesn’t have to be a product, it doesn’t have to be in your navigation. Mm-hmm. Yes. It’s probably gonna show up in search engines, but that’s okay if someone lands there ’cause it has relevant content.

To what their search engine was, right? The other option, I mean, you know, without getting into too many of the tools, there are hundreds of landing page services out there that you can use that will allow you to use your own domain name and put it under like, uh, an additional directory, right? So [00:19:00] you could do your domain slash lp slash.

You know, for landing page, right. And the consumers aren’t gonna really see that LP in the U R L and think, oh yeah, this is a custom landing. Like they’re just gonna see how many times Are you even looking at the U R L to be honest, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, Chrome even hides most of it these days.

So the reality is it’s much easier than people making out to be. And you don’t need to be a technical wizard to create a custom landing page. I mean, heck, you could go create a WordPress site and have those be landing pages, and then it redirects to the P D P. Mm-hmm. Now, is that trustworthy? Yeah, I’d say you’re gonna take a knock on that because the domain’s gonna change, et cetera.

But I guess my point here is stop limiting yourself by thinking you have to a. Have a developer and b, go buy a huge lining page tool, right? And spend all this money, commit to a year, contract, all that other stuff. Just start simple. Mm-hmm. Create a new page on your Shopify site with a generic page template.

Right. Can [00:20:00] have your navigation in it though, not recommend it. It can. You could start there, right? Or hire a developer. A Shopify developer to just build a new template that’s a landing page template. That’s pretty simple. It wouldn’t take ’em about a couple hours probably to hide your navigation and create a C T A or that bar we talked about at the top or bottom of the page.

That lets you choose what product shows there and has an add to cart. That’s a day’s work at most. So, you know, all of these things are very doable and I encourage people to think outside of that box that they’re in on this, where they have to shoehorn things in or really go out and have an expensive page builder.

You just don’t. Yeah,

Ryan: like simplify, like all you’re trying to do is figure out mm-hmm. If this at scale could make big enough improvements to justify a larger investment at the end of the day. Right. Right. Okay. So if you test one product on a landing page versus the P D P on some shopping traffic and your conversion rate doubles, whoa.

Now you have proof to [00:21:00] say, yes, if I scale this across the site, chances are I’m gonna see some results. And then just make iterative improvements on that. There you go. So I would even suggest. Testing like cre, duplicate the product. Mm-hmm. And say if you have the same product that could appeal to men or women for different searches, duplicate the product on a different id.

So you’re just testing one, like keep the old one. Don’t change that and just say, Hey, you have a second product in your feed that is gonna show in shopping for maybe different searches so you can change the description. Yep. Same product. You’d call it something maybe slightly different, but it wouldn’t be tremendously complicated on Shopify to probably execute that.

Yeah, love it. So, yeah. Great. Okay, so as a quick recap, step one, Jon, we’ve gotta come up with context, understand mm-hmm. Why this visitor is coming to this page. If you don’t understand that, you better figure that out quick. Well, almost making an assumption that you do understand why people are coming there.

There you go. And then you have to understand then the curation of the patient. You’re not just trying to sell, sell, sell. You have to set it up [00:22:00] so you’re like, Hey, let’s start building a brand first. Still maybe have the conversion up there, but it’s not just like, yeah, pick your options and go buy, because that’s not what people are generally coming when they’re mid upper funnel search terms.

So curation of the page, educate. The purpose of that page now is going to be education. And if you’re educating, well, generally you can shorten that conversion timeframe than you would’ve without that education piece. On the P D P, tell them what they’re getting. Build that value through education. Yep.

And then the angle that your product’s selling under, so you know, what’s that specific pain point that you’re solving for that viewer. So if you’re selling Stanley Cups to men, make sure it’s that angle is selling to men because you’re landing the men on this. Version of the Stanley Landing page. There you go.

Did I miss anything? Any last? Comments on what? Well, I guess the only question is have I convinced you otherwise? No.

Ryan: Nope. I am definitely going to be talking more about landing pages versus product pages. [00:23:00] The PDP is probably done, so my job here is done, probably not at all. It’s built up to be, and I’ve seen the light now, so I have a lot of conversations to go back and have.

Jon: I’m glad I could be of service. Hey, I’m glad that I didn’t learn this. Two, three years down the road after having another thousand conversations and say something uhoh dumb on stage where you’re coming up after me and tell me I’m wrong. That’s why you don’t have me speak anymore. Yeah, no, it’s too dangerous.

Jon. Thanks for the time and the education and, uh, helping me see my blind spots. Always value there. We’ll chat soon. Thank you.

Announcer: Thanks for listening to Drive and Convert with Jon MacDonald and Ryan Garrow. To keep up to date with new episodes. You can subscribe at driveandconvert.com.

The post Drive and Convert (Ep. 087): Should I drive traffic to a landing page or PDP? appeared first on The Good.

About This Episode:

After more than a decade in the business, the CRO experts and UX strategists at The Good have identified patterns while working with clients. Through their experience, they discovered that when you optimize specific areas of a website, you consistently get improved conversion rate and increased revenue. 

In this episode, Jon and Ryan explore the different tests that The Good team has had success with time and time again. 

Listen to the full episode if you want to learn:

1. How annotating in Google Analytics can help you in the future
2. What variants and control are in A/B testing
3. What tests to run on your ecommerce website
4. Why these five tests are effective

If you have questions, ideas, or feedback to share, hit us up on Twitter. We’re @jonmacdonald and @ryangarrow.

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Episode Transcript:

Announcer:
You’re listening to Drive and Convert a podcast about helping online brands to build a better e-commerce growth engine with Jon MacDonald and Ryan Garrow.

Ryan:
All right, Jon, here we sit at the beginning of 2023, recording a podcast where, in theory, anything is possible. The year looks like rainbows and unicorns to everybody. Our goals are all possible. Nothing has happened globally to ruin all of our plans, so it’s great. I love this time of year. My goals all look really smart. All the things I say publicly sound like they’re a great thing, it’s going to happen. And guarantee, in March-

Jon:
I’m holding you to that.

Ryan:
… in March, all my predictions are a mess. So this year I’m not going to predict anything, it’s just going to be, it is going to happen when it’s going to happen. And maybe our year turns out normal, quote, unquote, “normal,” whatever that is anymore.

Jon:
Mm-hmm. We’ll find out.

Ryan:
But in that vein, you’ve come up with a really cool topic to talk about today that I’m excited for because you’re going to give us all the answers that you no longer have to do CRO. It’s awesome. You’ve got this wonderful list you’ve come up with about improving our converge rate and customer experience, and there’s five things you can do. And then, we’re done. I mean, we’ll probably end the podcast after this.

Jon:
Yeah, hey, perfect. It only took us 70 shows to get there, but you know what? We’re there and I appreciate it.

Ryan:
Yeah, it’s awesome.

Jon:
Yeah, no, I love the sarcasm-

Ryan:
Yeah. So in reality, we are talking about five tests that Jon has seen over his experience. He’s been doing this longer than most of you listening to this have probably been in e-commerce. And he’s refined this down to get smaller sites that really can’t do official CRO… I mean, if you’re under the threshold of 50,000 visitors a month, you got to make different types of tests. So we’ve got five tests that you’ve outlined. How did you come up with these particular tests? I mean, you do hundreds. In fact, I was interviewing somebody yesterday that is a client of both of ours, and he said the first 20 tests your team came up with, 19 of them were successful and they implemented the changes.

Jon:
That’s what I like to hear. I like those ones.

Ryan:
So I was like, okay, that was the first little bit of testing with this one client and you boiled all of your brain down to five tests. So I’m excited about this one. Tell me about how you came up with these ones or landed on these, I guess.

Jon:
Yeah. Well, look, I think that most e-commerce brands will tell you that it’s a challenge to come up with the right areas for optimization. Whether you have 50,000 visitors a month or not, it’s still a challenge. But after, as you said, I feel old, I’ve been doing this forever, but after, wow, 15 years now, I think, of doing this, we’ve identified patterns across a lot of our clients at the good. And so, I really think there are specific areas of e-commerce that when optimized, they consistently deliver results. And that’s what we’ve seen. And so, I think there’s a few tests that we run that have always had success just time and again.
And so, looking back at that, we really just analyzed our vault of optimization patterns and pulled five out that are our favorite data backtests and I wanted to share those because I think they help gather the right insights and increase conversions, and it works extremely well. So it’s worth sharing. And these are five that we’ve seen work almost every time.

Ryan:
Got it. And to be clear, these are not change button colors, do this, it’s actual, test this because we think it’ll work, but you have to actually get some data?

Jon:
Well, always. And let’s be clear as we dive into this, these are patterns we’ve seen work across lots of brands, but you should always test these ideas instead of just straight up implementing them. And that goes for anything I say, right? Whatever I say, it’s not the gospel, it’s not just automatically true. The reality here is what I’m sharing today is data-backed. We’ve run this across dozens of clients and these tests have worked. And that means that, in general, it is a very good chance it’s going to work for you too.
But would I just outright implement these? Probably not. Right. I would want you to test. Now, if you don’t have enough traffic to run true A/B testing, there are other ways you can test these ideas. Just launch one for a month, see how it works, and then compare month over month. All right?
And really, what you should be doing here is implementing these ideas and setting up annotations in Google Analytics because if you can annotate when you’ve done this and implemented a test, you’re able then to look back and compare between date ranges. So I know annotations are a favorite of yours.

Ryan:
Oh yeah.

Jon:
Always where we start with new clients. Right. It’s like you need to be annotating if you’re not already because you’re going to thank yourself in six months, 12 months. I mean, I was just saying earlier today before we started the recording that I’m like a goldfish, I can’t remember what happened 10 minutes ago a lot of times. Right. I can’t imagine a brand trying to figure out what campaign they sent, what change they made to their site a year from now, it’s just unlikely to happen.

Ryan:
Yeah. And if you’ve never put an annotation in Analytics, pause the podcast right now, open your analytics. Right under the graph in the middle, as you look at the left on Acquisition, click on Acquisition. See the graph in the middle. There’s a little dropdown arrow, it’s small, click it and it’ll open up the little annotation window. Put anything in, said, “Hey, listen to Jon and Ryan today,” doesn’t matter because it’s just information for you in the future to look back to that.
I say it probably almost every day, that future self will thank present self for putting an annotation in. And when you’re starting, you can’t over annotate. I mean, as you start seeing it, you’ll start to feel it come back and be like, “Okay, I probably didn’t really need to see that it was sunny at two o’clock if I already put that it was sunny at eight o’clock.” Probably. But Analytics allows it. Just put whatever you want in there you might want to remember.

Jon:
I mean, it depends what you’re selling. If you’re selling sunglasses and you want to know if it was sunny that day where you were selling them-

Ryan:
Oh yeah. I mean, it’s-

Jon:
… you put that in there.

Ryan:
… awesome data. We’re in a time period right now where there is a lot of turnover in our space, especially my space in the partner world where if your team may look different in a year, you need your next team to see what’s happening now and what’s important to the team now because if they’re gone, that may go out the door with them. So gosh, if you get nothing out of this, you annotate, but there’s probably better points coming from Jon. We know we have to-

Jon:
Well, that was test [inaudible 00:06:50] number zero-

Ryan:
Number zero-

Jon:
… which is-

Ryan:
Not annotating.

Jon:
… test annotating.

Ryan:
Now are these going to go in order from the most obvious, best one to do to, yeah, this one’s the next one even more advanced, or is it like you’re saving the punchline till the end, so everybody has to listen to the very end?

Jon:
Yeah, no, that would probably have been smart to do, but they’re just five tests that I pulled out, not in any particular order.

Ryan:
Okay, great. Let’s just kick it off then. Let’s jump in. So what’s the first one you’re going to tell us about?

Jon:
Well, I call it quality tiles. All right. So the idea behind this test is that you want to replace your product tiles on the category page with quality tiles that really are just a word for featuring different brand messaging. So the idea behind this is, really, testing product tiles with different key messages in them.
So you have a grid on your category page and you might have five different pairs of shoes on that grid. Take one of those tiles, and now you have six tiles, so you’re adding a new tile. And it talks about, maybe, your brand values or that you offer free shipping or you’re teaching what the customers care about. And so, perhaps they’re worried about the quality or the materials or where your products are made, sustainability, any of these brand qualities that you want to get across need to be communicated on a category page. Category page gets forgotten about so much. So it’s a really good opportunity here.
And what I’ve done for each of these test ideas is talk about the test idea, why I love it, an example, and then why it works. So we’ll do all four of those for each of these. So here’s an example of quality tiles. So we’ve worked with a shoe brand called Beckett Simonon. Beckett Simonon relied really heavily on product images to decide whether people were going to purchase. And the reason behind that was because they have a quality shoe that they make. Every shoe’s handmade, handstitched. And it became very difficult to communicate that they were more expensive because they were handmade, but consumers just didn’t understand what the differentiation was, why it was so much more valuable to be able to pay more.
So our team hypothesized that focusing on the company’s messaging through key… We did image-driven moments because these are images, they may have text in them, but that was the idea. We wanted to help users to understand the product’s unique values. And one of the big ones for them is ethical responsibility. So they pay fair wages, they use sustainable materials, et cetera. So what we did is we A/B test different messaging on the category page. So for like variant one, we focused on their ethical responsibility practices. For Variant two, we focused on the company’s enduring product quality.
And what we found was that the ethical responsibility test produced 5% higher conversion rate than a control which was doing nothing. So we could have done anything, any of these messages and seen a 5% higher, ethical responsibility showed the best. But the reality here was having quality tiles gave them a 5% higher conversion rate.

Ryan:
Interesting.

Jon:
That gave them a return on investment of 237% from running those tests.

Ryan:
So a couple questions on that then. So I guess, the ROI or the return on investment of 237, what is that an investment on? Is it on the CRO team that they paid? Like we’re paying you X.

Jon:
On paying us.

Ryan:
Okay.

Jon:
Mm-hmm.

Ryan:
And then, just because that one change we did that one month, you’re making this much. Okay, that’s good. And then, you say A/B, but it’s almost A/B/C because you’re doing it against the no tile on there, right?

Jon:
Right. The control. That’s typically called the control.

Ryan:
Okay.

Jon:
Right. So you have variance and then control.

Ryan:
Did both A and B increase-

Jon:
So control is generally doing nothing.

Ryan:
… the conversion rate?

Jon:
Yes.

Ryan:
Okay.

Jon:
Both variants increased the conversion rate. The ethical responsibility test did better, but they both increased the conversion rate.

Ryan:
Now, does it matter where it is on that category page? Does it need to be in the top row? Does it need to be on the right rail most often and that’s kind of immaterial?

Jon:
It does not matter. What we actually did was have them randomly placed throughout because we did not want to have that be part of the test, so the best way to do that is insert randomization. So we had it up here, everything except for the first or last. So we took the number of tiles and we said, you can’t be one or you can’t be the last.

Ryan:
Got it. Interesting.

Jon:
Right.

Ryan:
Okay. Now, how easy is it, because I’ve had Shopify sites, I’ve worked with BigCommerce a lot, how easy is it to sub out a product on a category page or collection page and say, “I don’t want a product there, I want this image that’s not clickable there.

Jon:
In theme, it’s actually pretty easy to do.

Ryan:
Okay.

Jon:
Now, this test was run on Shopify, so I can’t speak to BigCommerce for Beckett Simonon, but I will say, we have run it on BigCommerce before and Woo Commerce and several others as well. But yes, it’s fairly easy to-

Ryan:
So average Shopify site not plus can probably do this without investing a tremendous amount of money in a developer.

Jon:
Exactly. Yep.

Ryan:
Okay. That’s good to know.

Jon:
And most of these tests are that way, right, because I would think that the idea behind any of these tests are you should be able to get a return on investment out of them. If it requires so much effort to build it, then you’re not going to get a return because you’d have to invest so much, not only to just test it, but also to implement it.

Ryan:
That’s sweet. Okay. So when you’re doing the research, why did that one work? I can kind of understand conceptually. What did the data tell you?

Jon:
Well, I mean, from a conceptual standpoint, emphasizing the sustainability aligned with the Beckett Simonon values and connected the shoppers to the brand. So I know we just did an episode recently about brand versus not brand. What does that mean? How do you optimize? Why is brand first an issue? This is a good way to incorporate brand throughout the buying journey. So this is a good one to be thinking about with that.
Now, the reality is we found that other companies are going to offer high quality boots and handmade shoes, but those, they’re not promoting that their suppliers care about the environment. So this was an edge that we found that a lot of their competition wasn’t talking about. So what the test did is it taught the brand that consumers care about and to give consumers extra confidence to make a purchase. So really giving that confidence and kind of saying, “Hey, this is something that’s going to be worth it from more than just a monetary standpoint for you.”
So the reality is, consumers are going to linger on these category pages, and this is a way to get them to better understand. How many times have you looked at a category page as just a grid of products and you’re looking through the products, you’re going to cross paths with one of these tiles. So it’s almost like you’re guaranteeing this message is going to get seen. So there were things you can test out, your brand values, maybe your unique selling proposition, or even some type of special offers that you’re doing, not discounts, offers.

Ryan:
Yeah. Just think about, instead of in the header or even in addition to that like, “Hey, I always have free shipping on orders,” at the top, instead, maybe we have free shipping and free returns or 30-day returns, whatever that looks like. It seems pretty easy kind of on that point because I’ve seen that type of quality tile taken to a different level on Amazon. And obviously, I never advocate for people looking at competitors and thinking that it’s right because competitors… Amazon is kind of a unique one in that we know they have a massive CRO team. So if Amazon is doing some tests and then you start to see that more and more and more, chances are that probably worked well, I’m starting to see a lot more, instead of product images on Amazon, I’m seeing quality tiles in the image carousel. So I’m looking at a product page, which is category, we’re talking here, but on a product page, main product image here, hero image, then it goes into a quality tile, then another regular image, and then even another quality tile sometimes.

Jon:
Yeah, because that’s the easiest place on Amazon for brands to incorporate this, right? And they know that messaging is going to get seen as people click through the photos. So in theory, it’s the same principle. We have also run tests around putting quality tiles on product detail pages in the middle of those images. And we’ve had good results with that as well. I don’t talk about that today. It’s not one of my top five favorites, if you will, but I will say that it does work and works well.

Ryan:
Yeah, I think just categories get more traffic often.

Jon:
Well, and they’re often overlooked, right? Where PDPs get a lot of love just because everyone thinks that’s where the conversion is going to happen. But there’s a big drop-off at the category page that should be addressed.

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You’re listening to Drive and Convert a podcast focused on e-commerce growth. Your hosts are Jon MacDonald, founder of The Good, a conversion rate optimization agency that works with e-commerce brands to help convert more of their visitors into buyers. And Ryan Garrow of Logical Position, the digital marketing agency offering paper click management, search engine optimization, and website design services to brands of all sizes. If you find this podcast helpful, please help us out by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts and sharing it with a friend or colleague. Thank you.

Ryan:
Yep. Love it. Okay, so test two, what’s that one?

Jon:
Categories in your navigation. So really, what we’re suggesting here is to add popular product categories as items in your navigation.

Ryan:
So not dropdowns or dropdowns as well?

Jon:
Just as the top navigation items.

Ryan:
Oh, really?

Jon:
Mm-hmm. So there’s almost always a way to test something in navigation and optimize it for better experience. I think that navigation is often one of those things that’s overlooked. Can’t tell you the number of times I see up-and-coming brands that have Home in the navigation. I think that’s a huge issue. I just spoke to a brand today-

Ryan:
Wait, let me check my sites real quick.

Jon:
… doing over 2 million a year already, and they had Home, Men, Women, Shop and Clearance was their navigation. And I said, “So do I go to Men, Women, or Shop?” And they were like, “Well, you could do any of them. If you’re a man, you can click on Shop or on Men.” And I was like, “This is really confusing. Tell me where to go. So can I not buy if I click on Men? This tells me I can’t buy, so why would I ever click on men? I’m just going to go to Shop and then you’re making me choose Men or Women.”
So the reality is navigation is just a huge opportunity in my opinion because so many brands are so close to their site, they just do what makes sense to them, not to a new [inaudible 00:18:17] customer. An easy way to think about this is to put categories front and center. This is going to reduce the friction and get people deeper into that sales funnel right off the bat.
So an example from this is that a client came to us with a menu listing items instead of categories. So they had similar to what I talked about, said like Shop, Connect, Discover, Rewards, all these things that aren’t really shopping items, they’re just… Only thing in there that seems shoppable is Shop. Right. And then, on top of that, the Shop dropdown lists product categories with labels like Collections and Themes. Again, not helpful. Right. So I’m going to Shop and then, I’m going to shop a collection or shop a theme? No, just drop me into those. So it really wasn’t very clear to new visitors. And so, we had the opportunity to raise the awareness, the product catalog and surface those. So this is what we wanted to do.
So we tested adding top product categories into that top menu, top level menu. And the variant of this, so the control was their current nav, and then, we brought those categories up. It resulted in over $100,000 of revenue gains in that test alone, just in the time we were testing it. So there is money to be made by altering your navigation.

Ryan:
Mm-hmm. And you work with some big brands, but I mean 100,000 is still going to matter to even some big brands.

Jon:
Hey, that’s a salary, right? I mean, for as big as some brands are, nobody should sneeze at 100,000, especially when, I guarantee you, they didn’t pay us close to a hundred grand to run that test, so the return on that is massive.
Let’s talk for a second about why that one works. It’s really clear categorization that helps visitors easily find the product they want. And that’s the key, to shorten that path from landing page to purchase decision. Nobody’s upset about that. The brand wants that and the customer wants it, so why do we not do it more often?
And then, really, just test your original navigation as the control against the categories. And if you’re unsure what categories to feature, just look at your Google Analytics, find your top categories in most visited pages and put those in the main navigation. I think, overall, and then I’ll get off my soapbox about navigation, but I think overall, making an easy to navigate website is just reducing friction, and only thing you need to do on your site to increase sales is reduce friction. If you just do that, you can double your sales, so this is a big one for doing that.

Ryan:
Mm-hmm. And it’s not about… I mean, because you also talk about simplifying navigation for a lot of brands too. There’s some brands that go opposite and like, “We have 15 little links up there at the top,” and that is not what you’re advocating, just making all your categories at the top.

Jon:
So let’s talk about that for a second. If you’re going to do your top categories five to seven, that’s what you want, five to seven.

Ryan:
That’s all you should have on your top nav, right?

Jon:
Yes.

Ryan:
Five to seven.

Jon:
And it should only be shoppable items.

Ryan:
Yeah, people don’t need the contact info at the top nav.

Jon:
No, too many things are in the navigation, this is an epidemic across the entire e-com world, that are not shoppable. And it’s things that brands want to communicate. Consumers aren’t asking for that information, they don’t care about that information, brands want to push it in front of consumers. That’s where it’s a problem. You need to ask yourself for your main navigation as a brand, “Do my consumers want this or do I want to tell them about this?” And if you’re trying to tell them about something, rewards is a good one.
Like a site I was talking to this morning, they had rewards in their navigation, I’m like, “Who’s looking for rewards? I just want to find the right product for me. And you’re already trying to tell me that I can get rewards. I’m not interested in rewards, I don’t even know if you can solve my problem. Once I’ve bought from you, maybe that’s the time to pitch rewards because it can help get me to come back.” That is a customer lifetime value play, not an initial conversion play. And a customer, in order to increase customer lifetime value, you’ve got to get them to come back. Well, that means you have to also get them to convert once. So let’s focus on getting that first conversion first.

Ryan:
When I think about where people land on the site based on who they are. Like if they’re landing on the homepage, chances are they know about you already or they’ve been to your site before, now they’re coming back to purchase something. So your homepage generally is not going to rank high for non-brand terms, generally speaking. And so, if they’re going to go to the homepage, they’re going to instantly try to navigate to where they want, and that navigation helps there.
The other high trafficked one for potential non-brand where they’re trying to find you the first time is going to be a category where you’ve got that tile, but you’ve got breadcrumbs, potentially, from product pages that that nav is going to be so easy that it just says, “Hey, I landed on because I searched for purple widget.” And then, I get to the category page of all the purple widgets and I’m like, “Oh, you’ve got a link right there that says pink ones.” And I’m like, “I didn’t know you had pink ones,” but it’s the top category, top seller for you. Let’s go to pink.

Jon:
And this is also a great SEO play because if it’s in your navigation, your main site navigation, you’re telling Google, it’s of higher importance. So it will help you get your category pages listed higher as well.

Ryan:
Dang, such easy ones so far. So, I’m guessing you’re going to-

Jon:
None of these are hard. I will tell you, none of these are hard. And that’s the beauty of them.

Ryan:
Yeah, it’s like you’re inside, “Look at the label on the wrong side, Jon. You got to get outside. Listen to this podcast. Make some easy changes.”

Jon:
That’s right.

Ryan:
All right.

Jon:
That’s right.

Ryan:
Change three, you have called the Etsy test. So what does an Etsy test look like?

Jon:
Well, this could be as easily called the Amazon test, but in reality, we did some research on this, Etsy did this first and best before Amazon. So that’s what we call it the Etsy test not the Amazon test. But the idea here is to feature similar products or “other customers have also viewed” items to inspire onsite comparison and decrease abandonment. Offering your customers alternatives keeps them interacting and engaging with your site instead of going to a competitor or back to Google to comparison shop. That’s the goal here, how do you increase the stickiness of your site?
So many brands do this pretty horribly in the sense that they just let Shopify or BigCommerce algorithm choose the products, which it’s really horrible at, by the way, there’s no real logic behind it, it just randomly chooses products. So you want them to be relevant and there’s some plugins that can help you with that.We can get into that in a minute.
But the reality here is Etsy, if you go to Etsy, you’ll see that they display similar products above the fold, and that’s a key too. Amazon usually has them below as well, but this encourages shoppers to stay on site, even if what they clicked on was not the product they needed or wanted. And that’s the key here. Usually that’s the biggest reason people abandon. They clicked on something from an ad, they got to the landing page and it wasn’t what they wanted, so they immediately clicked that back arrow.
What they also did at Etsy is they add the product prices below the image. So if customers want to shop for better deals on similar products, maybe the one they’re looking at, it’s not within their budget, but a similar product might be, they’re enticed to go down and click on that and keep their journey going on Etsy.
We looked at some stats around Etsy, they have an amazing time on site because you can just get lost in Etsy. It’s all handmade goods-

Ryan:
Guilty-

Jon:
… it’s all interesting stuff. Right. Yeah. You just end up getting lost on there shopping. That’s fine turned, that’s why you’re doing it. It’s not by chance, it’s because Etsy wants you to stick around.

Ryan:
No, I mean, I advocate for this constantly without even knowing that you’d had some test data around it because we’ve seen ancillary data that backs this up without even trying to do CRO. But I know that all shopping traffic across the board, they’re planning on a product page from Google Shopping or Bing Shopping. I don’t care how many SKUs you have on your site, well, unless you have just one, over 50% of the time, they’re not even going to buy the product they click on. Doesn’t matter what else you’re doing on the site. Higher SKU count, higher potential that that’s not even in the cart. We did an analysis of 80,000 SKUs, spent a hundred grand a month on ads on shopping, 72% of their purchases from Google Shopping didn’t even have the product they click on. It wasn’t like a different size, it was school supplies and math, STEM stuff, unbelievable numbers. And it just gets more, the further more complex your product catalog gets.

Jon:
To play on that, this is really excellent for brands that are running a lot of Google Shopping ads. So that’s where it really can fit in.

Ryan:
Well, we’ve seen, because we had a mutual partner years ago, Wendy, if you ever listen to this, your original company, you did a lot in the product suggestion space. And so, we did some tests by tagging analytics to see does their product bubble up better product results? Yes, it did. But even the standard, doesn’t matter really what’s in that little widget that shows like products or recommended products. So if you don’t even have that, just put that on there and it’ll help.

Jon:
You got to start somewhere.

Ryan:
Conversion rates increase three times once you get those widgets on there. Once they click it, they are shopping your site. So it’s like the whole goal, get people to the site cheap with Google Shopping if you can, but get them to click on a recommended product and it’s over, they’re shopping your site, they’re deep enough that they can’t click back to Google and go shop Google again because the back button, they don’t know how many times to click it, so they just keep shopping your site.

Jon:
Yep. There you go. Let them walk around the mall that is your site. Right?

Ryan:
Yep.

Jon:
So key things out of this that I love and why it works, really, need to make sure that they’re relevant, in our opinion. Yes, having them at all is great, but relevant, it will take a big leap forward even.

Ryan:
For sure.

Jon:
In addition to that, show them above the fold. Too many brands put it at the very bottom of their PDP, it’s the last thing, like a last ditch effort. I would say above the fold, if you want people to stay on and not abandon, that’s where you’re going to want it.

Ryan:
Mm-hmm. We even had a client, actually, I’m just pulling up their site on the side to see if they’re still doing it on shopping traffic. They changed, but they went through a lot of… Oh, they don’t even have products. Oh, they changed platforms it looks like. But there was a client in the gifting space, gift basket space. By the way, don’t ever start one of those, it’s the worst, they beat each other up, you lose lots of money to hopefully make it later.

Jon:
Seems like a logistical problem too.

Ryan:
Yeah. But what they did is they took product suggestions and put them at the very top. So it was like top nav, product suggestions, product on a product landing page so that we know you’re buying something different than what you clicked on from Google Shopping, we want you to just find it right away. So it was all category related. So in their space, I think wine gift baskets were big. Or if you clicked on a sympathy gift basket, price points very dramatically, so it’s very easy to say, “Hey, this one you clicked on was a hundred, here’s one for 50, one for 75, one for 200.” Worked amazing.

Jon:
That’s great. Awesome. All right. Should we move on to number four?

Ryan:
Yeah. Number four. What we got?

Jon:
Instructional search. So this is really a pretty simple test idea. It’s just testing a friendly instructional search prompt. And so, I love this because instructional search encourages intentional browsing, improves the user experience, and it does boost conversions. People who use search convert at the highest rate of all visitors on your site. You want to encourage people to use search. They are intentional buyers at that point. They know what they want, they’re on your site looking for it, make it easy for them to do that.
Now, the goal behind this is less about the results of search, which also matter, but even just getting people to use it, that’s the goal is how do we make it friendly and easy to use search by giving them some type of prompt?
So during research for one client, what we did was ran a bunch of user tests and session recordings like we usually do. But we found that customers were primarily navigating through that search bar. Great. That meant that there were a whole bunch of people there who were looking for particular, specific items. Right. But we also found that customers would only engage with select menu categories. So it was interesting. It was like, okay, so people primarily used a search bar, but when they don’t, they’re only clicking on one or two menu in categories. So that means the rest of the nav was getting ignored.
And it was really interesting because we hypothesized that adding microcopy and enhancing that search bar visibility would encourage everyone to use the search. And instead of people having to kind of hunt through the navigation to find the one or two categories that mattered, they’d be able to just go in and search instead.
So we put it to the test and we visually emphasized the search bar with a white background instead of a dark background. And we added language to the box that said, “Try search term.” And what I mean by try search term was just pretty simple, try searching, enter a search term here. Right. It delivered over $3 million in revenue gains, $3 million just to encourage people to search more.

Ryan:
Are you just starting to take a share of revenue now? I mean, maybe that’s a good business model for you based on the returns you’re talking.

Jon:
If people would, I’d be all for it. As soon as that gets to the CFO’s desk, it’s like, “Nope, sorry. Moving on.” The reality here though is that 59% of web visitors will use a search navigation and 15% would rather use the search than any other type of menu navigation.

Ryan:
Wow.

Jon:
So 59% will frequently use an internal search, and I think that that’s really helpful. I mean, they know what they want. They’re interested in a particular product, they want to know if you have it. So I think that the goal here, this is where a lot of brands say, “I want to increase my time on site.” And I always say, “That should never be your goal. Your goal should be to convert people as quickly and easily as possible. And if that takes them two minutes, it takes them two minutes, that’s great.” But if you see someone on your site for 30 minutes and you’re just like, “Oh, that’s great. My time on site’s really long.” It’s like, no, it’s not. That’s not a good goal. That means people are lost, they’re confused, they’re getting upset, they’re opening another window and searching, you’ve made it complicated to do what they want to do.
So if you run this on your site, you could try just adding friendly microcopy to your search bar, maybe include a key product or category for inspiration. You could expose the search bar on mobile. That’s always a big one. So many brands have a little magnifying glass and you have to click it to open search on mobile, and it just doesn’t work well. I would also recommend trying a white or a light background on the search bar to make it pop off the page.

Ryan:
So different than the general background of the page already.

Jon:
Exactly. Exactly.

Ryan:
So all you’re trying to do is draw eyeballs to it so they use it. Now, have you noticed much difference? Because I probably have five partners that all do site search. My point for most of my clients is just do something. But I know the default search on BigCommerce or Shopify’s often not the best, but at least getting them to use it will help prove that, hey, it does something, now you can invest in a search tool maybe.

Jon:
Yes. And we could do a whole episode, and maybe we should, on improving your site search. At a high level, you want to look at your Google Analytics and see what are the most search terms, go search those yourself and see what the results are. Hopefully, you won’t punch your screen, but a lot of brands probably do because the results are not great because they have not taken the time to tune those. And really, the best thing that Shopify can do is look at your product descriptions, so make sure that what the search terms are are in your product descriptions or your product titles, and that will really help them to get surfaced up appropriately. Now there’s a whole bunch of plug-ins around site search, things of that sort of product search that can be helpful. Really, all of those plug-ins are helping you do is add metadata that can be searched. So you still have that manual work to do either way, but it can be helpful to have a tool kind of guide you through that.

Ryan:
All right, enhance people using site search. All right. Your final, the pinnacle of all of Jon’s idea of… We might have already hit the pinnacle actually, but this is the last one in the podcast.

Jon:
It’s going to be hard to top a $3 million gain.

Ryan:
It’s going to be, but we can try. So this one, you’ve titled the buy box, which sounds super cool.

Jon:
Yeah.

Ryan:
So how do we test the buy box when we’re not on Amazon?

Jon:
Well, every product detail page has a buy box. This is where you first come to a product detail page, it’s typically the top right of that page. Really, what we’re suggesting here is you dig into the content of that buy box area on a PDP to find areas for optimization. So you can test the buy box’s layout, product descriptions, adding reviews. And I love this just because when you optimize that buy box, you improve how quickly and easily customers understand your product and make a purchase. As I just said earlier, you want to facilitate that process of purchase as quickly and easily as possible, and that’s what this is going to help you do.
So let’s get into more specifics about this, because that’s a big area to test, there’s a lot you could do here, but what we did is, for one client, we saw heat maps and session recordings show us that people were interacting in a interesting way on mobile product pages with this buy box. So what they were doing was they were struggling to see product images, which really just led to a lot of lack of engagement because they get frustrated with the images and then, they would just bounce from there because they wanted more details.
So we tested a new layout. Instead of placing the product images first, we prioritized the product name and description and put the images a little bit further down. So what that meant was before people would start getting frustrated scrolling through the images, we would give them more context, give them a title and a little description, and then show them the images. And restacking the content in that way by just clearly decluttering and reorganizing that resulted in a 26% increase in conversions. So we got another quarter of users to actually purchase off the site because of this.
So it’s a huge opportunity area here, and it can be as simple as just reorganizing the content. It doesn’t have to be anything more than that. Just reorder it into a way that makes more sense. So moving content around just helps understand where and what the customer needs to make a purchase decision. And you can test those, put that key product information above the fold, especially on mobile and stop creating guesswork for the consumer, that’s really what you’re doing by just showing images.

Ryan:
Yeah, it’s so easy to add on things that you’ve heard about that will clutter up everything around the add to cart checkout button. I’ve seen people stuff review stars in there, they’ve stuffed like the five different payment types in addition to multi-pay. And it’s like, “I’m guessing if you’ve got a site, you’ll have a way for me to check out. I don’t need to know that you take Apple Pay, Google Pay, Amazon Pay, Visa. I mean, who cares?”

Jon:
I tell people this all the time, but when was the last time you were on a e-commerce site that did not take at least one form of payment that you had available to you? Right.

Ryan:
Slightly been very long.

Jon:
Right. Look, I guarantee you it’ll take at least one form of your money. So you don’t need to tell people that until they’re in checkout.

Ryan:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think there’s a tremendous opportunity to remove friction that… And I mean, even from no fault of the owner, just a lot of these plugins will automatically hijack that once you put it on your site like, “Oh yeah, I do want to go with Affirm or Afterpay or Klarna,” and then it’s all over your buy button for their branding purposes, not necessarily yours.

Jon:
Yep. Yep. It’s a challenge. So I guess, the key here is just to remember, less is more. Don’t be shy about cutting. Get that knife out and just cut out the things that aren’t working well on that page or reorder it. Right.
One thing I always like to do, and is really helpful here, take a screenshot of your product detail page, especially that above the fold area, cut out the individual elements. So print it out, sorry, cut out the individual elements and then rearrange them a little bit on your table and then that will give you a lot of options for how you can do that. There’s a lot of other ways to do it, but I like taking it to paper right away for things like this because if you work on a computer and do it in Canva or Figma or whatever tool you want, you really don’t think about it as much because it’s so easy to move those pixels around. But when you print it out and have it there, you start thinking more about why people would engage with that. So I like getting off the computer for something like that, that helps out with a lot.

Ryan:
That’s awesome. All right, we’ve gotten five points from you. Obviously, you don’t run five tests at a time, I’m guessing. That would be-

Jon:
No, I would do one of these at a time. Or the reality is, test one thing on your PDP, test one thing on your category page, test one thing on your homepage. So that was part of why I chose five that were in different areas of your site.

Ryan:
Okay. Well, if you’re getting this podcast at the very beginning of the year in ’23, so you’ve just finished holiday, anybody should be able to get through all of these tests before the next holiday season kicks in.

Jon:
Oh, I would hope so.

Ryan:
And you should have a better performing site without a doubt if you’re able to execute these.

Jon:
Well, let’s look at this way, even if it takes you two months to test each of these, you’ve done five high impact areas and you still are done before Black Friday, Cyber Monday.

Ryan:
If you’re listening to this and you haven’t done these yet, you’re dumb not to do them. You have to do them.

Jon:
Get started now.

Ryan:
I’ll go on record on that one. There’s my ’23 prediction, if you don’t do Jon’s five tests, you’re going to be disappointed in yourself at the end of the year.

Jon:
I love it. All right.

Ryan:
All right. Anything else we got to finish up with, Jon? Any last parting nuggets?

Jon:
I would say give them a shot, go from there and make sure you’re testing them and taking these as high level ideas and implementing what’s best for your site and going from there. But the key is just always be testing.

Ryan:
Yeah, I thought it was, always be closing, but Jon’s going change that to always test-

Jon:
Testing leads to closing as you saw, $3 million, a quarter percent more conversions.

Ryan:
Three million, 25% increase. Yeah, the numbers make sense, they don’t lie.

Jon:
There you go.

Ryan:
Thank you, Jon.

Jon:
Thank you, Ryan.

Announcer:
Thanks for listening to Drive and Convert with Jon MacDonald and Ryan Garrow. To keep up to date with new episodes, you can subscribe at driveandconvert.com.

The post Drive and Convert (Ep. 073): 5 Tests To Run On (Almost) Any Ecommerce Site appeared first on The Good.

But the big secret of writing effective website copy is that people really don’t care. Yes, even your current and prospective customers. Sounds a bit harsh, but it’s true. We live in a world where the human brain is bombarded with marketing constantly, and most of it sounds like a whole lot of chest-thumping and bragging.

Of course, that’s not what the people writing the messages mean to do. They’re simply proud of the company and its products and are excited to share that information with customers. While this urge is understandable, it is not going to help you sell more.

What will help you? If your copywriting focuses on making it all about the customer’s favorite person in the whole world: themself.

This is where the StoryBrand framework comes to the rescue. Donald Miller created it in his best-selling book Building a StoryBrand. And it has become the go-to for many business owners who want to write copy that sells.

In this article, we will break down exactly what you can learn from StoryBrand, and how to implement similar strategies for your own ecommerce store.

What is the StoryBrand Framework?

StoryBrand has an incredibly simple and wildly effective seven-step framework for developing your marketing plan or marketing message.

1. Begin with the hero of the story—your customer—and what they want. Keep it clear with a single thing customers want from your brand.
2. Define your customer’s problem—the problem you can solve for them. People are looking at what you offer because they have a pain point or an issue they need a solution for, and you need to understand it to sell them that solution.
3. Position yourself as the customer’s guide, not their hero. Don’t talk about what your business is trying to do, but do tell them how what you sell will help them win their next battle.
4. Give them a simple three-step roadmap for success. Your visitor probably isn’t ready to buy now, but you can show them how easy it will be to work with you when they’re ready for that step.
5. Call them to take an action, like buying now or signing up for a call from your sales team. Your CTA should be clear and prominent on your site so customers know exactly what you want them to do.
6. Tell them how you’ll help them avoid failure by painting a picture of what negative consequences they will face without you as their trusted guide. You need to tell them what’s at stake in this purchase decision.
7. Finally, show them what success looks like once they partner with you. This is where you paint them a picture with your website copy and images that show them what their life will look like when their problem is solved.

This is a broad overview of what the StoryBrand framework looks like in practice—for an in-depth discussion of everything that goes into those stages, check out the official StoryBrand website.

And we’ve got a breakdown of exactly what each of these steps looks like for an ecommerce company coming below.

Why the StoryBrand 7-Part Framework Works

Another simple way to break down the StoryBrand formula into a marketing strategy you can use is this three-step process.

You can see here that the path to writing great website copy begins by thinking about the customer’s needs. Who are they, what pain are they currently experiencing, and how do they dream it will be resolved?

This framing is effective because it focuses on the customer, not the business. If you want customers to listen to you, you need to talk about them (don’t we always love to hear people talk about us?)

And it’s not just about speaking to their ego—it also lets them know that you understand their internal problem and external problems, which builds trust. That’s why the StoryBrand approach works.

The Power of Stories

The other reason StoryBrand is such an effective way to look at your marketing copy is right in the name—it tells a good story. Humans are innately drawn to stories over a list of accolades, testimonials and facts.

That’s why we love movies like Gladiator. You probably can’t name many other Roman emperors or their successors, but the compelling world that the film creates around its historical characters make Ancient Rome come alive in a wholly memorable way—and so we can talk conversationally about Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus.

This is the effect you want your website copy to have on your audience. They should feel connected to your story, see themselves in it, and want to learn more about what you can help them do.

Telling Your Story for Ecommerce Brands

StoryBrand is powerful, but it’s not a magic bullet—it is simply an easy-to-use framework that you can learn from when you’re writing your website copy.

And there are some differences that ecommerce brands need to know specifically. The StoryBrand framework is directed primarily at service-based businesses that provide a single service.

For ecommerce businesses that sell multiple products, you will need to adjust the classic framework to your particular circumstances.

Instead of working to keep your website visitors on your homepage, for example, you will want to write copy that encourages them to go to your product pages. Those product pages should each tell the story of a different problem, and how the product solves it.

You’ll also want to be sure you’re featuring the most exciting products on your home page to encourage users to go there right away. Don’t distract them with a lot of content about your business upfront. Show them the goods!

Ecommerce businesses will also need to focus on the complete customer journey in the website more than a business offering a single service. Since you want your visitors to click on multiple product pages and then check out, all of those pages must load super fast, or you risk losing potential buyers.

No matter how great your copy is, you will also need a great customer experience to increase conversion rates.

The StoryBrand BrandScript for Ecommerce

It’s all well and good to tell you about the StoryBrand marketing framework—but what does it really look like? Let’s take a look at a hypothetical company that sells designer shoes online.

First, they would go through the seven StoryBrand steps and answer the questions there. This can be done by talking with people across their organization as well as customers. Consequently, those conversations about customers’ problems become important data. They are how you get the most accurate view of what your company does for, and means to, customers.

Here’s what the results of those conversations look like in the StoryBrand framework:

1. The Hero: Their ideal customers are fashion-forward high-income young professionals. They want to stand out to their peers as the trendsetters they are through their footwear.
2. The Pain Point: Their problem is that in a world with lots of expensive shoes to buy, they have trouble finding the unusual, avant-garde ones. They are busy with their jobs and don’t have time to spend searching in lots of retailers to find the shoes they want—which is not what everyone else has.
3. The Guide: The designer or shoe retailer is their guide in this search, helping them stay on top of the latest international trends, all in one place with an exceptional customer experience.
4. The Plan: The retailer has a plan for enticing new customers, as shown by two placements on their homepage: a selection of the latest new products, and a one or two-line overview of their concierge service that helps users find their size or style if it’s out of stock.
5. The CTA: The call to action is that classic “Shop Now” button, floating prominently over a selection of the coolest shoe styles from around the world.
6. The Vision of Failure: If the shopper doesn’t purchase from this brand, the copy suggests, they’ll be doomed to a life of wearing the same shoes as every other colleague in their office.
7. The Picture of Success: Finish with images of delighted uber-trendy customers in their one-of-a-kind shoes strolling in their neighborhood on their way to some fabulous activity, and a brief tagline summarizing that feeling in words.

Once you’ve written out the answers to each of these steps, you have your BrandScript. It’s a concise way of describing how your business helps your customers live a better life. You can use it for your website copy or creating other marketing materials.

Of course, this is just a potential framework. You don’t need to follow every step to the letter. It’s an effective way of getting into the mindset of your potential customers when you write your website copy. You can still find ways to tell your brand story without hurting conversions—this is one way to do that.

StoryBrand Website Examples

Lund Leather’s website is a great StoryBrand ecommerce example. They use a clear CTA and minimalist but effective copywriting. Moreover, you’ll find great images of their products to draw in visitors and convert them to customers.

Umble Coffee also uses the StoryBrand guidelines for its website. It focuses the copy entirely on who the customer is and why this coffee is a solution to help them make their lives better.

Perfect Your Website Copy

The StoryBrand seven-step process helps business owners think through what their business provides for customers and helps them articulate that vision through their website copy.

Your website needs to talk about what matters to your customers in order to stand out from all the other marketing noise. If you can get that clear message right, you’re well on your way to increased conversions. This, in turn, means more successful ecommerce business.

The post Improve Your Website With The StoryBrand Framework & Other Copywriting Tactics appeared first on The Good.

This blog is based on our podcast episode with Erik Jacobson, a podcasting expert and the CEO and founder of Lemonpie and Hatch. Listen to the full episode for more thoughts how on-demand audio is changing and how it is affecting the media landscape.

For ecommerce brands, finding marketing channels that aren’t oversaturated can be challenging, to say the least.

And while many brands have utilized podcast advertising as a way of driving sales (think Casper, Stamps.com, etc.), far fewer have used podcasting itself as a marketing channel.

The Power of Podcasts

Podcasts are not new, by any means. They’ve been around since the mid-2000s, with shows like This American Life and Radiolab being relatively familiar household names.

However, in many ways we are still in the early stages of podcasting. In 2021, 41% of people in the United States said they listened to a podcast in the last month. And while that’s a significantly higher number of people than 10 years ago, there is obviously still much room for growth.

Nevertheless, podcasts are creating major shifts in consumer behavior. 

According to Statistia, the number of podcast listeners is projected to increase by 20 million people each year for the next two years, up to 160 million in 2023.

Just like streaming services have disrupted how we consume video content, podcasts are causing a major shift in the way audio content is consumed. Major podcast platforms like Apple and Spotify are aware of this and are betting significant sums of money on the continued growth of podcasts.

For example, between 2019 – 2020, Spotify spent approximately $600 million to acquire multiple popular podcast networks along with Anchor FM, a tool that makes it easy to create and host podcasts.

Why are podcasts such an effective marketing channel? Two primary reasons:

• They reach listeners in moments that other media doesn’t penetrate
• They capture a much greater portion of people’s attention than other forms of marketing

Consider when people listen to podcasts. It’s normally while they’re doing something else, such as walking the dog or driving. Historically, capturing people’s attention during these moments has been difficult, with your only options being relatively ineffective methods like radio ad spots or billboards.

But with podcasts, you have the mostly undivided attention of the listeners. You’re not one email among many in a crowded inbox. You’re not yet another ad in someone’s Facebook feed. Instead of interrupting someone’s activity, like many marketing channels, you’re actually enhancing it.

And while there certainly has been an explosion in the number of podcasts created in recent years, ecommerce brands have been much slower to get into the podcasting game. There is a unique window of opportunity for ecommerce brands to leverage podcasting for their advantage.

How should they go about doing that? Consider the two following approaches.

The Podcast Tour

A podcast tour is when a key individual within a company, such as the CEO, Head of Marketing, or Head of Product, makes guest appearances on multiple relevant podcasts. The guest appearance usually takes the form of an interview, although other formats are certainly possible.

What many ecommerce brands don’t realize is that there are many podcasts already in existence that appeal directly to their core audience, and that by appearing on those podcasts, they can not only drive awareness about their brand, but also expose their brand to a highly targeted audience of potential buyers.

For example, say your brand sells running shoes. By making guest appearances on multiple running podcasts, you can highlight your expertise and provide valuable insights to an audience that genuinely cares about what you have to say.

This is very different from running an ad spot on a podcast and directly pitching your product. Instead of simply trying to convince people to buy your product, you’re genuinely adding value to people’s lives, and as a result, you form a connection with the audience.

With other forms of marketing, you only get a fraction of people’s attention, and it’s usually from a completely cold standpoint. You have to interrupt whatever it is they’re doing and try to get their attention for a very brief period of time.

But with podcasts, you’ve earned their full attention and have the opportunity to build a relationship with them over time, forge deeper connections, and drive your brand awareness through the roof.

The value of a podcast tour in particular is that people usually listen to a variety of shows in the same vertical. This means that if you get interviewed on multiple shows, there’s a good chance you’ll get in front of the same people multiple times, and some of those people will value what you say enough to become a customer.

The marketing truism that you need at least seven interactions with a prospect before they will convert to a customer certainly applies to podcasting. Appearing on multiple podcasts gives you the opportunity to interact with your target audience at different stages in the customer journey, ultimately leading to more conversions.

And perhaps best of all, doing a podcast tour is essentially free, other than the time required. Yes, you can hire a company to handle the booking process, which can significantly simplify the process, but that’s not a requirement. If you’re willing to invest the time, you can do all the necessary steps yourself.

The ROI Of Podcasts

One of the big reasons that brands tend to avoid podcasts as a marketing strategy is that it can be difficult to measure the impact. With most other forms of digital marketing, you can measure precisely how many clicks and conversions you generate. With podcasts, this is harder to do since you typically don’t have a dedicated link or landing page for each podcast you appear on.

However, the challenge of tracking the ROI of podcast appearances doesn’t mean you should avoid them. The typical pattern is that after an interview goes live, there is almost always an accompanying spike in organic traffic and customer purchases. So though you may not be able to measure every attribution point like you can with other forms of digital marketing, there’s no doubt that it drives results.

Backlinks and SEO

Another key benefit of doing guest interviews on podcasts is that it almost always boosts your SEO. Two reasons for this.

First and foremost, it’s very common to link back to the website of the guest within the show notes. Relevant, authoritative backlinks are a significant ranking factor for the Google algorithm and more backlinks translates into higher rankings.

Second, podcast appearances function as positive off-site brand signals. The more Google sees positive mentions of your brand across the internet, the more they assume you are an authoritative and trusted source of information. This also boosts search rankings.

Creating Your Own Podcast

If you want to take things a step further, creating your own branded podcast can be a powerful way of increasing brand awareness and building an audience.

When getting started with a podcast, spend the majority of your time thinking through your strategy and content. Determine:

• What goals you want to achieve through podcasting
• What types of content your audience would benefit most from
• What you can bring to the table to differentiate yourself from your competitors

Don’t get lost in the weeds of what equipment and tactics to use. That information is easy to find with a simple Google search.

Rather, focus on creating a podcast that your audience will be eager to listen to. Think about what your customers would want in a podcast, what your core goals are as a brand, and how you can bring those two things together in a compelling way.

Creating Super Fans

It’s critical to remember that the majority of your audience isn’t primarily interested in the nitty-gritty details of the new materials you’re using in your hoodies or shoes or whatever it is that you sell. They want to listen to something that’s engaging and adds value to their lives in some way.

There are multiple ways to do this. You might do individual, stand-alone episodes where you interview experts in your industry. Or you might create a serialized podcast where you tell a story from start to finish. Or you might do a mix of both over time. The goal is simply to consistently create audio content that resonates with your audience and helps you build a group of super fans.  

For example, Bulletproof Coffee founder Dave Asprey has a show where he interviews experts about nutrition, biohacking, and other aspects of health that matter to Bulletproof customers. Though he’s not necessarily directly promoting Bulletproof products, the podcast builds brand equity and helps establish a connection with their ideal customers.

Bare Performance Nutrition founder Nick Bare has a YouTube channel where he takes people behind the scenes of running the company, showing the ingredients they use, why certain ones didn’t make the cut, etc. Both strategies help form a bond with the audience and serve to promote the brands without directly promoting them like an advertisement.

Seize The Moment Podcasting For Ecommerce

While not many ecommerce brands are currently leveraging podcasting like they could be, don’t expect this trend to continue. Podcasts are only going to continue to grow in popularity, and it won’t be long before more ecommerce brands hop on the bus.

If the best time to start leveraging podcasts was three years ago, the second best time is now. If the thought of starting a podcast is intimidating to you, begin with a podcast tour. That will help you get comfortable with the format, etiquette, etc. Once you’ve done that, you can decide whether you want to host your own.

Whatever the case, don’t wait around. Seize the moment before someone else does.

The post The Power of Podcasting For Ecommerce Brands & How To Get Started appeared first on The Good.

So why do we assume that in creative work, we will immediately have the best idea or deliver unbelievable results? 

Ask a room full of business people how many see themselves as creative and you are likely to receive some blank stares or commentary about how bad they are at drawing. 

As an ecommerce UX designer, this perspective is damaging. But still, I sometimes find myself getting caught up in the idea that you either have creativity or you don’t. 

The reality is, it’s a muscle you have to exercise and strengthen just like any other. 

I recently read Creative Confidence by IDEO founders Tom and David Kelley which outlined how to help companies and individuals boost creativity in their work. The book is broken down into eight chapters, including a section with exercises designed to get people out of their comfort zones and into a space of innovation. 

Below are my five biggest takeaways from the book for aspiring ecommerce UX designers, and insights on how we live out these ideas and boost creativity in our own work at The Good. 

1. Apply a Growth Mindset to Your Work

How many times have you been given a problem and thought or said “I can’t” or “this won’t work”? 

This is a fixed mindset or the belief that intelligence or creativity are immutable characteristics that cannot be changed. 

This mindset limits us and makes us so afraid of failure or embarrassment that we avoid risks and end up sabotaging long-term opportunities simply because we are afraid to admit what we don’t know. 

Conversely, a growth mindset is when you believe creativity and knowledge are like a muscle that must be trained over time with persistence. It gives us the chance to improve in small, incremental ways that add up big over time. 

We encourage a growth mindset amongst our clients and our team by living out our core value of “Make Improvements Not Excuses.” We are a team of lifelong learners who understand the value of growth through practice, not perfection. 

A fixed mindset tells us that receiving critical feedback means you are not measuring up or have personally failed. However, a growth mindset allows us to take feedback as an opportunity to improve our work and grow in our discipline.

2. Early Failure is a Key to Long-Term Success

David and Tom Kelley write about failure a lot in Creative Confidence as something to embrace rather than avoid. 

Early failure in a project helps us find weaknesses and correct them in the innovation cycle. Owning a setback allows us to actually learn what to do differently in the future. 

Psychologist Albert Bandura discusses this in his work around curing phobias: giving people small successes to focus on can help them overcome limiting beliefs and build creative confidence. 

An easy way to learn “quick, easy, and cheap” is through prototyping. Prototypes can be as rudimentary as a drawing on a napkin and as high fidelity as an interactive digital mockup. 

They give us the latitude to quickly test ideas to understand the best pathway forward.

Here’s an example of a low fidelity mockup of a zoo app that I created in a course. Taking this first step gave me and my peers a starting point to work off of. 

As we continued working on the prototype, we found weak points and areas for improvement that led us to the more polished version. Below you can see the high fidelity mockup of the same zoo app once we iterated on it as a team. 

While the first version was far from perfect, it gave us ideas on how to improve and helped guide us to our final product. 

When you approach challenges this way, failure is no longer a scary word but a part of the innovation process. 

At The Good, we take it one step further when designing multivariate tests for our clients. A failed test does not garner blame or frustration but is labeled a “learner” or an opportunity to iterate and improve an experience for the future. 

3. Be an Empathetic Detective

At the heart of all the work we do as creative professionals is the end-user. 

Cultivating curiosity and empathy for your users is the best way to create better experiences for them and in turn, helps us boost creativity.

 It is all too easy to fall back on what we already know, especially with time constraints and budgets to consider. So how do we conduct research in a way that helps us develop valuable insights?

Below are a few strategies:

• Apply a beginner’s mind to everyday tasks, what do you notice that you normally would not?
• Instead of simply looking at what competitors are doing, cultivate empathy for your users and what their perspectives and needs are.
• Look for ways to update and refresh your worldview. Field observations help you notice details that you wouldn’t otherwise pick up in structured interviews.
• Ask why, then keep asking why. Are you gaining new insights from user interviews or just hearing what you expect?
• Use customer journey mapping to get in the mindset of your users. Look for insights, patterns, and anything that can be improved. This is such a critical strategy behind how to boost creativity and build a better experience for customers, that our team created an informative video on the subject. 

4. Collaboration is Key

The fact is, creativity does not happen in a vacuum. It requires input from all the disciplines contributing to a project or goal. 

Multidisciplinary teams keep our perspective fresh and create a system where sharing ideas is encouraged. 

Teams that have creative confidence are ones that have a back and forth culture where team members ask “what can I do to improve this concept” rather than “that won’t work” or “that is a bad idea.” They share ownership of a project because that gives everyone a stake in successes and failures. 

A great way to foster this creative collaboration is to designate a time for open discussion and ideation. We have weekly and monthly meetings dedicated to internal reviews of our work and brainstorms. Anyone on the team can attend and anyone can bring a topic to cover. These meetings create a culture of internal feedback and collaboration. 

David and Tom Kelley recommend thinking of each team member as a superhero. What are their strengths? What is their kryptonite (weaknesses)? How can you best draw on strengths and diminish weaknesses during a project lifecycle? 

Great teams are diverse. They are not afraid of uncomfortable conversations and are prepared to bring their whole selves to work which allows us to understand their unique perspective.

5. Just Do It

Not just Nike’s famed catchphrase, the principle of “just do it” applies to building creative confidence and boosting creativity as well. 

“If you want to make something great, you have to start making.” 

In the workplace, this can be challenging especially when faced with a problem that has no clear solution. Instead of being a passive observer, tackle a doable piece of the problem. 

Get started, even if your start feels inconsequential. Prototyping comes into play here as a low-stakes way to get ideas flowing and engage the team/clients in the story you are trying to convey. 

Test your prototypes with users, get feedback, and iterate. 

If you are a procrastinator, try reframing. Replace ‘procrastinate’ with the word ‘resistance’ and you may realize that the gap between thinking and action is something you can bridge.

Leverage Your Inner “Ecommerce UX Designer” To Boost Creativity

Creativity is something that must be worked and stretched to become a practice that feels comfortable, like any muscle. 

Design thinking should not be siloed between our work and personal lives. In fact, design thinking pervades every aspect of our lives. 

In our work at The Good we use a human-centered approach to solve challenges. Working as a team helps us keep ideas flowing and provides fresh perspectives. 

We set goals and find ways to go beyond what we even thought was possible. 

We see problems and take action to solve them. 

Don’t let fear of failure and the thought that you are “not creative” limit you from what you can achieve. We can all benefit from design thinking and applying the key principles of creative confidence to our lives.

The post 5 Tips To Boost Creativity From An Ecommerce UX Designer appeared first on The Good.

As social creatures, humans are hard-wired to respond to social proof and the wisdom of crowds. That’s the psychology behind the effectiveness and rise of online reviews. 

In fact, as ecommerce has grown, online reviews have been one of the key tools that build and retain consumer trust. According to Baymard Institute, 95% of users rely on reviews to evaluate or learn more about products. In some cases, users grant more weight to product descriptions in reviews than the brand’s native product description. User reviews are the most utilized part of the product page after images. 

This means that reviews have become an expected element of the ecommerce shopping experience. As an ecommerce brand, it’s now essential to include customer reviews as a central part of your strategy. 

In this definitive guide to online customer reviews, we will give you all the tools you need to get the most out of your online reviews.

Why Your Ecommerce Site Needs Online Reviews: They Boost Conversions

Social influence is powerful. The percent of people who trust online reviews in their buying decisions is greater than ever. In fact, 84% of shoppers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation from friends and family.

Let’s go over some reasons online reviews are important and how they influence conversions. 

1. Online reviews are part of the customer journey

We’ve spoken to several ecommerce site managers who don’t allow customers to submit reviews of products. They’ve done this intentionally for many reasons: They fear receiving a negative review, they don’t have enough resources to monitor the reviews, or they just don’t know where to begin. The simple answer for them was to remove the ability for customer-generated reviews altogether. They eliminated the problem by ignoring it. 

Unfortunately, by doing this they also eliminated a valuable piece of the customer buying experience.

No matter your industry, having positive online reviews gives you several key advantages that all boost conversions. For example, Seriously Silly Socks (an online sock retailer) was able to drive 60% higher average order value due to reviews. “We encourage reviews by emailing customers after purchase and offering a discount coupon in return for a completed review,” says owner Andrew Gill.

“It’s probably our most important social tool. More important than channels like Facebook because we get more direct communication with customers and we get real feedback about our products and our service.”

The following is an example that we see frequently while evaluating customer online shopping journeys. As you can see, reviews are an important part of that journey to purchase. If you don’t offer reviews, your customers can’t complete their journey. 

2. Reviews make your site more visible

Obviously you want your site to be as visible as possible in organic search. Online reviews can actually help with that. When search engines like Google and Bing categorize your site, they place a value on original content, but product pages are traditionally hard to rank due to light content. 

According to online review platform Yotpo, reviews offer SEO benefits by providing a stream of fresh content, helping your rank for long-tail keywords, and boosting social SEO. This graph shows the change in organic rankings due to reviews. 

3. Online reviews build trust with shoppers

Trust is a critical component of a customer’s shopping experience. If they don’t trust your brand, they won’t take the plunge of making a purchase. 

It’s a simple equation: Few people will buy from a business with less than 3/5 stars. Most people prefer to shop at stores that have mostly 4/5 stars. A slim group of people will only buy from stores with perfect scores. Therefore, better ratings mean more trust. 

4. Online reviews help you communicate with customers

Online reviews give you a forum to communicate with your customers. You can respond to their praises and their complaints. This gives you a chance to rectify problems and show other customers that you care about their experience.

Better communication through reviews can create more reviews, as well. For example, MedQuest was able to significantly improve its ratings and review volume by responding faster to both negative and positive responses. Their review volume soared on Facebook by 163% and on Google by 23%.

5. Online reviews have an undeniable impact on sales

This is the biggest benefit and the one you probably care about the most. 

A study by the Harvard Business School learned that online reviews have a real effect on your bottom line. A one-star improvement leads to a 5% to 9% boost on sales in the short term. Even a small improvement can have a massive impact.

In a 2016 study, Revoo discovered that online reviews drive an average of 18% sales uplift by affecting conversion rates, order sizes, and repeat orders. And a Berkeley study found that just a half-star improvement for a restaurant made it 30% to 49% more likely to fill up during its busy hours. 

Additionally, one report found that products with more than five reviews have a significantly higher conversion rate than those with no reviews. “As products begin displaying reviews, conversion rates escalate rapidly,” the report notes. “The purchase likelihood for a product with five reviews is 270% greater than the purchase likelihood of a product with no reviews.”

Furthermore, the report also found a relationship between conversion rate and price: As a product’s price increases, so does the importance of reviews. “When reviews were displayed for a lower-priced product, the conversion rate increased 19%. However, for a higher-priced product, the conversion rate increased 380%.”

The pattern here is clear: If people see lots of positive online reviews, they are more likely to make a purchase, spend more money, and make future purchases. 

Where to Set Up Online Reviews on Your Ecommerce Site

Customers expect to see reviews at the product level, so every product page should have the functionality to leave and read comments. These typically sit lower on the page, beneath the product image, description, details, and add-to-cart button. 

The following example captures many of the traditional elements of a customer review section. Your page layout may need to be tested to ensure that the placement of comments flows appropriately with your customer’s unique journey.

Depending on your unique audience, it may be appropriate to add additional details to the reviewer’s information to lend credibility to the review. This helps customers accept a reviewer is a real person and not a clever ploy by the retailer. 

These additional details may include using their real first names instead of usernames or nicknames. This can be done by connecting their review to their account on your site or by requiring customers to leave a review tied to a social media account. 

Other additional reviewer details may include:

1. Profile picture or an avatar
2. “Customer/member since” date
3. Number of reviews written for your company
4. Reviewer qualifications, such as age, description, skill level/experience, etc. 
5. Description of pros & cons or likes & dislikes
6. Explanations of how the product has performed for them personally

The following review widget is a good example of this. It includes lots of detailed information about the reviewer, such as their username, profile picture, date of stay, trip type, and review date. It screams authenticity. 

Ecommerce Online Review Platforms

There are a variety of customer review systems out there, each with different pros and cons. 

Many of the popular ecommerce platforms like Shopify, Woocommerce, Magento, and others offer built-in product review apps or allow for custom add-ons. So the technical barrier to enable reviews on these platforms is low. 

Depending on your platform, you may need to implement a third-party review system. Here are some options:

• Yotpo
• TrustPilot
• Feefo
• Bazaarvoice
• eKomi
• ReeVoo
• Trustspot
• Yelp
• PowerReviews

We recommend using a review system that allows you to subscribe to their software as a service, rather than developing code to add to your site. This keeps all the work of maintaining code, upgrading features, and security/privacy concerns in the vendor’s court instead of yours. 

These services manage the process of capturing, moderating, and displaying reviews and questions from customers. They also automatically send out review request emails to customers after they’ve purchased a product from your site. This feature alone will significantly and organically boost reviews, which can be requested for your site or for specific products.

For custom or proprietary ecommerce systems, contact your web design and development teams to discuss your options. If you need help, we’d be happy to recommend our favorites that we have seen work best to increase engagement and online sales.

How to Get Online Reviews From Your Ecommerce Customers

“Okay, okay,” you’re probably thinking. “I get that reviews are important. So how do I get them?”

Once you’ve enabled customers to leave reviews, the reviews will start pouring in, right? Wrong. 

Studies show that only about 5% of customers write reviews. Many times, customers will only leave reviews if they had an exceptionally positive or exceptionally negative experience. Getting good, relevant feedback doesn’t have to just be the exceptional extremes. 

So how do you get more of your customers to leave reviews on your site?

It seems pretty basic, but the most effective strategy to get online reviews is to simply ask for them. Post-purchase customer outreach can be an effective method to remind your customers that their feedback matters. Their feedback will help others decide to make a purchase as well as help your company to improve future product development.

How do you ask a customer for a review?

Time the request appropriately

Send an email to every customer requesting a review. The request should occur after the customer has had a reasonable amount of time to receive the product and provide an informed opinion. You don’t have to be long-winded here. Keep things short and simple. 

Seed the review with suggestions

Provide suggested topics for the reviewer to write about in their review. Use positive action words to encourage highlighting the strengths of the product. E.g. “Describe your increased productivity after buying this product.”

That said, do not instruct them on what to write. If you give your customers explicit copy for them to post, they will either a) ignore you, b) write something different just to spite you, or c) mention your instructions in the review itself, which would obliterate the trust and authenticity you’re trying to build with online reviews in the first place. 

Offer incentives (if possible)

Whenever possible (and not prohibited by law), providing a small discount on a future purchase in exchange for a review can be an effective way to incentivize the customer into action.

Provide a link to a customized landing page

Make the path for the customer to complete their task as simple as possible. In this case, provide them with a link to a page that has already been set up with a list of their recent purchases and open text fields to complete the reviews. 

If allowed, embed a single sign-on action into the link or any other method that allows an automatic login to their account. Make the amount of effort for your customers as low as possible. 

There’s no perfect template for this email but here is an example that ties all of these elements together:

Don’t post your own fake reviews

Do the steps above seem daunting to you? Are you tempted to bypass the effort by creating a set of fake users to leave fake reviews that make the products more appealing?

Our answer to you is simple: Do not post fake reviews. Savvy customers are able to sniff out the obvious fraudulent reviews quite easily. In this way, disingenuous companies that use fake reviews are often exposed. News organizations have published reports of companies who use fake reviews and even provide lists of how to spot a fake review. Simply put, the risk is not worth the reward.

How to Address Negative Online Reviews

Now that you have reviews up and running, it’s important to ensure that you have customer service staff monitoring the reviews and responding as needed. Many of the ecommerce platform apps have automatic notifications sent to your staff when a new comment arrives so they can be prompted to reply. 

Almost certainly at some point, a negative review will appear on your site. Don’t panic! 

First, it’s important to understand that negative reviews aren’t the end of the world. It would be great if all of your customers had only positive things to say, but that’s not reasonable. The occasional one-star review won’t be the end of your business. In fact, a few poor reviews can actually be beneficial.

You see, the customers want to trust the brands they buy from. Research from Edelman found that 81% of consumers want to trust a brand prior to making a purchase, and 70% indicate trusting a brand is more important now than ever before. 

In order to earn their trust, you have to be transparent. And that means displaying all types of feedback, even the kind of feedback that isn’t so flattering. When a shopper sees negative feedback, they see you as an honest brand that isn’t trying to hide anything. In turn, this makes them more trusting of the other reviews and your own words. 

That’s good in theory, but does it really produce more sales? Actually, yes! A Northwestern University study found that shoppers are more likely to purchase a product when there are some negative reviews present. 

In fact, researchers learned that there’s no benefit in chasing a five-star review. Purchase probability peaks between 4.2 and 4.5 stars (with some variation based on product categories). If the average rating exceeds 4.5, the likelihood of purchase actually drops. 

Here’s what the purchase probability for salon hair care products looks like. 

What causes this? Basically, consumers don’t trust products that have perfect scores. They assume a perfect five-star rating and miles of only-positive reviews mean something fishy is going on. They become skeptical and distrustful. They may even jump to the conclusion that you are deliberately filtering out the bad reviews to trick them. 

Furthermore, research shows that 85% of customers seek out negative reviews to help them make informed decisions. A third of shoppers say that a negative perspective is either an “important” or “very important” decision-making factor. 

How do negative online reviews influence their decisions?

1. Shoppers look for reasons to eliminate products from their search. When they are comparing multiple similar items together, they need a way to separate them to choose the one that’s right for them. 
2. Shoppers look for bad reviews to understand product limitations. If a poor review says a product is “not as waterproof as they claim,” a shopper may want to know that before they take the product near water. 
3. Shoppers want to know the worst case scenario. If a reviewer claims the product isn’t’ waterproof, the shopper knows to keep it away from water. Now they have knowledge to protect the product, which makes them more comfortable. 

Okay – So what, if anything, should you do about negative online reviews?

1. Don’t hide bad reviews

Avoid the temptation to filter out your negative reviews. Let them sit openly on your website as a layer of authenticity and transparency for your customers.

Furthermore, give your shoppers the ability to filter your reviews by rating. This way shoppers can look at all of your one-star ratings at once if they wanted. Notice how Aerie lets users filter by one-star rating, which reveals the poor reviews. 

2. Respond promptly, politely, and publicly

A poor review is an opportunity to improve a bad situation and possibly repair the relationship with your customer. Even if the customer is still unsatisfied, future customers will appreciate your reply.

Take the high road in the response because there’s no sense in engaging in a debate with your customer about your product. Do NOT use a generic, copy/paste response. Personalize your message to the reviewer’s specific claims. 

Here are some ways to handle negative reviews, whether they’re true or false:

Negative review where the statement is true: 

This customer has posted a comment about the product which, although maybe technically accurate, is highly negative. An example of this is shown in the example below. A particular product sent to a customer was found faulty so the customer expressed his displeasure in the review. It turns out that this comment helped the company to identify a supplier defect and issued a recall.

As this case demonstrates, the best response is to have a customer service representative investigate and respond promptly, politely, and publicly then take the conversation offline for resolution. Sometimes it can be appropriate to turn the negative comments around by highlighting the strengths of the product. 

For example, a negative comment about the oversized fit of a shirt that you sell can be turned into a selling point about the quality of the materials that don’t shrink when washed. Naturally, this should be coupled with an attempt to resolve the issue, like offering to return the customer’s shirt for an appropriately fitting size.

Negative review where the statement is false:

A customer has posted a new review complaining about a pair of running shoes they recently purchased that did not increase their fitness as the product imagery made it appear they could do. This customer is livid about the promises made to them by the company and vows to never purchase from them again. This review is both highly inaccurate and negative.

The best response is to have a customer service representative respond promptly, politely, and publicly by taking the high road. You know this statement is untrue but there is no need to engage in a debate or escalate the issue any further. If the comment is vulgar or defamatory then you can remove the review completely.

Not all reviews are negative and not all positive reviews are true. Here’s a takeaway reference guide to help you decide how to address comments.

3. Resolve the issue offline

Once future review readers see that you haven’t ignored the issue and have responded professionally, encourage the conversation to continue with customer service directly. Then ensure that the issue has been completely resolved.

4. Learn from the issue

Sometimes a negative review indicates an isolated issue. There’s not much you can do about it except to make it right for that one customer. But in other cases, a poor review might indicate a larger problem that deserves correction. They can help you identify issues with your products or services that you may not have been aware of. This is invaluable feedback they give you an opportunity to improve your business.

For instance, if a reviewer complains that a product was difficult to assemble because the pieces didn’t fit properly, you could bring that issue to your manufacturer and work to find a better way to produce or quality control the product.

If the feedback is helpful, share it with employees as learning opportunities and distribute feedback to the appropriate teams (e.g. product feedback to the product development team).

How The Good Can Help You

At The Good, we see customer reviews as a tremendous opportunity for companies to aid prospective customers on their journey by leveraging social proof. Every brand is different, but our data-backed processes and intelligent experiments are designed to create a solution that will resonate with your customers and rescue more sales. 

Learn more on your own by reading our book, “Opting In To Optimization.” You’ll learn a set of principles to help you and build a sustainable, thriving business that can weather unexpected economic storms.

Want specific help with your ecommerce business? As a part of our Conversion Growth Program, we form a plan to add and improve customer reviews.

The post The Definitive Guide to Online Customer Reviews appeared first on The Good.

Understanding the route your customers take to purchase means stepping into their shoes and getting to grips with their pain points, objections, and goals. Doing this will ensure you give them all the information they need, exactly when they need it. 

Building a strong ecommerce customer experience

The customer’s experience is everything for ecommerce brands. The sheer amount of competition means that if a customer isn’t happy with the service or can’t find what they’re looking for, there are plenty of other places for them to go. On the flip side, if you provide a stellar experience that’s smooth and enjoyable, there’s a good chance customers will come back and become loyal over time. 

In fact, a study by XM found:

• 72% of customers who have an “okay” experience are likely to buy again 
• 84% of customers who have a “good” experience are likely to buy again
• 94% of customers who have a “very good” experience are likely to buy again

Ramping up the customer experience from an “okay” experience to “very good” can improve the chances of customers returning by 22%.

But where do you even start? 

Identifying your customers’ key needs and pain points can feel daunting, especially if you don’t have a clear idea about who you’re serving. However, once you start to dig into the different stages of the customer journey, you can determine what customers need at each and every touchpoint. 

Enter the customer journey map. 

This is a visual representation of how customers move through your website, from the initial discovery of your brand right up until the point of sale and beyond. The benefits of customer journey mapping are self-evident, but it mostly helps identify user experience pain points and craft thoughtful experiences aimed at minimizing customer objections. 

Want a 12 minute walk-through of how to create a customer journey map?

What is a customer journey map? 

A customer journey map does exactly as it says on the tin: it illustrates the journey a customer might take with your brand. Essentially, it covers each step they take from start to finish, from how they find you to where they end up (whether that’s making a purchase or jumping ship to a competitor). 

Having a meaningful customer journey map is the first step in creating a strong conversion rate. The better you understand the journey your customers take, the easier it is to optimize each stage for more engagement and sales.

For example, a simple customer journey map for an ecommerce brand might look something like this: 

• Discovers the website via an Instagram ad
• Checks out the product page and reads several reviews
• Buys the product
• Shares their experience with others 
• Upgrades the product or replaces the product 

This is just a sample journey, and it’s often the case that no two customer journeys are the same (and they’re very rarely linear like this one). 

Some customers might skip one stage of the journey completely if they’ve received a solid recommendation from a friend, while others might hang around the research stage for a bit longer, especially if they’re buying a high ticket item. 

Don’t confuse the term customer journey with buyer lifecycle, either. 

It’s a common mistake ecommerce brands make, but defining the key differences between each one will help you take on a customer-centric mindset. 

The customer journey is all about understanding the route to purchase from the customer’s perspective, while the buyer lifecycle is understanding it from the business side. Put simply, the customer journey covers all of the customer-facing experiences that visitors to your ecommerce store will have. 

How to make a customer journey map in 5 steps

Creating a customer journey map means stepping into your customers’ shoes and documenting all of the potential touchpoints they might interact with. 

To start, it’s a good idea to gather a small group of three or four customer experts in a room. These should be people who understand your customers, what they want, and how they behave. For example, you might get a customer service rep, a marketer, a merchandiser, and a copywriter together, each of whom has a different kind of working knowledge about your customer base. 

Their diversity of embedded expertise will be useful in building a complete picture of what users experience, which you can use together with in-depth customer research, metrics, and hard data. 

As you’re creating your customer journey map, there are four things that should be at the front of your mind:

1. Actions: What actions customers are taking at each stage and how they are moving onto the next stage 
2. Motivations and emotions: Why the customer is motivated to move onto the next stage and what emotions they’re feeling as they do so
3. Questions, doubts, or objections: What questions, doubts, and objections are stopping customers from moving to the next stage 
4. Barriers: What barriers customers come up against that makes them hesitant to move forward

Now it’s time to get started. 

Step 1: Define your character and the situation 

At the root of every customer journey map is the customer. 

Every brand has a unique relationship with its customers, so it’s important that you understand who you’re dealing with. This involves going deeper than surface-level demographic information and digging into psychographic tendencies and customer behavior. 

You don’t need a fully-flushed customer persona to make this work. Instead, it’s about using the information you already know about your customers to outline what a user might go through before, during, and after a purchase. 

When defining the character whose journey you will map in this exercise think about someone who paints a clear picture for you. Here are two examples: 

• Katy: A working mom setting up her home gym
• Dean: A recent college graduate purchasing their first new car

Once you’ve landed on your character, you should be able to describe them in one sentence, but give them life with a few persona-like details. “Katy is a working mom. Her kids leave for school at 8 am and she has only a half-hour before she starts work. She’s motivated to make the most of that time by creating an efficient home gym.”

Crafting a character and a situation that your team can clearly envision will make it easy for the experts in the room to map a life-like customer journey in the steps to come. 

Step 2: Define the different stages of the customer journey

The common stages involved in the customer journey are awareness, consideration, and decision. Each stage demands different information for customers and requires a unique set of touchpoints in order to drive conversions. 

• Awareness: customers are just becoming aware that they have a problem that needs solving and are educating themselves on potential solutions 
• Consideration: customers know what solution they need and begin to research their options 
• Decision: customers settle on a product or service and make a purchase

Say, for example, a customer is looking for a new eco-friendly water bottle: 

• Awareness: they might have been using plastic bottles for a while and have read up about why they should change them for reusable bottles. 
• Consideration: once they’ve decided they need to buy an eco-friendly water bottle, they might start researching which ones are available (the answer: a lot) and spend some time trawling through product pages and comparing brands.
• Decision: at some point, there will be a clear winner, whether it’s because the bottle looks how they want it to look, uses the right materials, has great reviews, or is in their budget, and they will go ahead and buy it. 

There is also a post-purchase stage of the customer journey where customers turn into loyal, repeat buyers. 

Take the eco-friendly water bottle example again. While shoppers may not repeat the purchase for themselves, they might be interested in a gift for a friend or a complimentary reusable utensil step. 

Step 3: Define the steps in each stage

The aim is to move customers seamlessly from one stage to the next. At this point, you’ll need to know what customers need from you at each of these stages. It helps to have your customer research to hand here to identify the major pain points and objections buyers might have. 

Let’s use the eco-friendly water bottle example again and plot out the potential user goals for the customer journey: 

• Awareness: notice my recycling is always full and hear the media say that microplastics are bad, and that recycling doesn’t work
• Consideration: start thinking about how I can reduce plastic waste and look up search terms associated with this, like “best reusable bottle” 
• Decision: choose the company that aligns with my values and that I feel the most drawn to 

When you know the steps for each stage, you can then assign customer touchpoints that tie into these steps and help push customers through the journey. 

Step 4: Identify (and implement) touchpoints at each stage

The steps provide the backbone of your customer journey, and now it’s time to incorporate touchpoints that align with these steps. These touchpoints are where your customers might be interacting with content related to their purchase, such as ads, search engines, or via word-of-mouth. 

This might look something like this: 

• Awareness: blog posts, social media copy, and ads educating customers on the pros of eco-friendly bottles and a CTA to drive them to your site
• Consideration: testimonials, reviews, detailed product descriptions, and instant customer support to pitch your water bottle as the best and tackle any objections 
• Decision: videos of your water bottle in action, more reviews, and an easy checkout system 

Touchpoints can come in many shapes and sizes and refer to any moment a customer has contact with your brand (these are often dubbed “moments of truth”). Just remember that they should align with the goals you want to achieve at each stage. Keeping in mind all the places your customers might hear about or engage with your brand or product will help you create a more holistic ecosystem and uncover blind spots in your marketing strategies. 

They might include: 

• Online ads and social media campaigns
• Offline advertising methods
• Blog posts, ebooks, and on-site content
• Case studies
• Infographics and other visual media
• Social media posts 
• Email marketing messages 
• Customer support  
• Order confirmation 
• Packaging and delivery 

Don’t forget about the post-purchase touchpoints too, as the stronger these are the more likely a customer is to come back and buy from you again. 

Step 5: Tap into user thoughts and tackle any objections

Not every customer is going to make it all the way through the journey to purchase. 

Some might choose a competitor, or others might change their mind at the last minute. Whatever the timing, it helps to know why customers are likely to drop out of the journey so you can bolster the touchpoints and address pain points in those stages. 

Ask yourself what your customer might be feeling throughout the journey. Identify objections to better understand why they might be hesitant to convert. Then attach sentiment to each stage of the journey so you can pinpoint parts of the customer experience where emotions are extremely high or low.

At the high points, consider taking advantage of that momentum to add a personal touch, a special reward, an exclusive offer, or a request for a review/referral.

At the low points, consider ways that you might be able to improve customer sentiment through site design, proactive messaging, reassurances/social proof, etc.

Customer journey map examples from winning ecommerce brands 

Customer journey maps will look different for every company. The examples we’ve got here are pretty thorough and come from well-resourced companies. Yours doesn’t have to be this detailed straight out of the gate! The first version for many companies (particularly small ones) will often fit on the back of a sheet of paper or a whiteboard but will get more detailed over time as you learn more about your customers through ongoing research. 

Amazon is the biggest ecommerce brand in the world and, as such, it has an incredibly complicated customer journey map. 

Customers might find the brand in a variety of ways, from ads, links in blog posts, referrals, or simply by visiting direct, and the consideration stage involves a lot more research since there are so many options. 

Amazon bolsters the experience and keeps customers moving forward by adding touchpoints such as: 

• Personalized product recommendations
• Reviews 
• Shopping guides 
• One-click to buy 
• Comparison charts 
• Detailed product descriptions 
• Paid ads 

Lancome’s customer journey map highlights customers’ needs at each stage of the journey. The brand defines the different stages as “on my way”, “getting Lancome”, and “share experience”, with key worries, objections, and questions mapped out for each of these stages. 

For each stage, there are media recommendations that act as touchpoints, including discounts and coupons, free samples, customer reviews, and influencer marketing campaigns. 

Electronics provider Samsung has multiple touchpoints on its website, each of which loosely fall into the three stages of the customer journey: 

• Awareness: blog posts and content as part of the #DoWhatYouCant campaign to inspire potential buyers

• Consideration: helpful product pages that include comparison lists, high-quality photos, videos, reviews, and a pop-up live customer support channel

They also have a pop-up offer for customers that look like they’re about to leave the site. 

• Decision: an easy checkout process with additional upsells and cross-sells to increase customer retention and cement customer loyalty 

A strong customer journey map is the beginning of a strong conversion rate

Your customer journey map is the backbone of the customer experience. 

It drives buyers from one stage to the next by understanding their unique pain points and offering content that tackles any objections. As a result, customers will glide seamlessly through the process, hitting each relevant touchpoint and getting the exact information they need, exactly when they need it. 

It’s a no-brainer that a strong customer journey map leads to a stronger conversion rate. When you have a strong map, less customers drop out of the journey, and more make it all the way to the point of sale. 

Subscribe to our weekly insights for more customer experience content.

The post How Ecommerce Brands Can Create a Conversion-Powered Customer Journey Map appeared first on The Good.

While your team might have the same goal, it’s tough to get everyone on the same page about the best way to approach it. What to do when the team doesn’t agree? Use data and research to back you up! 

To help you out, we’ve put together the ultimate user onboarding guide. It covers:

• What is onboarding?
• Why exactly is onboarding important?
• Where and when do we see onboarding?
• 3 principles of effective onboarding
• UX psychological levers of onboarding

Each section has examples woven throughout so you can see exactly what works, or what doesn’t, for brands and their digital onboarding. Now, let’s get started.

What is onboarding?

As an experienced digital professional, you probably notice how often you’re being ‘onboarded.’ Like us, you likely browse the online or in-app experiences of other brands to see what their user experience is like. 

Onboarding is an action that incorporates a new employee into an organization or familiarizes a new user with a product or service. We’ll be focusing on the second half of the definition, specifically the experience that improves a user’s SUCCESS with the product or service. This is common at the first moments of using a tool, especially with SaaS products and applications.

Here is an example of an onboarding experience from Money Coach, a financial health and well-being app. Pictured below, the tool starts an open dialogue with users during onboarding so that later on they can create a more personalized experience. 

Why exactly onboarding is important?

Ultimately, the goal of user onboarding is to support the bigger business objective of increasing user retention and reducing churn. 

Original Graphic Source

Ideally, the happy path to retention follows along the green line in the flow above. The relationship between customers and products or services remains positive. 

Users see the initial value and that value grows over time and usage. The loyalty that stems from this positive experience then leads to product growth, functionality, and of course, revenue. The churn turning point, however, happens when users don’t initially see the value in a product or service. 

Simply put, great user onboarding flows are the key to keeping your customers from turning down one of the yellow or red lines. Here are a few data points to illustrate the importance of user onboarding. 

How to measure the success of user onboarding

The early indicators of churn are specific from business to business. However, they are translated into onboarding health metrics (measurable actions taken by active users, tied directly to retention).

An online publication like The Washington Post might use leading indicators to measure the “health” of their customer relationships, or whether or not their customers are integrating, or finding value from their services.

In the case of Washington Post, the product team might count actions such as reading articles, logging in, favoriting or sharing an article, downloading an app and subscribing to newsletters as a healthy step toward long-time subscriber retention.

Where and when do we see onboarding?

Sometimes, the best way to understand the range of user onboarding experiences is to take a look at examples, use cases, and activations. So where and when do we usually see onboarding? 

Software as a Service (SaaS) products: Canva

SaaS products typically offer a digital onboarding experience right after signup. For example, here’s the onboarding flow from Canva. 

After signing up for a free account, Canva prompts users into an onboarding sequence focused less on the product features, and more on user needs. This allows the company to deliver custom usage recommendations. 

Apps: Flow

In the first moments post-launch, applications will often offer users the chance to walk through features of their newly downloaded tool.

Flow is a good example of this. After the initial launch of Flow, the app encourages users to review their features and even provides a warm welcoming message directly from the team.

Subscription Products or Services: The Telegraph

After signing up for a subscription, The Telegraph introduces the perks and unique features that the user now has access to. 

When is onboarding relevant in the user journey? 

• Right after sign up: As we saw in examples above, right after sign up the company often shows you features or has you answer some questions to help you personalize your experience.
• Early-stage product use: You can also see onboarding occur once you’re actually beginning to interact with the service or product.
• Email: Onboarding experiences can live outside of the tool or product itself in the form of emails. Emails become an extension of the product and can overview the tool as a welcome message. Emails can either highlight particular functions or new features of the product or simply encourage users to continue engaging with the product
• Deeper into product use: Onboarding can also be present deeper into its product usage, for example after a free trial. This is called gradual engagement and encourages users to explore and use the product and reach an “aha” moment where they see the product value before the company prompts sign up. 

3 principles of effective onboarding

So now that we’ve seen what onboarding experiences are and where we see them, what exactly makes up an effective onboarding experience?

Let’s review three main principles highlighted by Samuel Hulick, a UX expert in user onboarding for nearly a decade. 

Integrated > Distracting

The first principle of a successful user onboarding process is to build an integrated experience that is not distracting. 

Leverage a user’s sense of immersion, momentum, and flow so that they feel an immediate connection to the product while first experiencing it. Try to find ways to integrate timely, relevant guidance for the user versus handing them a “how to use” manual.

Where does Pinterest miss the mark on integrated > distracting? 

Imagine you have just launched into the Pinterest App for the first time and are creating a user profile. All of the sudden, you’re bombarded with requests to send you notifications, access your location, and track your activity. 

Would this onboarding experience feel integrated? No. Is it distracting from the main goal of showing how the app adds value to the user’s life? Yes. 

How is Canva successful in integrated > distracting?

Canva provides onboarding that’s integrated into their main dashboard, allowing users to “choose their own adventure.” The customer can self-direct what they’re looking for and the brand then customizes the onboarding so it’s relevant to the user. This builds trust and value between the user and the product.

Empowering > Controlling

The second principle of effective user onboarding is empowering > controlling. Along the same lines as forming a bond with the product, you want the onboarding experience to offer users an ‘aha’ moment where they understand exactly how the product or service makes their life better.

To do this, make sure to emphasize value and empower users to take action for themselves. Also, congratulate users while they navigate the onboarding, to further build a bond with the product. 

How does this example miss the mark on empowering > controlling? 

As a first-time user, you want to feel like you are working towards a better life when you use the new service or product. You don’t want to feel controlled and trapped in a long product tour that may not even bring you value. 

In the example below, Documents shows a controlling onboarding experience that overloads the user with a long journey that hasn’t been customized to their needs.

Instead, a brand should understand what the user’s motivation and aspirations are behind using the product and guide them towards that outcome. 

To top it off, the Documents features introduction concludes with a prompt encouraging sign up for Documents Plus. An onboarding journey should empower the users to discover the value for themselves, not force them into an upgrade they aren’t ready for yet.

What works about this example from Evernote?

Evernote first captures the user’s motivation behind using the tool and provides them an customer experience relevant to that outcome. They do this without forcing the user down a particular path and share product tips based on what the user wants and not what the brand thinks they want.

Steadfast > Flaky

The third and final principle of effective onboarding is to be steadfast > flaky. Onboarding should extend past the initial usage of the product, adding value to the entire customer lifecycle. 

As we mentioned previously, onboarding can and should occur at different moments in the journey for the user as the relationship between the user and product grows. 

How does LinkedIn miss the mark on steadfast > flaky? 

After a user has been using the social network for some time, LinkedIn prompts an onboarding tour for one of its features LinkedIn Groups. Upon opting into the tour, users are thrown into a  space with no direction or guidance, leaving them to discover on their own. See the screenshot below.  

Unless the user is very curious about what LinkedIn Groups are, they are most likely going to abandon this because the product isn’t offering value in the tour and is putting all of the work onto the user. 

What does Canva do right? 

On the other hand, Canva uses quick tool tips and coach marks, pictured below, as users discover new functionalities and features of the app. It gives users continued tutorials, at their own self-directed pace. 

UX psychological levers of onboarding (with user onboarding examples)

Beyond understanding some of the key principles to effective onboarding, we can create a deeper connection with the customer and build a better onboarding experience by learning how to meet their psychological needs. 

Front-loaded user value

If a user sees how a product or service offers a path to a better version of themselves, they will work to integrate it into their lives. Simply make a good first impression.

Again, you want your users to have that “aha” moment as soon as possible where they come to an understanding that the product will be beneficial to their life. You can pave that road for them and set them on track by front-loading user value. 

Success Breeds Success

When you feel accomplished or successful, you’re inclined to continue succeeding. This is similar to basketball players who gain confidence as they continue scoring points (hot streak) or that feeling of when you have a task list of chores to do and you begin crossing them off one by one. Momentum is something that is built and will carry users to want to keep moving forward. 

Quick Wins

Quick wins allow users to create that initial momentum and keep sustaining it throughout the journey as long as it’s presented to users. Quick wins should be steps that users can complete that ask too much from the user while also focusing on the value where each step brings them closer to actualizing that “better version” of themselves. 

Netflix does a great job providing value upfront and capitalizing on it at every step of the onboard journey on the way to an aha moment.

A simple email input kickstarts the onboarding and users are then led into a simple 3 step process. Each step reminds users why input is needed and how it’s going to provide them value later on.

When the choose your plan step arrives, users are reminded about the no-commitment trial and are clearly shown the advantages of each plan.

The final step links the user’s payment, and again Netflix reinforces its no strings attached trial. Additionally, they let the user know that this is the last step — it was that easy!

As soon as you’re done with the 3 step sign-up, Netflix teases that big streaming moment by asking users their preferences. This creates custom, initial recommendations and shows the value of Netflix in a product experience of under a minute. 

Permission Priming

Preparing, or priming, a user before you ask permission to access their OS system makes it more likely that they’ll comply with your request. This is vitally important because your product might not be able to provide value to the user without access.

Scan & Translate is a great example of permission priming in action. It reminds users that in order to use the scan features and gain value from the app, they need to grant camera permissions to the system.

Success States

Success states are the opposite of “error” states. You let users know that their actions are working. This goes beyond celebrating milestones. Guiding users through a complicated flow of actions should be seen as a continuous conversation between the user and product – and that includes telling them when they’re doing something right. 

A success state can serve multiple purposes depending on the timing, placement, and design of the success state but picking the right moments to interject a success state can effectively keep users on the onboarding journey. 

Success States: Confirmation

This type of success state provides validation and assurance to the user that they’re taking the right steps. Inline validation is a common success state for confirmation. 

Here’s a real life brand example. DocuSign provides a success state that confirms with users that they’ve already put themselves on a path to success and presents to them a roadmap of what is left for them. This gives them initial momentum and also assurance and clarity. 

Success States: Context

This success state provides context to the user about where they are in the journey. 

This is like digital signposts or wayfinding. If you are a driver navigating a new area, you generally want to find signs that indicate you’re on the right road, especially in an unfamiliar place. This same is true for good onboarding in products. You want to let users know where they are in the onboarding process and provide a clear next step. Do this with a progress bar, numbering, step-by-step, etc.

Here’s a good example. Stash shows a contextual success state that also includes permission priming and encouragement. After collecting your interests, the app leads users to a congratulations screen, letting them know they’re about to begin using the app. At the bottom, they also subtly prime notification access from the user.

Success States: Encouragement

People love the feeling of genuine encouragement, especially after a big feat or accomplishment. User needs are the same, and encouragement is a success state that helps your users get closer to their ‘aha moment.’

Here’s an example from Asana. The platform actually celebrates the user with a fun graphic when they accomplish a meaningful step in the onboarding journey – completing a task! 

Build a better user onboarding experience with The Good

If you’re struggling with churn, I highly recommend you take a look at the user onboarding experience of your site, service, or app. With a bit of research, some tests, and optimizations, you can be back on the path to success.

At The Good, we can help guide you through the optimization process of your user onboarding experience so that you can turn more visitors into buyers or subscribers. Our services page has more information, but don’t hesitate to reach out, we’re here to help! 

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