Why is CRO Important for eCommerce?

You’d be forgiven for assuming that the hard work is over once visitors land on your eCommerce site.

Unfortunately, this assumption proves to be costly for conversions and revenue.

You can avoid losing out on conversions when you understand why conversion rate optimisation is important for eCommerce.

What is conversion rate optimisation?

Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) involves increasing the number of website visitors who take a desired action.

This desired action will vary depending on your business objectives. It can range from subscribing to your newsletter to creating an account or even sharing your content.

In this article, we’ll be focusing on a conversion being a purchase.

After all, this is the ultimate end goal for all eCommerce stores.

Why is CRO important for eCommerce?

In the ever-evolving world of eCommerce, consumer expectations are rising along with the cost of attracting them.

This means that it is essential that you are not wasting valuable money driving traffic to your site for visitors to leave due to a lack of optimisation.

CRO allows you to combat that possibility by building trust, instilling confidence and creating urgency to ensure you achieve the best possible conversion rate.

Bear this in mind as we take a look at the reasons why eCommerce CRO is important.

1. Lowers customer acquisition cost

Acquiring new customers is anywhere between 5 to 25 times more expensive than it is to retain customers.

As these figures rise, so does the value of the customers on your site.

When you increase your conversion rate, it means you are getting the most out of your customer acquisition spend.

Not only this but ensuring on-site visitors convert eliminates the need to spend more money attracting new customers.

2. Improves the user experience

CRO comes when you get to know your site, address pain points and discover where visitors are falling off.

This may appear daunting, but making one strategic change at a time can sometimes be enough to make an impact.

Introducing a solution such as Recommendations to your web pages is a great example of this as it encourages site exploration and reduces bounce rates.

When you identify issues and act upon them you reduce obstacles on your customer’s path towards a seamless conversion.

Think of this as a win-win situation. Your customer enjoys an elevated experience and you improve your conversion rate and increase sales.

Related: 5 Easy Ways to Get Started with CRO

3. Cater for a new generation of consumers

Capturing the continued attention of modern consumers who often leave a webpage in just 10-20 seconds is an undeniable challenge.

A challenge which can be overcome with CRO.

Streamlining your checkout process by introducing guest checkout or buy now options shaves precious seconds off the time needed on site and every second counts when 87% of shoppers abandon their carts during checkout if the process is too long.

Leveraging your customer’s attention from the first click to the last is essential in ensuring the effort taken to attract the new generation of consumers results in conversions.

4. Increases your revenue whilst saving money

CRO affordably increases session durations and conversions by creating an elevated user experience.

When you remove additional costs, such as increased ad spend, you save money and increase profit margins.

This means you achieve the ideal balance of increasing revenue through conversions whilst combating rising advertising and marketing costs.

5. Boosts your search engine ranking

Ranking well in search engine results is essential if you want to be found by potential customers.

Luckily for eCommerce managers, once you’ve begun your CRO journey your search engine ranking will naturally improve, along with your conversion rate.

Sites that have good user experiences and SEO are prioritised by Google.

A core part of creating exceptional user experiences is removing the friction from the on-site journey and seamlessly navigating users towards a conversion – all of which can be addressed with strategic CRO.

This works to boost engagement with your site, reducing bounce rates and improving session durations.

All this can be achieved simply by integrating complete CRO tools such as Digital Assistant to your site.

6. Enhances the efficiency of your site

Conversion rate optimisation is not a long and arduous task when you choose solutions with rapid integration and immediate results.

Additions to your website that consist of a single line of code integration, such as the previously mentioned Recommendations or Digital Assistant, begin to optimise your conversion rate in an instant.

Not only do these solutions improve the efficiency of your eCommerce site, but by automating your personalisation strategy, you can also enhance the efficiency of your marketing team.

By leveraging on-site tools that trigger marketing automation processes, such as email campaigns and surfacing on-site messages, you create personalised customer journeys that inspire purchases.

Having a seamless experience both on and off-site strengthens your brand’s bond with individual consumers thus improving their chances of making repeat purchases.

Conclusions

CRO is important for any eCommerce business that has the goal to grow and succeed.

Even as customer expectations and behaviour change, you can rely on the optimisation of your site to convert visitors into customers without increasing your customer acquisition budget.