It takes more than a landing page to land a sale. The order page, the payment info page… every step in the user experience can win and cost you customers. Your main goal is always to reduce exit rates and move visitors down the funnel.
At the same time, you don’t want to lose upsell and cross-sell opportunities. These people are engaged with you to buy. Below, we name five screens that customers can see as they move towards conversion. And what to consider as you optimize.
1) Landing Page
With Google “landing page optimization” — you get over a million hits. And just about every one treats the landing page like it’s the first step in the journey. It’s not. Successful direct marketers modify their landing pages to reflect the media that brought the prospect into the experience.
For instance, a prospect coming from native advertising may need a less promotional approach than someone coming from a search ad. In theory, you want to present the product and offer it in a way that’s consistent with the media that led to this experience.
In practice, you won’t know until you test.
2) Order Page
The visitor clicks the “buy” button and now it’s time to turn that into a shopping cart entry. You want to keep this page as simple as possible. Limiting choices, sizes with a few configurations.
Yet, there’s also an opportunity here to upsell. Maybe show the product as part of a bundle. Or offer complimentary products. Keep these at the bottom of the page or in a sidebar. You don’t want people distracted from the main goal, buying what they came for.
3) Payment Info page:
Even as you collect billing, shipping, and payment information, you can introduce additional purchase options. Expedited shipping or discounts for paying up front instead of over time.
If you offer these options at this late stage of the process, make choosing them very simple. Use check boxes or radio buttons so buying is just a quick click away.
4) The Confirmation Upsell Page:
This is that extra page that may pop up between the “Submit” button and final confirmation. The buyer is in a positive mood. You have all their information. Now you present the cross-sell, when it’s one button to Buy; one button to say Not Interested.
For some campaigns, this works. But not all. This is one thing you absolutely must test. Too many offers or pages between yes and confirmed can cost you the sale altogether.
5) Thank You Pages and Emails
They’re not visitors anymore. They’re customers. Welcome them to the family and maybe cross-sell a relevant product. Your goal here is not necessarily to get an immediate extra sale, but to potentially enhance the new customer’s lifetime value.
On All Pages, Keep CTAs Visible
Make sure calls to action (CTAs) are clearly visible on all pages at all times. If the page is long, make sure it’s always there as people scroll. And be careful about extra links or clickable images. You don’t want visitors to spend more time on your site, but not buy anything.
Test Everything
This can’t be stressed enough. What works for one merchant may not work for another. Look at the whole user experience. A payment page upsell that boosts revenue with search ad prospects may lose people who responded to a radio commercial. Or the upsell may work on a confirmation upsell. Test. Test. Test.
Use Fraud Protection Judiciously
Your buying experience has to be as friction-free as possible. You don’t want to ship products to a fence for stolen credit card information. You also don’t want customers abandoning their carts because 30 seconds is too long to wait for an algorithm to approve the purchase.
