Posts by: Lana Kropyvna

4 Marketing Hacks to Battle High Bounce Rates and Low Engagement

28th January 2022 (updated 24th October 2022) | By Lana Kropyvna | 0 Comments

Battling bounce rates is an ongoing fight for any marketer. In this article, we lift the lid on 4 lesser-discussed ways to reduce bounce rates and increase engagement on your website.

Bounce rate is one of the biggest conversion killers around.

It robs you of your chance to convince prospects that your products are worth their time.

According to ClickTale 34% is the average bounce rate for e-commerce sites. If your site has a higher percentage of users who don’t stick around, then you may have a problem.

Google Analytics defines bounce rate as the “percentage of single page sessions”. An accurate description, but one devoid of useful application. We like to think of bounce rate in more actionable terms: the opposite of engagement. Our work has shown that the more engaging a site, the lower the bounce rate.

Pretty simple, huh? All you’ve got to do is increase engagement and, by extension, you’ll be increasing conversions.

Well, whilst simple in theory, it’s difficult in practice. In this article we’ll run you through a few of the lesser-known tactics proven to increase engagement and reduce bounce rate:

#1 Attract the right visitors
#2 Relevant landing pages
#3 Proper use of overlays
#4 Use storytelling elements

What You Probably Already Know

We don’t want to spend too long on a well-trodden path here. However, in the spirit of being thorough, here are the basics on reducing bounce rate.

Optimise your pages for different devices. There’s nothing worse than trying to navigate a fiddly desktop site on your mobile.
Page load time. Modern consumers are impatient. If your page takes too long to load, they won’t need to bounce because they’ll have given up before seeing what you have to offer!
Provide engaging content. Engaging content is key to capturing attention. The problem is figuring out what your audience finds engaging!
Logical layouts. There’s no point in having the best content if no one can navigate your site.
Internal links. See the bolded wording in this article? Some of these links go to other Yieldify articles and are key in reducing bounce rate; the longer someone stays on your site, the more likely they are to convert.

Whilst the above is good advice it doesn’t bring much to the conversation. So, let’s move on and take a closer look at how you can better reduce your bounce rates.

#1 Attract the right visitors

Quantity does not beat quality.

Yes, you may be seeing a high bounce rate but securing more traffic isn’t the answer. Broadening your keyword selection or utilising paid traffic sources isn’t going to help with the problem.

All these steps do is attract a wider yet less qualified audience. Instead of seeing your bounce rate go down, you’ll likely see it go up because you’re marketing to the wrong crowd. Trying to sell to anyone and everyone doesn’t just bring a poor ROI, but it will also skew your data.

Let’s put it in real life terms. Imagine you run an e-commerce store that sells TVs. Your goal is to attract prospects who are searching for TVs, so you optimise specifically for TV related keywords. Don’t branch out and also target DVD or blu-ray keywords unless those are also in your product line.

Why? Because it attracts the wrong audience. Sure they’re related products, but someone looking for a blu-ray player likely already has a TV. You might get them to land on your site, but they’ll bounce as soon as they realise you don’t sell what they’re looking for.

You end up having wasted a lot of your money on a failed campaign and have stats which don’t accurately represent the true problems with your site. The bounce rate instead represents your inability to attract qualified prospects.Optimising based on these stats will only lead to further failure.

You shouldn’t care if you can’t convert people who have no interest in what you’re selling. You should be targeting your research and messaging to those who have an interest. These are the people who will help refine your marketing and increase your bottom line.

#2 Relevant landing pages

Does traffic from Facebook have the same needs as traffic from search engine results pages (SERPs)?

Nope.

These are two different sources of traffic and have vastly different needs. You need to optimise your landing pages to better reflect the needs of the traffic you’re receiving.

It’s a complex issue to get your head around, however Tyson Quick, CEO of Instapage, sums up the issue nicely. “A Google AdWords click is typically coming from a visitor who is directly looking for a solution to a specific problem they’re already aware of, while a visitor from a Facebook or Twitter advertisement is typically still in the problem / solution discovery phase. The post click experience should reflect this mindset.”

That means one generic landing page for all your traffic isn’t going to work. A landing page that explains the solution only will convert well with SERP traffic, but will have little to no impact on social traffic unaware of the problem you’re solving.

It boils down to the fact that different traffic sources are all at different stages in your funnel when landing on your site. You wouldn’t push a new prospect to purchase on their first visit, just as you wouldn’t waste time building desire with a prospect who’s ready to purchase.

If your landing pages aren’t optimised to specific stages of your funnel, you’re going to struggle to keep your prospects from walking away.

#3 Proper use of overlays

Overlays are the Marmite of the conversion world. But love them or hate them, they work.

The key to a successful overlay campaign is presenting a personalised, relevant offer or incentive at the right time. If you indiscriminately bombard a user as they enter your site with impersonal overlays featuring irrelevant offers they’re going to bounce. And rightfully so.

The best overlays feel like part of your user’s journey. For example, an overlay timed to trigger as your prospect is leaving your site doesn’t interrupt their browsing experience. Instead it captures attention and gives them a reason to stay, like this example from Virgin Trains:

Virgin Trains conversion rate optimisation

But timing is only half the battle. You’ve also got to ensure that the overlay presents a useful, relevant offer.

Keeping to these two key tenets has helped us achieve amazing results with exit-intent overlays.

#4 Use storytelling elements

Storytelling. It’s not just for bedtime with the kids.

People from all ages and backgrounds can’t help but be drawn in by a captivating tale. It hooks attention and holds interest like no other method can.

However, we’re not saying that every page you write should be some epic fable of how your company achieved X or overcame Y. What storytelling in marketing refers to is understanding how your prospects assimilate and understand information.

In short, modern users don’t read. They scan.

We’re busy people who have no interest in spending thirty minutes getting to grips with the ins and outs of a product or brand. We want the key points, and we want them now.

Good storytelling understands this and uses visual cues to better explain the story. You can’t rely on large blocks of text to tell your story. You’ve got to utilise key visual cues including image placement, sub heads and proper spacing to highlight the key elements that tell the story your prospects want to hear.

Giving an overview with these elements hooks attention. Once that attention is hooked you need to ensure you’re following the golden rules for marketing storytelling:

Make your prospect the hero. No one cares about what you’ve achieved or overcome. They do care however what you can help them to achieve. Make sure the story is focused on their goals and journey.
Be honest. Prospects are too smart for tall tales and grand claims. They’ll see right through it and label you a charlatan.
Be Concise.You might have hooked attention with your visual cues, but that doesn’t mean our prospect isn’t busy. Get to the point and save everyone time.

It’s a complex approach and can be difficult to understand. To help outline the process here’s a great example of storytelling from Hiut Denim that get’s you on board with the company’s ethos and establishes them as experts in their field.

Conclusion

Reducing the bounce rate of your site hinges on your ability to create an engaging and relevant experience for your prospects.

That doesn’t mean using clickbait-esque headlines or trying to force your message on new prospects as soon as they land on your site.

There needs to be a cohesive journey from initial referral source through to purchase page. Coupling this cohesion with a prospect centric message is key to creating an engaging, relevant experience. An experience which will lead to a reduction in your bounce rate.

However, reducing your bounce rate is only the first step in your optimisation process.

Whilst bounce rate can destroy the success of your business, tackling the problem means nothing if you’ve not got anything of substance at later stages.

If you’re currently suffering from a high bounce rate and aren’t sure where to start, get in touch with us to learn more about the commercial benefits of exit-intent overlays.

6 Tips On How to Sell Luxury Items Online

12th October 2020 (updated 26th January 2023) | By Lana Kropyvna | 0 Comments

How to avoid crucial mistakes when selling luxury items online? In our blog post, we look at 5 strategies that will ensure your luxury marketing is on-point and sales-oriented.

By the year 2025, online luxury sales will have tripled their contribution to the global high-end market, exceeding $91 billion and accounting for 20% of all luxury sales made. This is because of an operating model the consulting corporation McKinsey refers to as ‘Luxury 4.0’.

In Luxury 4.0, luxury brands and retailers leverage data to better understand their customers, identify emerging preferences, and streamline the processes of transforming ideas into products.

Increasingly, online shopping and digital experiences are having greater impacts on how consumers choose to purchase luxury goods.

McKinsey estimates that around 80% of luxury items bought online today are heavily digitally influenced, with consumers engaging with up to 15 digital touchpoints in their luxury purchasing journeys.

In part, this could be attributed to the generational shift that has begun to take place throughout the luxury market. Whereas before older shoppers were the target audience of luxury retailers, newer, affluent Millennial buyers, born between 1981 and 1994, and Generation Z consumers, born between 1995-2010, are now accounting for around 40% of all luxury purchases.

In 2019 alone, Millennials and Generation Z consumers generated 100% of all global luxury industry growth.

With both generations now driving sales of luxury goods, and both having grown up in the age of constantly evolving digital technological advancements, luxury eCommerce retailers have never been better placed to take advantage of, and optimize for, the digital market.

When it comes to selling luxury goods online, there are lessons to be learned from luxury fashion retailers like Net-A-Porter and Farfetch, two brands that have both successfully embraced digital luxury retail.

FarFetch especially accredits its early adoption of technology – most notably, personalization – in its establishment as a market leader. Meanwhile, Net-A-Porter revolutionized high-end retail by incorporating mobile and artificial intelligence technologies alongside data-driven strategies into its brand identity.

In this article, we’ll break down on how to sell luxury products online using five simple steps luxury eCommerce retailers can implement immediately into their luxury marketing and sales strategies.

6 Tips on How to Sell Luxury Items Online

1. Use personalization to drive incremental sales

In its Global Powers of Luxury Goods research, Deloitte noted that the rise of eCommerce and the availability of digital channels accessible to luxury brands were creating a consumer need for both large-scale and high-quality personalized content.

Nowadays, consumers want to be treated as individuals, and this need is intensified when it comes to making high-value purchases.

One way Net-A-Porter personalize their shopping experience is by offering EIP memberships. EIP (Extremely Important People) members unlock special privileges including a personal shopper that delivers the luxury goods to a home address, waits until the products have been tried on, and then collects any items that need to be returned.

There are also pre-order services, abilities to shop new products 36 hours before they become available to other shoppers, private sales, and surprise gifts available to EIP members.

Luxury marketing example - How to sell luxury items online

To become an EIP, however, it is rumored that members must have accrued around $70,000 in sales across a 12 month period. Incredibly, whilst Net-A-Porter’s EIP’s only make up 2% of its consumer base, they generate 40% of its sales.

Luxury eCommerce retailers can take advantage of this high-end consumer desire and follow by Net-A-Porter’s example, even if they are only a small to medium-size business.

Segmenting audiences by their lifetime consumer value and then advertising select sales or early shopping opportunities to the highest-ranked consumers could be one way to encourage other customers to make similar purchases in order to unlock the same privileges.

Alternatively, simply offering attention-focused customer service across the board could ensure your fashion eCommerce stands out from competitors by highlighting consumer individualism as a key-value and subsequent USP. Net-A-Porter also does this by advertising 24/7 Fashion Consultants.

When selling luxury products online, cross-sell strategies that recommend products to consumers based on their previous purchases, cart or wish list items could also be effective in delivering a standout, individualized experience.

Consumers who are greeted with a personalized experience are known to spend more and are more likely to become loyal customers, leading to repeat purchases and higher LTV.

Finally, social proof tools are another type of personalization that can help you increase on-site conversions.

2. Unify online and offline experiences

Whilst digital channels and the rise of online shopping are driving factors in the disruption of brick and mortar sales, luxury consumers are still driven in-store because of brand experiences.

Many luxury goods require an element of in-person service that can’t always be replicated online with e-commerce: Expert measurement and fitting, tailoring, customization, etc.

Stores like Gucci and Bvlgari offer shoppers plush, uniquely designed showrooms, jewelry maker Tiffany’s lets you advise with a diamond expert and customize engagement rings to your liking, whilst Burberry goes one step further by partnering with Uber to help transport customers to their nearest store.

To drive visitors into stores where they could become consumers once satisfied with having had a luxury shopping experience, it’s important to unify the connection between an online and offline presence. This is known as the reverse omnichannel strategy.

Using a search engine optimization strategy known as geotargeting, you can suggest local stores to visitors upon their arrival to your site and could be one way to direct them into a brick and mortar store.

Likewise, offering buy online pick up in-store (BOPIS) services with distinct CTAs across landing and product pages, or highlighting exclusive, only available in-store products could encourage in-person shopping.

3. Clearly signal your value

Value proposition doesn’t just extend to the benefit that your product will have on a consumer’s daily life. It also includes your brand.

Products from high-end retailers are automatically regarded as high-quality and worth their money because of the luxurious connotations associated with their brand. For example, if a luxury retailer uses higher quality materials than any other brand, this is part of the perception that consumers of the brand buy into when purchasing their products.

See how Dior instills value in their product by showcasing the unique process that goes into making each handbag:

Just like how storytelling is a key component of any marketing, if your brand is built from a particular heritage, or history, tell this story through prominently displaying your value signals or insignias throughout your online experience.

Social media can play a crucial role in helping luxury eCommerce retailers convert visitors to consumers. An example of a successful luxury marketing campaign on social media was Burberry’s ‘Tale of Thomas Burberry’ shot by Oscar-winning filmmaker Asif Kapadia.

The microfilm featured prominent acting stars like Lily James and Domhnall Gleeson and depicted the life, struggles, and entrepreneurship of Thomas Burberry, the brand founder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D5IZtDCS5c

The film was posted firstly on the brand’s Facebook page before it went viral, generating over 15 million views and being hailed as one of the best holiday season advertisements of all time.

For Burberry, the popularity of the film worked across multiple levels. The video generated mass engagement whilst also helping to cement the brand’s identity and USPs in viewers’ minds. All the items worn in the film were available to buy at Burberry’s store, advertising the products again, and again, across multiple channels, to multiple viewers.

Luxury eCommerce stores can therefore use storytelling to not only engage copious visitors and potential consumers with their brand identity but to also generate engagement with their products.

By advertising the story behind the manufacturing of certain products, visitors may be likely to invest in the perception and may visit the site to learn more about the luxury product being advertised.

5. Invest in content

As a natural accompanier to storytelling and social media marketing, pouring resources into high quality, relevant content can drive sales from both existing and new consumers.

The benefit high-quality content marketing gives luxury brands is its ability to communicate the elevated level of the brand’s aesthetic to the designated target audience throughout its language and appearance.

Content can take the form of informative blogs, well-produced videos, in-depth guides, and even emails and must give off the same feeling as handling a glossy, luxury brochure.

Louis Vuitton produces in-depth city guides that it hails as Magazines (also available in mobile app format). These guides promote insider tips as to the best places to visit in a city that isn’t necessarily featured in tourist publications. At the same time, as advertising these revered spots, the guide does of course suggest which fashion pieces would complement which outfit, and which outfit would be best to be worn where.

These exclusive guides are not only sought after by their audience, they are bought too – at the price of $25 an edition. They work effectively because Louis Vuitton knows their audience seeks insider knowledge and this feeling of exclusivity is vital for high-end brands to capitalize on when selling luxury.

Producing content that promotes uniqueness and has a sense of insider sheen will resonate with and then engage high-end buyers. For eCommerce retailers, one example in peak holiday season could be to release a Gift Guide that offers exclusive insight into the products that will be Christmastime best sellers. You could also adopt a similar tactic in the build up to Valentine’s Day.

As a multichannel content marketing strategy, following the release of that guide with an email marketing sequence or blog content series that takes particular products and focuses on their USPs will issue repeated, non-pushy reminders, and may drive purchases when combined with CTAs.

6. Provide Exceptional Customer Service

Customers looking to buy luxury good, whether is designer clothing, watches, shoes or accessories will all want a very good level of customer service. This can be online via your website or in a retail store.

If they are willing to pay a premium for a product they have every right to expect to be given premium customer service.

While it may be difficult to translate exclusive experiences in-store into eCommerce, there are ways that this can still happen. For example, live chats allow you the opportunity for personal styling advice and a more personalised buying experience from websites.

So if your online customer base deserves attention then give them what they want by being empathetic and responsive towards all types of feedback received. You’ll need to ensure you have quick response times and can hopefully solve any issues as quickly as possible.

So whether the complaints come through social media platforms, or if it’s feedback from surveys about their experience with your company’s products/services. You need to take it all into account.

Challenges When Selling Luxury Products Online

Whilst there will be specific challenges luxury brands will face, when selling online the “normal” issues will still be there, and may even be amplified. Below are three that would be worth addressing.

Basket Abandonment: You will have some customers who simply abandon their baskets. This is a well established fact within the world of eCommerce. So you need to make sure you are set up to counter this. Remarketing ads, basket abandonment solutions, personalization etc can all help reduce this.

Delivery: If customers are spending a considerable amount of money online they need to feel 100% confident their purchase will get to them quickly, and in one piece. This is why a reliable delivery partner is vital. It may also be worth showcasing delivery options and timeframes for peace of mind.

Advertising to the right audience: If your using advertising channels such as Facebook, Google Ads, or even YouTube to drive traffic to your website be very careful with the people you target. For example in Google Ads, you’ll want to avoid bidding on, and probably add negative keywords like “cheap” or “affordable”. Likewise when building an audience on Facebook try and build on that would focus on high-income individuals.

Where to sell luxury items online

Creating luxury brands takes time and consistency. But there are other ways you can sell luxury items online in the meantime.

1) Create your own website – Your own website should eventually be the main place where your sales are coming from. If you’re advertising online this is the place you’re going to be sending them so you need to make sure it’s ready to convert and

2) Reach out to high-end department stores – If you know where your ideal customers regularly shop it makes sense to try and get in front of them here. This could be both online and in store. Department stores such as Harrods and Selfridges could be prime targets. But if you’re just starting out you might be better off identifying smaller local stores that may wish to list your luxury items.

3) Look to sell via online platforms – Online market places such as, Current Boutique, Poshmark and ThredUp could be great places to start selling your luxury goods.

Luxury marketing case study: Turnbull and Asser

Turnbull and Asser is a bespoke shirtmaker, clothier, and tie maker established all the way back in 1885. Perhaps unsurprising for the first brand to receive the Prince of Wales’ Royal Warrant, it has a strong commitment to product excellence and impeccable service, whether from its flagship store on London’s Jermyn Street, online, or with its partners around the world.

Turnbull and Asser used the Yieldify Conversion Platform to create and deploy onsite messaging, generating new leads, increasing conversions, and improving the overall site UX. Read the full Turnbull and Asser case study here.

Key takeaways

Hopefully, our tips above will provide you with some useful ideas when it comes to selling luxury items online. Results in this area can take time as you will need to build your brand image and customer base.

Like what you’ve seen here? Download our free ‘Luxury eCommerce Blueprint’ eBook, featuring the luxury eCommerce cheat sheet, to get even more tips and advice on digital marketing and selling luxury goods online.

Luxury marketing FAQs

How do I sell high end luxury products?

The best ways to sell luxury items online are to avoid site-wide discounting, making your value signals clear, providing exceptional customer service, and making your service personal.

How do you price a luxury product?

The price of luxury items or products should reflect the key messages of the brand; high quality, heritage, and exclusivity.

Managing Customer Expectations: How to Close the Expectation-Reality Gap

19th April 2020 (updated 23rd March 2023) | By Lana Kropyvna | 0 Comments

Managing customer expectations | Yieldify

Is your eCommerce business struggling to meet customer expectations? In this blog post, we explore how to improve customer experience and retention by closing the expectation-reality gap.

Out of all the traps marketers fall into, there’s one that ensnares more than most. It’s a trap often sprung by creator blindness, a phenomenon that prevents product developers from staying impartial to the quality of the products they create.

That’s why when it comes to product marketing, you see so many claims of the greatest, the fastest, the most disruptive, the one-of-a-kind, the ultimate, etc. etc. It feels good – and even necessary – to boast about something you’ve poured your heart and soul into, but doing so can have a drastic negative effect on customer experience and be a huge detriment to sales.

How? Creator blindness and overblown claims lead to inflated customer expectations. Expectations that you simply can not meet.

Saying your product is the greatest only serves to bloat your ego. If you have nothing to prove your claims, you can expect public backlash due to mismanaged customer expectations.

What are customer expectations? Customer expectations are the feelings and needs that the customers have towards a product or service. Customer expectations are formed by reading or hearing information about the company or product, observing other people’s sentiment towards the company/product, previous experiences with similar companies/products or direct interaction with customer service.

Why is it important to manage customer expectations?

To successfully launch a self-sustaining business, you need a critical mass. And to reach a critical mass, you need things like positive cash flow, brand engagement, and reliable e-commerce customer retention strategies. In other words, you need to attract customers by promising value, but you also need to keep customers by delivering on that promise.

Managing customer expectations allows you to strike a healthy balance between the two: you set the bar just high enough so that customers are willing to consider you and feel satisfied when reality meets their needs.

But simply saying you have to meet (ideally – exceed) customer expectations is like saying a successful business has to increase sales. Here are 5 steps that will help you improve your brand’s customer expectation management.

5 actionable tips for managing customer expectations

1. Understand what your customers expect from you

You can’t meet customer expectations if you don’t know what it is they want from you. We’re not talking about the generic wants and needs: every brand should be striving to provide great customer service, streamlined purchase journey and excellent brand experience.

You need to get more specific than that. You need to know exactly what it is your audience wants from you. As the old saying goes, people don’t want a drill, they want a hole in the wall.

In reality, the “hole” metaphor still isn’t clear enough – to successfully manage customer expectations, you must know what the hole is for. Is it for putting up shelves to create more storage space? Or to hang pictures of a loved one? Or to build a treehouse for kids to play in? Customers in all these scenarios will have different levels of experience, a different purpose for your product, and thus, different expectations towards it.

2. Start collecting data

Want to know what your users want? Then ask them. There are plenty of great survey tools available now that will make finding exactly what your users want from you a breeze. Of course, the basic advice of running surveys applies.

Use open-ended questions to get the best answers.
Link your questions to your objectives.
Keep your questions short and simple.

To get the most out of your surveys you want to take them a step further and use them to find out which areas you’re failing to meet expectations in. For this, we recommend following the advice of Convince & Convert‘s Jay Baer:

“Great customer experience occurs when you exceed customer expectations in a palpable way. Poor customer experience occurs when you fail to meet customer expectations.”

Thus, the best way to measure customer experience is to mine that expectation gap. Ask every customer (or a random sample) a simple question: ‘On a scale of 1-10 how much better (or worse) was your experience with our company compared to what you expected?’

Integrate different types of communication channels in your contact centre; from VoIP to email marketing and surveys you can use all these different channels to collect data across different customer journey touchpoints. You may also want to consider customer service software. This will help streamline and makes easier customer communication across different channels.

Rather than only asking about the business as a whole, we recommend using the Jay Baer method and asking how your company compared with expectations in specific areas such as purchase experience, customer service, delivery, etc. Doing so will make the feedback you receive that little bit more targeted and actionable.

3. Analyze where you’re not meeting expectations

Now you’ve got a good deal of information on your customer’s expectations, it’s time to analyze your business to understand where you’re not meeting them.

If you’ve followed the advice thus far you should already have an indication of which areas of your business aren’t up to the standard your customers expect. However, at the minute that data is incomplete.

To bolster the information and really ensure that you have the complete information, you’re also going to have to delve into your analytics data.

The implicit data that’s provided through engagement statistics might, on first thought, seem pretty useless. However, they provide a good indication of which areas of your business are failing to meet customer expectations.

Look through your analytics data to find areas of your site that experience high bounce rates, low time on page, a disproportionate number of exits or any other negative results.

For example, let’s imagine that you see a larger than average exit rate on the page that details your shipping fees. Your explicit data also suggests that users are very concerned about price. Below are a few test ideas that could potentially increase conversions:

Offer cheaper / free shipping.
Keep a running total in the corner of the screen throughout the purchase journey (as demonstrated below).
Add the shipping fees to the running total in the corner so users aren’t hit with an unexpected cost.

Cart abandonment due to shipping costs is a well-documented issue. It also proves the point that implicit data can be the smoking gun to a particular expectation gap.

Find the pages that see low engagement and fail to hit key metrics, examine them, don your detective hat and try to identify the most obvious reason. Couple your explicit and implicit data and you should have a good idea of what it is your audience wants from you.

4. Optimize areas where you’re falling short

We know what your users want from you and the areas of your business that are letting you down. The next job is examining how you can improve the areas that are lagging behind and optimize them to meet customer expectations.

Don’t worry about getting this right first time around. As with any other optimization effort, this is an iterative process. You’re going to go through many different rounds of testing before you’ve improved to a level where few customers complain.

The most important thing right now is to get started. You know the problem areas and you know what people want to get to work on giving it to them. For example, take a look at the below complaint made via Twitter:

Without knowing the full story our guesses at how to narrow the customer expectation gap are just that, guesses. However, Ebuyer could have explored the below options:

Clearly, display the deadline for placing orders for Saturday (this assumes the customer missed that deadline yet still thought they were entitled to Saturday delivery).
Stop offering Saturday delivery entirely.
Speak to Yodel about delivering what was contractually agreed and if the service doesn’t improve, hire a more reliable service that will deliver on time.

These aren’t huge actions and won’t take a lot of time to implement, but they could have a huge impact on your business. Once you’ve implemented these changes it’s a case of tracking future engagement and amending further iterations of improvement based on the results.

5. Honesty is the best policy

Before you start cracking on with optimizing your processes to reduce the customer expectation and reality gap, there’s one overriding rule that needs to permeate everything you do: Be honest.

Most expectations are inflated thanks to over the top claims and grandiose brags. Ensure that what you say you’re offering really is what the user is going to get.

Are you the best service in the city? Who says so and what’s the proof? Can you guarantee delivery in 24 hours or did you just include that after reading it can help increase conversions?

There’s a real temptation to lie simply because such imposing terms make a bigger impact, but they do you no favours when it comes to customer service.

If you’re honest, the number of people who can complain when you don’t provide what you’ve promised will be drastically reduced. You’ll have fewer negative social reviews, a more succinct marketing campaign but most importantly, a happier customer base.

Customer Expectation FAQs

? What are customer expectations?

Customer expectations can be defined as a set of behaviors or actions that the customers anticipate they will receive when dealing with a company or website.

? How do you meet customer expectations?

You can meet customer expectations by:
1) Understanding your customer base and their needs
2) Monitoring customer satisfaction levels & regularly collect feedback
3) Provide first-class customer service
4) Develop a customer-centric approach throughout every aspect of your business.

? How do you manage customers expectations?

The best way to manage customer expectations is to be as transparent and honest as you can throughout their journey. Use the realistic images, clearly display delivery timelines, use reviews, and social proof. Put simply, don’t over-promise.

❓ Why is it important to manage customers expectations?

It’s important to manage customer expectations so customers have a realistic view of what to expect, and therefore more likely to be satisfied or delighted with the service they receive from you.

Social Proof: What, Why & How With Examples

13th April 2020 (updated 14th November 2022) | By Lana Kropyvna | 0 Comments

What is social proof and how does it help eCommerce businesses boost sales and revenue? Let’s take a look at one of the most powerful principles of persuasion.

Even the most novice eCommerce marketers know that psychological principles play a huge role in consumer purchase decisions. Using psychological triggers and cues to nudge customers in the right direction is widely used online and offline: from savvy product placement on the shelf to serial positioning on an eCommerce website.

One of the most widely adopted frameworks for using psychology in eCommerce marketing is Robert Cialdini’s 7 principles of persuasion. In his 1984 book “Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion,” Cialdini outlined six (he added the seventh in 2016) key principles that make people say ‘yes’:

Reciprocity: Instil a sense of indebted gratitude in your customers.
Scarcity: Make customers aware of how they might miss out.
Authority: Encourage customers through trusted voices.
Commitment and consistency: Lead customers to big purchases through smaller commitments.
Liking: Make customers feel good about buying from you.
Social proof: Let the wisdom of the crowd lead your customer’s decision-making.
Unity: Help your customers build a sense of belonging.

We have already analyzed scarcity to some extent in our eBook Creating Urgency to Purchase (there’s also a webinar version).

This time we’d like to dive into the increasingly popular tactic and psychological phenomenon – social proof.

This article will cover the following:
1. What is social proof?
2. Types of social proof
3. Social proof examples
3.1 Customer reviews
3.2 Urgency tactics
3.3 Stock levels
3.4 Best-selling products
3.5 Product recommendations
4. Final thoughts
5. Why is social proof important

What Is Social Proof?

While it is pretty evident how social proof functions in the physical world – word of mouth being the most apparent example, how does this psychology principle translate to eCommerce marketing?

Well, when it comes to boosting online sales, social proof is mainly used as a conversion rate optimization (CRO) technique to encourage customers to make purchases on the spot and reduce website abandonment.

Robert Cialdini studied the principle of social proof in-depth in his book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Within the book, he states “we view a behaviour as more correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it”.

In situations where we are not 100% sure about what to do we look for reassurance or the “correct behaviour” to help us make a decision.

But what types can help with this reassurance?

The Different Types of Social Proof

You’re probably already familiar with some types of social proof, such as customer reviews and testimonials or referrals from friends. But there are, in fact, at least six different types of social proof:

Customer testimonials/User social proof – comes from your existing customers or users. Example: a positive review on your website from satisfied customers.
Expert social proof – This can come from industry experts. Example: a public endorsement of an industry expert on social media or in press mentions.
Celebrity social proof – much like expert social proof, celebrity social proof is a celebrity or influencer endorsement of your product or service.
Friend referrals – this type of social proof is seeing your friends approve or endorse a product or service.
The wisdom of the crowd – this type of social proof is seeing large numbers of people follow, endorse and recommend a product or service. As human beings, we want to reflect correct behavior, people assume if everyone else is doing it then it must be right.
Certification – this type of social proof is having an authoritative figure assign a mark of approval. Example: a ‘verified’ badge on your social media profile or a ‘secure payment’ trust badge on your website.

A social proof example that utilizes the wisdom of the crowd.

How to get social proof

They are many different ways you can go about getting social proof and it all depends on the form of social proof you want to use. Some are quicker and easier to get than others.

Customer testimonials/User social proof – Make sure you have a review platform that can embed widgets onto your website. One of the most popular review sites is Trustpilot, but there are also specific apps for different eCommerce platforms. Yotpo for example has a Spotify app that has a free version you can use.
Expert social proof – Identify industry experts and see if there’s a way you can collaborate with them.
Celebrity social proof – You can use the social influence of celebrities to get in front of your target audience. This is touching on influencer marketing, so you just need to find the right person to collaborate with.
Friend referrals –This one may happen naturally if you’re product or service delights a current customer. You can encourage this type of social proof using referral programs.
The wisdom of the crowd – this type of social proof is seeing large numbers of people follow, endorse and recommend a product or service.
Certification – Some of these will be easier to get than others, getting your Facebook page verified will be easier than gaining a industry specific certification. Research what certifications you can get within your industry, check what your competitors have, and see what payment badges you can quickly add to your website if you’re in the eCommerce space.

Pick what type of social proof you think will work best for your website and put together an action plan of how you can first get it, and second how you can use it.

In terms of using social proof, these examples below should help.

Social Proof Ecommerce Examples with Yieldify

Visually, there’s a huge range of means at your disposal to create social proof for your website visitors. It might come in the form of overlays or notifications, enhanced images, highlighted text within product descriptions and other attention-grabbing features on the page.

Yieldify helps ecommerce businesses use the power of social proof with its Dynamic Social Proof feature. If you’d like to hear more about it, sign up for a free demo.

Disclaimer: Yieldify is our product. We’ve done our best to present the information fairly because we want to help you make an educated decision but we’re especially proud of what we offer. We’ve seen it transform conversion rates, lead generation and revenue for so many brands – large and small – all over the world. You may have seen we use the Yieldify platform and services on our own website too. Learn more here and schedule a call with an advisor.

Here we take a look at six different social proof examples that eCommerce retailers can easily employ on their websites.

1. Build trust through customer reviews and star ratings

A classic example in eCommerce is putting customer reviews and star ratings alongside products to help the visitor feel confident in the product. According to Consumerist, up to 70% of online customers check product reviews before they purchase.

Here’s how one of Yieldify’s clients, Caudalie, utilizes various forms of social proof on their product pages. Starting with the ‘best rated’ stamp to showcasing the number of times this product was favorited along with customer reviews.

These third party ‘trust signals’ can be at their most powerful when it comes to high-ticket items or other big purchasing decisions. Take Ovo Energy, for example – they’re trying to get their visitors to switch energy providers, which is a pretty substantial purchase to make.

So they showed their visitors social proof in the form of their Trustpilot ratings to help give them the confidence to continue on to conversion (resulting in a conversion rate increase of 18%):

So when your visitors can’t touch and feel (or even taste test) the item or speak to a sales assistant, social proof in the form of reviews can help:

Promote trust with a sense of transparency.
Create a sense of confidence: “If someone else loved it, I might too!”
Answer questions the visitor might have about the product that will help them decide whether it’s right for them.

2. Create urgency by showing the number of people viewing a product

We all know that a sense of urgency drives purchasing decisions. When deployed well, it can be used to encourage the user to make a purchase where they otherwise may have put it off or left the website, increasing the risk that they will fail to return to the sales funnel.

Using this social proof feature, brands such as Kickers and Butterfly Twists have seen how this sense of urgency creates an online shopping FOMO (fear of missing out) and can increase conversions.

In brick-and-mortar retail stores, it’s easy to see how many people are looking at a product – queues, crowded stores, people browsing the same racks. All of these things pique interest, and shoppers come in to see what people are looking at, creating a positive cycle.

E-commerce retailers can simulate this experience online, recreating the sense that the consumer is in a crowded store with others vying for the same products. Showing how many people are viewing a product:

Creates a sense of urgency: “Someone else might take this if I don’t act now!”
Proves the value of the product: other people are interested, too.

3. Boost urgency by showing stock levels

Along with urgency, scarcity is one of the go-to tactics for marketers everywhere as it creates a desire for immediate action.

Again, in a traditional store, you can physically see how much stock is on the shelf. Digital shopping experiences erase this physical visibility, but eCommerce retailers can replicate the experience by alerting customers to when stocks are low – whether by giving a specific number (i.e. ‘Hurry – only 3 left!’) or simply indicating a low stock level.

Highlighting stock levels:

Encourages people to act immediately, reducing website abandonment.
Creates a good customer experience by reducing frustration.

4. Drive interest with ‘best sellers’

Consider the New York Times Best Seller list. Often considered the highest accolade a book can receive, it’s plastered all over the merchandising for any book that can make the boast. The logic is of course that if lots of people like it, it must be good.

E-commerce retailers can use the same principle to help sell their items. It might be a search filter, as in the below example from beauty retailer Kiehl’s, which also uses a header image with compelling copy to emphasize the popularity of the products. It can also be highlighted in the product description or as a design feature on product images.

Presenting items as ‘best sellers’:

Helps people select an item they’ll feel they’re more likely to enjoy.
Assists consumers in sorting and searching through products on your website more easily.

5. Give recommendations by showing what others have purchased

Showing products that others have bought or viewed alongside the item a customer is already viewing is a true ‘one-two punch’ of an eCommerce cross-selling technique.

Why? Not only does it remind the user that people have bought the product they’re viewing, providing social proof for the product they’re already considering, but it introduces a sales funnel for further products, giving those products social proof as well.

This is best known as an Amazon technique – but considering that 35% of Amazon sales are driven by their recommendation algorithm, it’s an extremely valuable practice to adopt.

Suggesting items based on the purchasing behavior of others reduces website abandonment by helping users explore further products. Here’s how another Yieldify client, Serenata Flowers, employed it on their website:

Social proof example from Serenata Flowers

6. Build interest with curated lists and endorsements

Another source people look for social proof is in well-known identities and experts. Celebrity endorsements are an enduring marketing phenomenon for a reason: they work. If people perceive that a product is being recommended by someone they know and like, it builds trust and a sense of quality.

But you don’t have to get a Hollywood A-Lister to endorse your product: experts and influencers work in a similar way. For example, Glossier uses its founder, Emily Weiss, to promote a set of its products.

Using expert and celebrity endorsement:

Is memorable – recognizable faces help sell products.
Creates trust and assurance through positive association with people they like and admire.
Helps people feel an affinity with the brand and its products.

Why is social proof important?

Social proof can play a key role in convincing potential customers to buy from you and increase conversions on your website. From improving landing page performance, or encouraging blog readers to leave a valid email address, to making your online marketing more effective social proof can touch every customer touchpoint.

But why is it important?

Well, research has found that 92% of consumers read online reviews, and 80% of shoppers trust reviews as much as personal recommendations.

Combined with the above, it’s been found that people will read up to ten reviews before making a purchase decision, and 54% of respondents will visit a website after reading positive reviews.

The keyword is proof. Customers want to feel safe in making a purchase decision and that’s why social proof is important.

In conclusion…

Social proof is a powerful means of encouraging consumers to act with immediacy. It’s important to select the right kind of tactic to use on your site: not all will be appropriate for every kind of retailer or product. And social proof in itself is just one of many ways to improve conversion rates and reduce website abandonment.

Social Proof FAQs

What does the term social proof mean?

Social proof is a psychological and social phenomenon that stems from behavioral economics. When you’re viewing a product page and see a number of 5-star reviews from verified customers, that’s social proof.

What is an example of social proof?

Examples of social proof are customer reviews & star ratings, showing stock levels, endorsements, showing “other people bought” and highlighting best sellers.

How can I get social proof?

There are a number of different ways you can get social proof. The quickest way is to make use of your current customers and past work. Review, Case Studies, Testimonials etc are all quick ways you can get social proof.

How to Respond to Negative Customer Reviews Online

10th April 2020 (updated 17th November 2022) | By Lana Kropyvna | 0 Comments

Check out our need-to-know tips on how to respond to negative customer reviews to maintain your positive reputation and provide a sparkling customer experience.

The way you handle negative customer reviews and customer complaints is becoming increasingly important for your business. In the past, dealing with negative reviews was generally a one-to-one conversation. Sure, it was still vital to respond in the best way possible to keep your customer happy – but there was also less scope for negative customer reviews to snowball and damage your brand.

In this blog we’re going to look at the following:
1. Can negative reviews be a good thing?
2. Don’t take it personally
3. Formulate a response
4. Don’t delay
5. Be humble and show empathy
6. Be personable
7. Solve their issue
8. Conclusion

With the proliferation of social media and online reviews, things have changed. According to Sprout Social, consumers tend to reach out to brands for several reasons: if they had a good experience (59%), if they have a product or service question (47%), and if they had a bad experience (40%).

Social media has empowered your customers. Now anyone with a grievance and a WiFi connection can sully your reputation by posting a negative review for the world to see. The good news is – there are tried and true methods to handle these unsatisfied queries and even use them to your own advantage!

Can negative customer reviews be a good thing?

It may seem counterintuitive, but the odd negative review can be a good thing. In fact, research shows that as many as 82% of online consumers specifically seek out negative reviews with 4.2-4.5 considered as the perfect rating, whereas “a near or perfect 5.0 rating is considered ‘too good to be true’.

Why? It’s basically down to trust. Consumers are more inclined to trust reviews when they see both good and bad scores. When no negative opinions are present, consumers suspect censorship or fake reviews.

When researching a product or service, customers also find both negative and positive reviews help to make a decision. If customers are researching a product enough that they’re delving into the negative reviews, they’re probably closer to making a purchase – so don’t rush to hide those reviews or simply delete them.

The positive side of negative customer reviews:

• Negative reviews provide transparency and build trust.
• Negative reviews make your brand look authentic and honest.
• Negative reviews empower buyers to make more informed purchase decisions.
• Negative feedback can help you improve your products and services.
• Dissatisfied customers can be converted to the brand’s biggest advocates.
• Negative reviews create buzz and can increase sales.

On that last note – wondering how can someone trashing your product or service actually help you sell more? For one, a study by Harvard Business Review looked at the sales of books by unknown authors and saw a spike in sales by an average of 45%. Meaning that negative reviews can bring awareness to your product and thus, have a positive impact on sales.

Or, if you have the guts and aren’t afraid of some good-intended humor, why not deploy something like the “Unrating Vienna” campaign that highlighted negative but funny reviews of the Austrian city.

“Unrating Vienna” campaign by the city’s tourist board

Or the Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort “One Star” campaign that turned 1-star reviews into amazing ads?

The ad copy reads: “Too advanced. I’ve heard that Snowbird is a tough mountain, but this is ridiculous. It felt like every trail is a steep chute or littered with tree wells. How is anyone supposed to ride in that? Not fun! – Greg, Los Angeles, LA”

All jokes aside, though, data shows that about 40 positive reviews are needed to undo the potential damage caused by one negative customer review. So how do you do that?

How to handle negative customer reviews

1. Don’t take it personally

Taking criticism is hard, especially when it is directed at something you and your team have poured your hearts and souls into. However, a negative review does not mean you are doing something wrong. More often than not, it just means the customer had different expectations.

Take emotions out of the equation, keep a leveled head, and follow the next steps.

Example of an overly sensitive response to a one-star customer rating

2. Mull over your response

Don’t be hasty with your response. While time is a factor, take a moment to evaluate the situation, gather facts and offer the best possible solution. In some cases, you will find that the complaint is illegitimate and may not even warrant a response.

Decide whether it’s best to respond publicly or take the conversation offline. Both are OK but may be used differently depending on the situation. For example, if a customer states they simply didn’t like the product, acknowledging their feedback is oftentimes enough.

On the other hand, if you have a reviewer complaining about a defect item or unsatisfactory process, it’s worth exploring their case privately.

3. Don’t delay your response

Based on Hotjar’s State of Customer Experience research, long response times are the number one frustration customers have with brands.

Of course, this pertains mostly to cases that require further action, like a lost or defect item. Jeff Toister claims that modern businesses should aim to address customer complaints within one hour, but a 24-hour response is still acceptable. All in all, the quicker you respond, the better. No one is going to complain about your overly-prompt response.

4. Be humble and empathize

There are two extremities that you can take when responding to a negative customer review: being too apologetic or being too defensive. Find a middle ground.

Thank the customer for their feedback.

Acknowledge their complaint and apologize for any inconvenience.

If the error was fully on your end, assure the customer you are doing everything to fix it.

If, however, there was no particular error and the customer just had mismatched expectations, ask them to submit more constructive criticism on how things could be improved.

If the error was solely on the customer’s side, offer friendly advice on how to avoid such misunderstandings happening in the future. For example, if the customer is complaining about returns, gently (!) remind them to check your Return Policy or FAQ pages.

5. Be personable

This advice mainly applies to your written responses. But with email, social and messaging becoming increasingly common ways to complain, it’s all the more important to respond well in writing.

If you’re responding to negative reviews, a good rule of thumb is to judge the tone and content of your reply by how you’d speak to the reviewer in person. Obviously remain polite, but don’t forget to be human. At the end of the day you’re writing to a person, so replying like a robotic corporation with a scripted reply that lacks warmth or empathy will further frustrate your upset customer.

6. Solve the issue

It goes without saying this is the most important part. Whatever you say, however nicely you say it will not matter if the issue persists. After all, it costs 5 times more to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one, and your existing customers are also more likely to try new products and spend more.

By making a real effort to fix their issue, you can actually turn a negative reviewer into a brand advocate. So, replace their product, refund or compensate accordingly where necessary. Yes, it’s going to take a bit of time and effort, but realistically the return on garnering a great reputation could make it one of the smarter investments you make.

After all, you not only gain a satisfied customer who is likely to change their review but you also show potential customers reading the reviews you’re a brand that looks after your customers and really cares.

Conclusion

For the most part, you can fix the majority of negative reviews and complaints by simply being proactive, genuine and helpful. With customer lifetime value probably the most important metric in your business right now, it definitely pays to invest in keeping your customers happy.

Responding to negative reviews appropriately ensures both your customer experience and your reputation will remain untarnished. Follow the simple guidelines we’ve outlined (along with your common sense) and you can turn negative customer reviews into positive customer experiences.

? What is the best way to respond to a negative review?

The best way to answer a negative review is to firstly, address the reviewer, and apologize and sympathize with their situation. If the fault is on your part take responsiblity and do everything you can to make things right. Try to take the issue offline if you can.

? Should you respond to a negative review?

Yes. You must respond to all negative reviews. If you don’t it could be seen that you don’t care about your customers’ feedback or experiences. However, if you respond it shows you take customer care seriously and can increase customer advocacy.

Abandoned Cart Emails That Win Back Customers: Examples and Best Practices

7th October 2019 (updated 8th February 2023) | By Lana Kropyvna | 0 Comments

Cart abandonment isn’t a problem – it’s an opportunity. Here’s how you can use cart abandonment emails to re-engage abandoning visitors and maximize your ROI.

Cart abandonment – it’s the worst, isn’t it? We certainly couldn’t find any fan pages for it on Facebook, and a cursory Google of ‘I love cart abandonment’ brought back absolutely nothing of relevance.

When your customer abandons cart, it can feel like they’re teasing you – putting the prize right before your eyes, only to cruelly snatch it away at the last second. But with around 75% of visitors abandoning their shopping carts, the feeling can become all too familiar.

Not only is it damn frustrating, but it is also costly for your business. It’s estimated that abandoned carts are worth $4 trillion a year to retailers.

Even if you divvied up this purported $4 trillion between every retailer, that’s a fair chunk of cash for your business. But here’s the good part – if you’re willing to get smart about it – more of that cash is destined for your bank account than your rivals.

It’s worthwhile quickly getting some perspective on the whole cart abandonment issue. Not everyone who abandons their cart is intending on making a purchase in the first place. However, vitally, a fair amount of them are genuinely thinking about buying (if not straight away): research from Business Insider suggested that 63% of abandoned cart revenue is potentially recoverable.

As a result, cart abandonment isn’t a problem – it’s a huge opportunity. Just think, if you could recover just a third of that 63% of revenue, you’d be laughing all the way to the bank.

Why do visitors abandon your site?

Before we look at getting your customers back, it makes sense to look at the reasons that cause cart abandonment in the first place. It’s clear that website visitors rightfully despise unexpected costs and, as you’d expect, they’re prone to just browsing and shopping around.

Along with these fairly obvious reasons for cart abandonment, there are a host of user experience issues – from navigation down to payment problems – which cause visitors to leave without purchasing.

So, as well as fixing some of these UX problems and being upfront with all your costs, is there you much else you can do to re-engage your visitors that are abandoning cart?

Well yes, there’s plenty. These days there are a fair few ways to maximize your ROI by making your visitors reconsider leaving their cart behind. From giving them a reason to stay on your site in the first place with personalized exit-intent overlays to tempting them to come back with cart abandonment emails.

As you clicked on this blog, first and foremost you probably want to hear about email remarketing – so let’s get to it!

Cart abandonment emails

Abandoned cart emails, cart abandonment emails, basket abandonment emails, email remarketing… Call it what you will, but how do the emails actually work? And should you be using them?

How does email remarketing work?

At its most basic, email remarketing is used to send an email to a user who has abandoned their basket. This email could give the visitor a reminder or maybe feature an offer, but ultimately the aim of the game is to give them a reason to return to your site and convert.

You can do a bunch of smart stuff with your emails to increase the likelihood of conversion, from sending them in batches to using clever design.

Should you be using cart abandonment emails?

The results make a compelling case. Cart abandonment emails have been shown to increase purchases at a rate that’s 19 times higher than traditional promotional emails.

The mixture of personalized, relevant content that’s still fresh in a visitor’s mind means that cart abandonment campaigns are far more effective at re-engaging users.

A SeeWhy study revealed that 75% of new visitors abandon with intent to return at some point. With this in mind, doesn’t it make sense to give them a reminder or incentive to come back?

New visitors cart abandonment statistics

At Yieldify, we’ve seen email remarketing produce top results for clients across every vertical. From 66.2% open rates in the cosmetics industry, to 30% conversion rates for a home and garden eCommerce retailer.

There’s no reason your eCommerce site won’t see these kinds of returns – cart abandonment emails could well be the key ingredient to maximizing your marketing ROI.

So, we’ve shown you how well cart abandonment emails can work, the next step is to figure out how should you go about using them. To get you started, we’ve quickly summarized some of the basic best practices below.

Top tips for cart abandonment email

1. Make them mobile-friendly

Data shows that 42% of emails are now opened on a mobile device. This means one thing for your emails – always make sure they’re mobile optimized! Otherwise, your cart abandonment emails will be practically unnavigable for more than half of your customers.

Email opens by device | Yieldify — (Data via Litmus)

2. Clear pricing

Unexpected costs are the main reason for your customers to abandon in the first place, so don’t go making the same mistake twice. Your pricing, including shipping and returns, must be expressly clear in your email. If you’re offering a discount, apply this to the basket to entice your customer with the improved price.

3. Time to perfection

From half an hour to a day, retailers like to play with the timing of their email remarketing to see what works best. Results show that usually the sooner you send your email, the better.

But don’t take this for gospel, test what works for your brand. Emails close to the time of abandonment generally work as they’re fresh in the customer’s mind. However, for more expensive items they’ll probably need longer to consider making a purchase.

Your timing may also be dependent on how many emails you intend to send, which brings us to our next point…

4. Send multiple emails

Don’t forget, visitors who have abandoned basket are essentially warm leads – so treat them accordingly. A sequence of drip emails is a good way to nurture your visitor and to help push them down the funnel.

Sending multiple emails works: sending a second cart abandonment email has been shown to bring a 54% lift in revenue.

N.B. If you’re sending your cart abandonment emails in a drip sequence, don’t offer your incentive until the final email. You may well be able to convert your prospect beforehand by pushing other content such as a simple reminder or by emphasizing our USPs. By leaving that incentive (eg. 10% discount or free delivery) till last, you won’t cut into your margins unless you really need to.

5. Sense-check your subject line

Your open rate is going to largely rely on your cart abandonment email subject line. Ambiguous or ‘clever’ subject lines aren’t really needed here.

Stay true to your brand’s tone of voice, but whether you’re sending a reminder, inciting urgency or offering an incentive – make it very clear what the email contains.

6. Slick design

Your abandoned cart emails’ success will lean heavily on their design and layout. Here are a few key tips.

Make the email design consistent with what your user expects from your brand, and purchasing online in general:

Incorporate your website branding.
Show the products a visitor has added to cart or the products a visitor has shown interest in.
Make the email look like a checkout page.
Make any drip email sequences consistent in look and feel.

Your cart abandonment emails really should be a continuation of your visitor’s onsite experience. In terms of usability, ensure it’s as easy as possible to make a purchase directly from the email. This means things like linking through to your checkout page and, if you’re offering one, automatically adding discounts to your onsite cart.

7. Welcome your user back on site

Again, this is all about consistency and giving your customers a coherent customer experience across channels.

By linking your email remarketing with onsite remarketing you can create a full-circle customer experience. Essentially you can target visitors based on their onsite behaviors both when they’re browsing and once they’ve left with targeted emails.

When your user returns to your website via email remarketing you can then welcome them back onsite with messaging relevant to the email’s content and take them directly to where they want to go. By creating this coherent loop we’ve seen customers increase conversions by up to 13% in comparison to just using onsite overlays.

Cart abandonment email welcome back message example

Bonus tips

Scarcity & Urgency – scarcity is a psychological sales principle as old as time. We’re all more likely to buy something that’s running out. Apply this to your email remarketing to incite urgency and give your customers fear of missing out.

Incentive – a 10% discount on their cart abandonment campaign saw Yieldify’s client, a leading home and garden brand, get a 30% conversion rate. If you don’t want to damage your margins pushing existing relevant offers or your brand’s USPs. However, an incentive such as a discount or free delivery will usually see a greater boost in conversions.

Social proof – 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations and 90% read online reviews before visiting a business anyway. Do the leg work for our customers and by providing some social proof with customer testimonials and reviews in your emails.

To sum up…

You put heaps of time and money into getting traffic onto your site in the first place… You then spend endless hours optimizing your onsite experience… Don’t let cart abandonment spoil all your hard work.

Try to shift your perspective and see it as an opportunity, not a problem. By using cart abandonment emails and other cart abandonment solutions to re-engage and convert just a small percentage of the visitors who’ve left your site you can maximize ROI and smash your revenue targets.

After GDPR: replenish your email database with Yieldify

25th May 2018 (updated 5th May 2021) | By Lana Kropyvna | 0 Comments

If you (somehow) weren’t aware, GDPR comes into force today. This news will likely create mixed feelings: on the one hand, you’ll be breathing a sigh of relief after months (or a few manic weeks) of reviewing and updating your approach to customer data and your future data governance strategy.

On the other, you’ll be wondering what’s going to happen now. Were the steps you took enough? What will be the impact of the changes you’ve made on your next campaign?

To prep for GDPR, you’ll have likely purged your email subscriber records, deleting contacts that hadn’t clearly opted-in or didn’t meet the criteria for legitimate interest.

Fewer contact records mean your campaigns are going to reach fewer people – and that may hinder your ability to impact the bottom line. Considering that email generates the highest ROI for marketers with $38 for every $1 spend, that’s actually a pretty big problem.

It isn’t all bad of course: while in the near-term your emails are going to hit fewer inboxes, your pre-GDPR clean-up means your list is full of users that actually want to receive them. That indicates a higher intent to purchase, so what you’ve lost on volume, you stand to gain on conversion rate.

But what are you going to do to increase your subscriber list and maintain that quality combination of consent and high intent to purchase?

The answer: create opportunities to opt-in throughout the customer journey.

Your website: the perfect place to opt-in

A well-timed incentive targeted to the right customer at the right moment can be just what it takes to turn a casual website browser into an opted-in subscriber. Yieldify’s expert team can identify the best opportunities within your website customer journey and put in place experiences that capture email addresses with express opt-in.

Tools to help you show consent

Transparency is at the heart of GDPR. If you’re going to contact customers, you’re going to need to prove a ‘lawful basis on processing’.

The Yieldify Conversion Platform can help you capture consent by letting you include an opt-in checkbox in any campaign.

When you export customer data, every opted-in user will be marked as ‘true’, giving you a record of every customer that demonstrated consent. You can also customise text next to the checkbox to link out to your privacy policy or provide other relevant information.

Replenish your email database – and drive conversions

Yieldify campaigns can serve more than one objective: in the same interaction, you can encourage customers to opt-in to communication and give them a reasons to purchase. The Yieldify team are veterans at delivering this strategy, having helped brands like furniture retailer RUM21 double its lead database and drive a 106% increase in conversions from targeted first-time visitors or festival operator We Are FSTVL achieve an 8% increase in lead capture and 10% increase in ticket sales.

With this approach, you can give customers a reason to buy now and in the same action secure the means to grow their relationship over time.

In exchange for joining your newsletter, you might also want to A/B test offering incentives against simply highlighting your brand USPs. And if the customer doesn’t want to sign up to your marcomms, they don’t have to opt-in to receive the incentive, meaning you can still influence a conversion, but on their terms.

The eCommerce Statistics Report Q3 2017

24th October 2017 (updated 5th May 2021) | By Lana Kropyvna | 0 Comments

Yieldify gathered data from 400 e-commerce websites across the world in order to show you the latest industry trends in Q3 2017. Here’s what we found…

How have conversion rates changed this quarter?

Conversion rates in retail grew consistently over the summer, with travel also taking a leap towards the end of the quarter. Finance, on the other hand, saw a decline…

Conversion rates for online retail between Q2 and Q3 2017

Finance suffers the highest bounce rate

While each vertical loses half of its visitors immediately, finance websites struggle the most with getting their traffic to linger.

Customers researched holidays in August, but purchased in September

New visitor traffic to travel e-commerce sites peaked at 65% in August – however, conversion rates only rose from 5% to 7% in September.

This could mean customers are waiting for more affordable travel packages. Are you highlighting your best deals?

The 5-minute mark

The likelihood of retail e-commerce customers converting increases up to 14% after 5 minutes. As you’d expect, the trend continues the longer a customer stays on site – does your site’s CR trend reflect this?

Q3’s retail AOV grew

Average retail order value grew 9% from its level in Q2, with AOV peaking at £117.80 in August. Those summer sales were popular…

Desktop is still king for conversions

Mobile might be the device to watch when it comes to traffic, but desktop still wins when it comes to conversion rates.

Does your e-commerce store match up to what you see here? If not, we can help. Get in touch with us and we’ll help you turn your traffic into sales.

Better Lead Nurturing With ESP Integrations From Yieldify

13th October 2017 (updated 5th May 2021) | By Lana Kropyvna | 0 Comments

At Yieldify, we help you build customer journeys that convert. One simple way we do this is by letting you connect Yieldify with your email technology of choice.

It’s more than likely that you have a system in place to deliver emails to customers – 82% of B2B and B2C companies rely on these tools to nurture customer relationships.

Warm leads convert better

With the Yieldify Conversion Platform, you have the tools to encourage website visitors to share their email address on your website. But once that email has been collected, it’s important you take steps to keep that visitor engaged, especially if they leave the website without making a purchase.

The moment a visitor shares their email address, that lead is warm – and cooling fast; the sooner you send them a relevant email, the better.

Simple, powerful automation

As soon as you’ve collected a customer email in a Yieldify campaign, you can automatically send that email directly into a list in your Email Service Provider. It saves you downloading leads from the Yieldify Conversion Platform only to have to re-upload them to another tool and it means there’s not a minute wasted so your customer gets a seamless brand experience from onsite to email.

Here are just some of the ESP integrations available to Yieldify customers:

We’re adding more ESP integrations all the time – if you’re interested in a integration that is not listed above, please get in touch.

Introducing the Yieldify Holiday Season Checklist 2017

27th September 2017 (updated 5th May 2021) | By Lana Kropyvna | 0 Comments

Get your free guide to making the busiest time in the e-commerce calendar your most successful yet

Halloween. Black Friday. Cyber Monday. Bounceback Tuesday. Throwback Thursday. Super Saturday. Free Shipping Day.

Q4 in e-commerce means you’ve got your work cut out for you.

It’s a make-or-break season for the retailer and with that comes an ever-growing calendar of key shopping days and events that seems to change rapidly from year-to-year.

Help is at hand.

We crunched the numbers (thousands of them) in order to draw out some data-driven tactics to make your holiday season its best yet, and have whipped up a simple (and rather pretty) planning checklist that will keep your Q4 on the straight and narrow until 2018 rolls around.

Of course, these aren’t just cut-and-paste ‘tips and tricks’, but real insights backed up by patterns on e-commerce websites around the world. So grab your copy today and find out: when your Black Friday traffic should start arriving (hint: it’s not Black Friday), what’s so special about December 21st and when you can go to bed on Black Friday.
Prefer your tips in video form? Not a problem – check out our Black Friday masterclass with Conversant, which draws on the same data to call out five key secrets to making the start of Q4 go off with a bang:

Need some more help getting Q4-ready?

Fair enough – every site’s a little different.
Yieldify offers free Customer Journey Optimisation (CJO) consultations – simply sign up here to learn how to get the best holiday season your website has ever seen.

Our campaigns of the month: September 2017

27th September 2017 (updated 5th May 2021) | By Lana Kropyvna | 0 Comments

Want to improve your customer’s journey online? Increase AOV? Find out how in our favourite client work this month!

How HEWI shared its favourite products with customers

HEWI (Hardly Ever Worn It) is changing the way shoppers find pre-loved luxury fashion – selling globally-coveted items without the hefty price tag.

Encouraging luxury online shopping can be a challenge as the in-store experience is a large part of the appeal, so the brand engaged all its visitors with an overlay triggered on timer. This campaign, which appears whilst the customer would be scrolling through the site, highlighted HEWI’s ‘favourite’ items of the month.

Using this notification, HEWI shows to both new and returning customers an ever-growing roster of affordable luxury items available on its site. Noting only a select number of items creates an air of exclusivity as all products on the site cannot be restocked once they are bought.

How Soak personalised the customer experience and increased AOV

Soak, the online bathroom retailer, wanted to encourage customers to increase average spend on its site. With the Yieldify Conversion Platform, Soak was able to increase engagement with its customers and personalise online experiences using the Dynamic Promotions feature.

Personalising experiences to suit customers and their specific actions is a great way to achieve conversions, so the brand served an overlay notifying customers how much more they needed to spend to receive free delivery. This campaign – triggering once an item has been added to basket – adjusted the balance to suit the customer’s specific basket value.

Yieldify ranks 23rd in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100

11th September 2017 (updated 5th May 2021) | By Lana Kropyvna | 0 Comments

We’ve made our debut appearance in the definitive ranking of Britain’s fastest-growing private tech businesses.

We’re delighted to have made our first appearance in the 2017 Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100 – and we’ve landed within the top 25! The highest-ranking marketing technology company in this year’s league table, we’ve come in at 23rd place, thanks to our 125% growth rate.

The league table ranks Britain’s 100 private tech (TMT) companies with the fastest-growing sales over their latest three years and has continually been a bellwether for the next big successes in UK tech. Alumni include success stories such as King, Just Eat and Zoopla among hundreds of companies who have gone on to IPO and beyond. We’re delighted to be in great company in this year’s report, alongside exciting tech companies such as Wonderbly and Darktrace.

You can check out the full league table here along with profiles of all the winners – and check out the full research report, which makes for fascinating reading about the defining characteristics of 2017’s cohort.

Yieldify’s Top 10 eCommerce Tips Backed by 10 Billion Interactions

9th August 2017 (updated 5th May 2021) | By Lana Kropyvna | 0 Comments

We’ve now delivered over 10 billion interactions – clicks, sales and much more – with shoppers all over the world. Here are the top 10 e-commerce tips we’ve developed from all that data.

When Yieldify first took shape in 2013, little did we know that four short years later we would have delivered over 10 billion interactions on websites across the world.

Those clicks, sales, leads and much more have given us a pool of data and a wealth of experience that all add up to one thing: great insight into e-commerce strategies that convert.

So we thought that the occasion of reaching this milestone should be a point at which we share the wealth. Based on that data and experience, here are our top ten e-commerce tips – enjoy!

1. Focus as much on new customers as potential customers

Most businesses focus much of their e-commerce strategies on converting new visitors – but did you know that for a conventional retailer, less than 0.00003% of visitors become a regular customer?

There is a huge, often neglected, opportunity here. Work on getting your new customers to become loyal customers, finding out what it takes to get them to make that crucial second purchase and continue their journey with you.

2. Don’t expect discounts to drive loyalty

Offering discounts is the ultimate ‘quick-win’ e-commerce tip if you can afford to take the hit on your margins. But the thing to remember is that while discounting can significantly increase the number of visitors purchasing for the first time, it’s not always the best strategy for driving lifetime value.

Why? The customer that’s more motivated by discounting is likely less engaged with your brand, less aware of your differentiators and less interested in the great service you provide – their focus is on the price tag. With that in mind, it’s hardly surprising that the customer enticed through the door by the discount isn’t necessarily going to keep coming back if you can’t keep offering them price incentives.

Across the lifecycle, having the right message is just as important, if not more so, than your discount. We saw this in a test with Steiner Sports, where we split-tested two incentives: 20% off and 15% off. The winning variant was actually the one with 15% off – but we had added dynamic content that showed the visitor the last product they had browsed, making the message more personal even though the discount was smaller.

3. Get ahead of exit intent

Using exit intent technology to catch your visitor at the point of exit with a compelling message is a powerful tool.

However, your chances of driving conversion double if instead of launching a message when your customer goes to exit, you make an intervention that makes their journey more relevant and seamless before they show exit intent.

Of course, this is a little bit more complex and requires more commitment to testing – but the results are likely to be worth the effort.

4. Email remarketing is essential

There’s always going to be a significant proportion of your visitors who just aren’t ready to buy: this segment gets bigger if your products are high-value or if you’re in a market where comparison sites can lead browsers into long decision-making processes.

The best of our e-commerce tips for this is email remarketing – following up on your abandoning visitors with reasons for them to return can increase their likelihood to purchase by up to 5%, according to our data.

5. Focus on your core

Do for your website as you would do at the gym – if you don’t work on your core, then you’ll never get your best possible result. In e-commerce, getting your core customer journeys right provides a much larger return on investment than tactical campaigns. After all, a 5% increase in overall performance is much more valuable than the same increase for a tactical campaign.

The proof is in the numbers – we regularly see core campaigns accounting for over three-quarters of all the site-wide conversion uplift driven by onsite remarketing.

6. Don’t ask for a lead too quickly

Asking a brand new visitor to your site for their email address within seconds of arrival might be like asking someone for their number immediately after saying ‘hi’. At best, it’s less likely to be successful – at worst, it comes across as aggressive and off-putting.

The key is to wait until your new visitor has had time to engage with your site and understand what it’s about; you’ll then have a much better likelihood of being able to capture their details if you ask them once they’re in a place to make a more informed decision. This way, you can easily double your lead conversation rates (based on our calculations) compared to if you asked visitors on entry to your site.

7. Align your test length with your purchase cycle

Core campaign testing length should be aligned to your customer purchase cycle for best results. If your customers typically purchase in six-week cycles, then make sure that your test runs for at least six weeks – any shorter and you’ll likely to skew your results.

8. Message and timing beat creative

It’s a staple of A/B testing that encourages you to test whether the photo of the Golden Retriever or the Labrador sells insurance better. Of course, the creative for your campaigns merits careful consideration and testing – but we find the results to be quite marginal.

Our data shows that in order to make a real impact on conversion, your tests should focus on the message you show and the timing at which you show it.

9. Never assume that your message gets read

Don’t assume that your finely-crafted USP messages, such as free delivery, returns or trust signals, are being read by visitors. If you want them to get seen, you’ll need to put the appropriate ones right under their noses.

Our tests show that if you highlight these messages on an overlay campaign at the right time, you can increase conversions by up to 31% for those visitors exiting pre-checkout. Check out how luxury brand Harrys of London highlighted their USP messages to encourage their customers to convert:

10. Know when to be aggressive

Our data shows that conversion rates can be improved by 4x when messages are shown later in the user journey.

As a general rule, knowing when to be aggressive with messages – and when to hold back – is important for generating the best conversion improvement. If you know that your visitors require a few sessions before deciding to purchase, then showing important messages on the first session may be less effective – they’ll simply forget and your important differentiator will gather dust.

How many of these e-commerce strategies do you have running on your site?

We can help you get them up and running – our team are experts at understanding visitor behaviour data and using it to create strategies that increase your conversions. Get in touch and we’ll show you how we can help.

Get Results With Easy A/B Testing for the Yieldify Conversion Platform

8th August 2017 (updated 6th October 2022) | By Lana Kropyvna | 0 Comments

A/B testing is now available for the Yieldify Conversion Platform. With it, you can now perform smart experiments on any campaign to optimise performance and ensure you get results that count.

Get results and optimised performance with easy A/B tests

Triggered onsite overlays and notifications are great for getting content that converts in front of the right visitors at the right time.

But no matter how enticing you think your targeted content might be, you’ll never know for sure if it’s the best it can be unless you test it. If you can learn what resonates the most with your customers, you’ll increase conversions.

Discover what resonates the most with your customers

We’ve been extolling the benefits of A/B testing at Yieldify for a while – it’s a core digital marketing practice, no matter the channel where you’re conducting activity. A/B testing helps you get the best out of your marketing campaigns – and arms you with data to back up your decisions.

Lots of marketers don’t run rigorous tests – don’t be them

If you’re running a test, that’s a great start. But, as MarketingSherpa found, 40% of marketers surveyed don’t calculate statistical significance when running experiments.

Test results are only actionable if you can have confidence in your dataset. With the Yieldify Conversion Platform, we’ll show you when your test reaches significance, so you can review performance at a glance to see which variant is the winner and be confident in the result.

Find winning combos of brand messages and imagery

More than 50% percent of the surface of the brain is devoted to processing visual information, so an image really can speak more than a thousand words. Test different key product images and find out which ones are more likely to tip the needle towards a purchase decision.

Discover your best incentives

What works best: 10% off £5 off? Free Delivery or Free Returns? Or is the difference negligible?

You might, for example, discover that bigger discounts make a negligible impact on your onsite conversion rate – that means you can be more selective with the discounts and save a fortune in margins without risking damage to your customer’s intent to purchase.

Test ‘dynamic’ against ‘static’ content

With the platform, you can trigger messages that can dynamically change to show promotions that encourage a higher order value or social proof that instills urgency and FOMO to drive sales. While these are great ways to deliver engaging content, there is no one-size fits-all – so test them!

Perhaps your customers are more inclined to respond to a TrustPilot review over an indicator of how many other visitors are also interested in the product they are viewing? You can easily find out which type of social proof converts best by running them against each other in an A/B test to see which is the top performer.

A/B test campaigns on any device – using any format

You can A/B test your campaigns on desktop, tablet and mobile devices – and run them on overlays, double overlays, notifications and double notifications – it’s totally up to you.

Not a Yieldify Conversion Platform user yet? Find out more here or request a free demo.

Brand Trust: How to Gain Your Customer’s Confidence Online

7th August 2017 (updated 17th November 2022) | By Lana Kropyvna | 0 Comments

How do you grow brand trust online? Keep it honest, keep it consistent and keep it service-orientated.

If customers don’t believe your brand messages, product capabilities or in the service you provide, then it’s safe to say your days are numbered. Trust isn’t something that can be earned overnight – nor is it something you’re entitled to – and in the world of e-commerce there are elements that impact a customer’s level of trust without them consciously realising.

But fear not. There are simple steps that you can take to better build brand trust and stand out against against your competitors.

We’ll break them out into three core concepts: transparency, consistency and service. If you can put these into practice, you’ll be best placed to build meaningful long-term relationships with your customers, get more leads and more coversions.

Let’s take a look at how you can work with them in more detail below:

1. Transparency

Your e-commerce visitor has access to huge amounts of information about your brand – some of that comes from you, but increasing amounts come from third parties. With 72% of customers stating that positive reviews make them trust a brand more, it’s essential that a brand shares as much about itself and its products as possible and uses transparency as an opportunity to gain trust amongst prospective customers.

Be clear on your services; be honest about what you can and can’t do

With only 3% of customers viewing big brands as ‘honest and transparent’, having clearly defined products and services is vital to the trust associated with your brand. Although great branding will briefly grab the attention of potential customers, if it isn’t clear what you provide (or don’t provide) very few customers will investigate further or will find themselves unable to distinguish your worth. Be honest about your product capabilities and be clear with how they will benefit your customer.

Social proof is paramount

61% of customers read reviews before making a purchase, meaning they’ll already have some insight on your product from previous customers. It’s therefore rare for a customer to buy, book or reserve online without doing their research first. This means that whether you’re adding trust badges from review platforms like Trustpilot or Feefo, or including testimonials from happy customers, you need to use social proof to show your customer that others have bought into what you’re selling.

Referral marketing is your customer’s best friend…and yours

As noted, over half of online shopping customers read reviews, but 92% of customers listen to the compliments or criticism of a friend or family member. This means every customer you interact with has the potential to advise their networks directly on whether you’re a trustworthy brand.

Brands like Uber and Misguided encourage customers to share with peers, usually alongside an incentive which coupled with the peer review, boosts both trust in the brand and the likelihood of a return customer as well as a new one.

Allowing negative (as well as positive) reviews on your products and services

Asking customers for feedback is a important way to build trust. But in inviting feedback on your site, it’s important to accept that negative reviews might also been seen by prospective customers.

This is actually an opportunity to build trust – how you handle those reviews helps a visitor see how seriously you take feedback and how much you value your customers. Responding to unhappy customers highlights the effort being taken to make things right; much like United Airlines did following weeks of bad press.

Only upsell in the customer’s best interest

Does your product have additional features? Make sure that when upselling existing items, it’s to your customer’s benefit. Ensure the latest add-ons are relevant, helpful and clear about how they will add to the experience of the existing item. Upselling a product that is not useful is a quick way to damage brand trust, and you can bet that an unhappy customer will take to your reviews board to let others know about their dissatisfaction.

2. Consistency

Consistency makes a business put its money where its mouth is. Sales, marketing and branding being aligned and all members of staff staying on-message helps ensure that the message received by customers is consistent, no matter which team member they speak to. Not only does this look great for your brand, but it increases your customer’s trust in you.

Make and keep promises

Broken promises are one of the quickest ways to undermine your customer’s goodwill and damage their trust in you. Your ability to provide a reliable service and fulfil brand promises can increase customer satisfaction by up to 20%.

Ensure you’re consistent across all touchpoints

It’s important to have a clear understanding of your customer and how to effectively communicate with them across the whole of the customer journey. Are you consistent across all channels? Is the branding on desktop, tablet and mobile aligned? Ensure that you have clearly signposted policies, follow-up communications with your customer after purchases, fast responses to queries and a readiness to accept responsibility.

Consistent quality

Typos, inconsistent messaging and out-of-date content will create an air of sloppiness. This does not go unnoticed by by customers – in fact, 76% of them have noted it affects their trust in a brand and 94% are unlikely to complete purchase.

3. Service

Earning customer trust goes hand-in-hand with great service; customers will remember how you made them feel. Exceptional customer service continues to set brands apart from their competitors, with 63% of positive feedback relating to staff and less than 9% regarding products.

Learn from top performers

Brands like Virgin, Amazon and Disney all have a service reputation that proceeds them – and you can learn from them. For example, after researching what made for a positive service experience, Virgin rewrote its service processes, increasing customer trust and satisfaction by an additional 30%.

Your customer’s time matters

Highlighting that you can be trusted to operate within noted timescales shows your brand can be relied upon. Customers are less likely to trust in your brand and believe that their query is important to you if they think they’ll have to wait to get your attention when they need it.

Add a personal touch

Personalisation builds trust. Customers who see you have an interest in them and their habits, such as the Natwest banking app which welcomes customers by name and remembers transaction habits, increases interaction and shows customers how much you value them as individuals. And with little to no additional extra cost, customers will trust you and likely share this with peers, increasing both your loyalty and prospective customers.

Let’s recap.

The key to brand trust is to constantly keep the customer in mind. Remain transparent, be consistent and show that you respect your customer by delivering a timely and personal service experience, and you’ll be on your way to earning their trust.

The Rubik’s Cube seems to be an impossible puzzle but it’s easy to solve it using algorithms.

The E-Commerce Statistics Report Q2 2017

26th July 2017 (updated 5th May 2021) | By Lana Kropyvna | 0 Comments

Looking for the latest eCommerce news and insights? Look no further – we’ve drawn the latest facts from hundreds of websites into an infographic packed with the latest eCommerce statistics.

Here at Yieldify, we’re crunching e-commerce statistics daily. So we decided to do it on a macro level and find out what our data could tell us about the e-commerce industry as a whole.

What we found were insights into different devices, visitor types, time trends and much more – check out the infographic below and see if the numbers reflect what you’re seeing on your own store.

In three months’ time we’ll be crunching the numbers again to see how Q3 compares – come back to see whether the summer season impacts retail sales and whether Q4 really starts in Q3…

e-commerce statistics in Q2 2017 infographic

Do you find it easy to turn your website data into actionable plans?

If not, fear not – our team are experts at understanding visitor behavior data and using it to create strategies that increase your conversions. Get in touch and we’ll show you how we can help.

Personalize Your Customer Experience Worldwide with Easy Geotargeting

7th July 2017 (updated 5th May 2021) | By Lana Kropyvna | 0 Comments

With easy Geotargeting for the Yieldify Conversion Platform, you can now personalize your customer experience worldwide on your website to ensure the right message reaches the right customer at the right time – wherever they are.

It’s a big world out there – and a great advantage of e-commerce over bricks-and-mortar is that it can give your store a global reach. It means that customers in Paris can easily browse your wares from the comfort of their kitchen, regardless of whether your business is based out of London or New York.

But just because anyone can browse your website from anywhere in the world, that doesn’t necessarily mean that every offer you show them is going to be the right fit for them – or you.

It’s, therefore, crucial to make sure that every message you show to customers is personalized to them – and a key way to do that involves targeting their geolocation.

Location, location, location

Geotargeting – the method of determining the location of internet users, usually based on their IP address – and targeting them based on this data – is a key way to make your marketing personal online.

Brands know it – in fact, 75% of marketers believe location-based marketing is an important business issue, according to the Location Based Marketing Association.

But geotargeting isn’t just about what you’d like to include in your digital strategy; your customers expect to be engaged based on their location. According to a Boxever survey of 507 consumers, 50% of 18-29-year-olds are open to location-based offers, as long as they are timely, targeting and within reason.

Clearly, in order to keep up with consumer expectations, Geotargeting needs to be a marketing priority. So how do you go about targeting your online offers effectively?

Tailor the customer experience worldwide

Geographically-targeted offers are a powerful way to bring visitors to your site – you only have to look at how The Globe Theatre boosted their YoY ticket sales by over 30% by targeting prospective audience-goers with geo-targeted ads to see the value that geotargeting can drive when given proper attention as part of your digital strategy.

However, while geotargeting your advertising is essential, the real moment of truth comes when customers arrive on your website. At that stage, trillions of dollars worth of eCommerce sales can be lost.

This is where Yieldify can help. Here are just some of the ways that, using the Yieldify Conversion Platform, marketers can set up simple and easy Geotargeting to engage customers browsing your site in different counties.

Remind international shoppers that you ship to their country free

Do you offer free shipping outside of your home market? As 9 out of 10 consumers say free shipping No. 1 incentive to shop online more according to Walker Sands, there’s obvious value in highlighting this KSP to international shoppers.

To make your message extra personal, you can even show the relevant spend threshold for that visitor with a Dynamic Promotion – a compelling way to encourage a customer to spend a little more, meaning they purchase with a higher AOV.

Reserve returns for your home market

Say you have a ‘free returns’ policy in the UK. Considering that, according to Redstage Fulfilment, 66% of visitors will read your returns policy before making a purchase – you’re going to want to make that as visible as you can to UK customers. But you wouldn’t want that message to appears to customers browsing in France, Germany or the US, as that’d make their experience inconsistent and at worse, cause them to leave the site.

With Geotargeting, you can exclusively highlight your returns policy to the intended audience so that the right message gets to the right shopper. It allows you to keep your messages consistent, increasing conversions while preserving your margins.

Simple to set up

Delivering a great customer experience worldwide through your website should be a cinch – and that’s why it’s easy geotargeting Yieldify campaigns. Just choose the countries you want the campaign to ‘include’ or ‘exclude’ when setting your targets – no fiddly coding required.

Our campaigns of the month: June 2017

28th June 2017 (updated 5th May 2021) | By Lana Kropyvna | 0 Comments

From minimising basket abandonment to increasing leads via targeted pages, take a look at some of our favourite client work this month!

Decreasing form abandonment with Travel Nation

Round-trip travel experts Travel Nation were looking to capture more leads and minimise site abandonment, particularly on the quote form. We designed a single overlay campaign, triggering on exit, that offered visitors reassurance of the company’s expertise in this vertical and the benefits of coming to them for a quote, decreasing their likelihood of searching elsewhere.

Decreasing abandonment and highlighting USPs with The Hero Project

Beauty mavericks ‘The Hero Project’, are changing the concept of skincare with their innovative face oils and treatments. Using our campaign to target abandoning new visitors, an overlay stylised into a gif triggered on exit to decrease abandonment and encourage conversion, with a USP of 20% off the first purchase being highlighted.

How to Optimize Your E-Commerce Site for SEO

15th June 2017 (updated 27th October 2022) | By Lana Kropyvna | 0 Comments

Optimizing an e-commerce site for SEO is challenging but crucial. Laura Hogan, Head of Search at SEO and social digital marketing agency Rice Media explains how to make sure your store gets found.

You’ve got your shiny new site up and running, the stock images for your products are gleaming and you’ve finally managed to secure your SSL certificate. It’s all onwards and upwards from here until you realize that your site isn’t getting the traffic it deserves.

E-commerce sites are amazing when it comes to providing their customers with the ultimate user experience, but they can be awful when it comes to optimizing their site for SEO purposes. You could have the best site in the world, but you won’t get anywhere if your users can’t find it.

The competition to rank on the first page of Google is ruthless, but if you follow our tips and tricks of how to optimize your e-commerce site for SEO, you’ll very likely see an increase in traffic and revenue.

Social media and SEO work hand in hand, as they help to create the ultimate user experience and increase brand awareness. The more social media integration you have on your site, the better your chances will be for having your products shared across social channels.

How can I integrate social media into my website?

There are so many ways to homogenize your social channels onto your site, and a really great one is social sharing buttons! Adding social sharing buttons to your product categories could also help boost traffic to your site. Think about it – if your visitors and consumers share your product pages via their social media profiles, you’ll be getting exposure to a brand new audience and free endorsement for your products.

Consumers trust reviews by people they identify with, and in 2016 80% of marketers found influencer marketing campaigns an effective way to boost revenue. Don’t ever underestimate the power of sharing your products on social media – between 2015 and 2016 Nike got footballer Cristiano Ronaldo to publish 59 posts over 12 months featuring their products. That year, Nike made $36 million dollars through those posts alone (OPMC):

Nike Cristiano Ronaldo social media campaign

One other minor change you can make is allowing customers to effortlessly log into your site using their social media profiles. This means the laborious process of creating a new account and impatiently waiting for an email to verify their existence is removed.

A study by Econsultancy showed that 37% of people abandoned their shopping cart due to registration processes being too long, and 26% refuse to make a purchase if they have to create an account. When you integrate social media login profiles consumers are able to login at the click of a button and put those items straight into their basket, reducing steps to checkout to drive more sales and revenue.

2. Do your keyword research

Research is one of the most important parts of SEO, particularly when it comes to keywords. If you’re targeting the wrong keywords there’s a strong chance you’re ruining your campaign efforts by generating low-quality traffic and minimal conversions.

When it comes to keyword research, you want to make sure you’re choosing keywords that are relevant to your brand and products and focusing on terms you know convert for you and the ones for which you have the biggest margins.

Researching and refining relevant and popular keywords are integral to the success of every e-commerce site – if you pick broad keywords and phrases, you’ll end up with irrelevant traffic and thus a very high bounce rate.

What does keyword research entail?

When it comes to keyword research, you need to look at the phrases people are searching for on Google, and you can do this by looking at your competitors and using Google’s Keyword Planner. This is worth its weight in gold, as it offers you popular keywords and longtail search terms, also allowing you to tailor your research on a local, national or global scale.

Longtail search terms and phrases are a crucial part of your e-commerce store’s success; just because your business sells jeans, targeting the keyword ‘jeans’ does not mean that this is you done for the day. People will search for ‘women’s distressed jeans size 12’ or ‘men’s Levi jeans’ and much more – you need to dig deep into your customers’ search intent in order to make sure you’re appearing when they’re out looking to purchase.

Sometimes Keyword Planner offers gems of information, such as low volume keywords that are relevant to your business alongside the high volume keywords you want to target.

Oh, and one last thing – you need to avoid keyword cannibalization. This occurs when multiple pages on the same website are trying to rank for the same keywords and consequently competing against one another and diluting your rankings. Grab a piece of paper, write the keywords you want to rank for under each page, and if you see doubles of exact keywords then decide which page it is more suited for.

3. Optimize your product descriptions

Optimizing your product descriptions is integral for any e-commerce business because Google hates duplicate content and will penalize you for it. You also need to make sure your products appear when potential consumers enter their search queries.

If you copy your product descriptions directly from a manufacturer or if you have low-value content on your product pages, you could be at risk of being hit with a penalty from Google’s Panda algorithm.

To avoid this, add high-quality content using keywords you want to rank for, as well as related and semantically relevant ones.

How can I optimize my product description?

When you’re writing your product title, think about the word order. If you want a particular brand or item to rank, then add it the beginning of your title – for example, “Chanel Couture Black Dress”.

Make sure to keep your product descriptions short and sweet – mention the colour, sizes and a little bit of information about the product. Your unique product descriptions should be between 150-250 words where possible; not only will this make it easy for your users to browse over, but Google’s spiders will easily crawl it!

Adding customer reviews and rating systems next to the products you offer will also help consumers make that conversion – according to Kissmetrics, 55% of customers said they are more likely to make a purchase if they can see customer reviews or a rating system.

4. Look at your site speed

Unfortunately, the saying ‘patience is a virtue’ does not apply to e-commerce sites, especially when it comes to their page load time. Site speed and page speed are the metrics used by Google’s algorithm when it ranks pages; the longer your page takes to load, the more people will exit the site, having a negative impact your site’s bounce rate.

According to Gomez.com over half of web users will abandon a website if it isn’t loaded within 3 seconds. Alongside this, 79% of online consumers will not return to a website with poor loading speed, and 44% of them will tell their friends about their negative user experience. If you’ve noticed a high bounce rate on a specific page, then this could be down to your page speed.

How can I improve my site speed?

There are a number of ways to reduce the time a page takes to load, one of which is shrinking the page size. This can be done by saving a specific page on your computer as a web archive folder from the browser. You can then measure the size of your page in kilobytes – ideally, your page should be no more than 2.2KB.

Large images, animated elements and embedded objects will all affect a page’s loading time so try and sort through what you need – if your business relies on rich graphics to generate revenue, then you need to find the balance between losing shoppers due to slow page speed versus gaining customers due to richer graphics.

5. Optimize your site for mobile search

More than 60% of search queries inputted into Google are done via mobile device (Search Engine Land), which means it’s more important than ever before to get your e-commerce site optimized for mobile.

Mobile search overtook desktop search in 2015, and in Q4 of 2015/16 smartphones and tablets accounted for 51% of online UK retail sales. Invesp’s study stated that since the beginning of 2014, 1.6 billion people have used their smartphones to shop online globally and that by the end of 2017 this figure is expected to rise to over two billion. It also found that those who shop online using smartphones were more likely to spend twice as much as those purchasing on tablets and desktops.

In sum: if your e-commerce site isn’t optimized for mobile, then you’ll be missing out on a big proportion of your market.

But how can you optimize your site?

The best place to start when it comes to optimizing your eCommerce site for mobile is personalization. It’s easy to access enriching personal information that will, in turn, help you understand your consumer’s behavior.

One example of this is using local information to serve your user’s needs; the majority of people use their phones to find local businesses such as stores, restaurants and places near them, and their phones hold a wealth of data that can help you. Ask for permission to access potential customers’ locations through GPS, and then use this information to create a personalized offer.

Another small but simple way to do this is by adding a constant sticky ‘buy’ or ‘add to cart’ button to your site. This call-to-action staying in the same place whatever page your consumers are on could be the difference between a customer who bounces and one making a purchase. A buy button that is consistently on the screen regardless of what page a customer is on means that there is a consistent encouragement for a visitor to complete the desired action, therefore giving you a conversion. This minuscule tweak of your site’s mobile user interface has the potential to increase the chance of your consumers adding items to their basket.

Of course, there are many SEO tactics that will help optimize your e-commerce site, and you should try all of them in order to find a strategy that works for you. If there are any tips you’ve found that works out for your site, then let us know!

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Increase conversions with Double Notifications

9th June 2017 (updated 5th May 2021) | By Lana Kropyvna | 0 Comments

Great website interactions come in all shapes and sizes – and it’s not always the biggest message that converts. With Double Notifications on The Yieldify Conversion Platform, you can be more subtle, and create just the right kind of customer experience to capture leads and increase conversions.

The Double Notification is our new campaign format available on the Yieldify Conversion Platform. Appearing at the bottom of the screen, it’s a great way to gently engage visitors and complements your Overlay campaigns to deliver effective onsite remarketing and increase conversions.

Yieldify customers have been seeing great results using Single Notifications for some time now (check out this example from Happy Dog). With Double Notifications, we’ve added the option to include another layer so you can send two Notification messages in sequence (hence ‘double’ – see what we did there?).

This added depth makes Double Notifications an ideal format for offering a promo code in exchange for a visitor’s email address:

Notifications and Overlays: a tale of two formats

As different ways to engage your visitors, Notifications and Overlays make for great companions as part of the customer experience your deliver on your e-commerce site:

Overlays are great when you really need to grab attention – for example, when visitors show intent to exit your website, an Overlay containing the right message can be just the thing to bring them back from the brink and set them on track to purchase.
Notifications are more subtle. You might use a Notifcation to invite browsers to join your newsletter or offer an incentive and set them to appear during the customer’s journey using a timer, on entry to a specific product category or based on the pages they just visited.

What’s more, Notifications are not bound by the same frequency capping rules as Overlays, which means you can engage the same website visitors with more than one notification in the same session to achieve different goals.

Look after your mobile search ranking

Double Notifications are also the recommended format to use on your mobile website landing page. Not only are they mobile user-friendly – an easily thumbable notification appears at the bottom of the screen – but they also use a limited area of screen real estate, meaning they abide by Google’s policy on the use of interstitials on landing pages.

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Bounce rate is one of the biggest conversion killers around.

What You Probably Already Know

#1 Attract the right visitors

#2 Relevant landing pages

#3 Proper use of overlays

#4 Use storytelling elements

Conclusion

6 Tips on How to Sell Luxury Items Online

1. Use personalization to drive incremental sales

2. Unify online and offline experiences

3. Clearly signal your value

4. Tell your story on social media

5. Invest in content

6. Provide Exceptional Customer Service

Challenges When Selling Luxury Products Online

Where to sell luxury items online

Luxury marketing case study: Turnbull and Asser

Key takeaways

Luxury marketing FAQs

Is your eCommerce business struggling to meet customer expectations? In this blog post, we explore how to improve customer experience and retention by closing the expectation-reality gap.

Why is it important to manage customer expectations?

5 actionable tips for managing customer expectations

1. Understand what your customers expect from you

2. Start collecting data

3. Analyze where you’re not meeting expectations

4. Optimize areas where you’re falling short

5. Honesty is the best policy

Customer Expectation FAQs

What Is Social Proof?

The Different Types of Social Proof

How to get social proof

Social Proof Ecommerce Examples with Yieldify

1. Build trust through customer reviews and star ratings

2. Create urgency by showing the number of people viewing a product

3. Boost urgency by showing stock levels

4. Drive interest with ‘best sellers’

5. Give recommendations by showing what others have purchased

6. Build interest with curated lists and endorsements

Why is social proof important?

In conclusion…

Social Proof FAQs

Check out our need-to-know tips on how to respond to negative customer reviews to maintain your positive reputation and provide a sparkling customer experience.

Can negative customer reviews be a good thing?

How to handle negative customer reviews

1. Don’t take it personally

2. Mull over your response

3. Don’t delay your response

4. Be humble and empathize

5. Be personable

6. Solve the issue

Conclusion

Cart abandonment isn’t a problem – it’s an opportunity. Here’s how you can use cart abandonment emails to re-engage abandoning visitors and maximize your ROI.

Why do visitors abandon your site?

Cart abandonment emails

How does email remarketing work?

Should you be using cart abandonment emails?

Top tips for cart abandonment email

1. Make them mobile-friendly

2. Clear pricing

3. Time to perfection

4. Send multiple emails

5. Sense-check your subject line

6. Slick design

7. Welcome your user back on site

Bonus tips

To sum up…

Your website: the perfect place to opt-in

Tools to help you show consent

Replenish your email database – and drive conversions

How have conversion rates changed this quarter?

Finance suffers the highest bounce rate

Customers researched holidays in August, but purchased in September

The 5-minute mark

Q3’s retail AOV grew

Desktop is still king for conversions

Warm leads convert better

Simple, powerful automation

Get your free guide to making the busiest time in the e-commerce calendar your most successful yet

Q4 in e-commerce means you’ve got your work cut out for you.

Help is at hand.