Conversion Rate Optimization for Shopify: The Ultimate Guide

When you own a Shopify store, there’s one goal that keeps you awake at night: make more sales.

This means getting more and more people to your Shopify store and converting as many as possible. 

However, this is a very challenging thing to do. Optimizing your Shopify store conversion rate can depend on many factors. The smallest change can make a huge difference.

That’s why it’s necessary to assess your entire marketing strategy and make sure you’re constantly testing and trying different things. 

In this guide, we’re talking about Shopify conversion rate optimization (CRO). We’ll cover: 

1. What is conversion rate optimization for Shopify?
2. How to calculate your Shopify conversion rate? 
3. What is a good Shopify conversion rate?
4. Why is CRO important for Shopify stores? 
5. The most effective tactics for Shopify conversion rate optimization

Let’s get started. 

What is conversion rate optimization for Shopify?

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a data-driven strategy for raising the profitability of your Shopify business. Understanding how people use your website will help you spot areas for development and implement changes that will increase sales. 

From the layout of your product pages to the wording on your checkout page, CRO may be utilized to enhance a wide range of features in your shop. The ultimate aim of CRO is to raise the proportion of site visitors who complete a specific behavior. These behaviors could be:

• Completing a purchase
• Signing up for your newsletter
• Submitting contact information
• Adding a product to the shopping cart
• Adding a product to a wishlist

These aren’t the only examples of conversions. A conversion can be something completely different, a business-specific metric you use to measure your Shopify store performance.

Conversion rate optimization is a good place to start if you're searching for methods to enhance the performance of your Shopify site. It’s important to know that once you get started with CRO, you should be ready to test all aspects of your website to identify the change that works best for your store.

How to calculate your Shopify conversion rate

To be able to optimize your Shopify conversion rate, you should track the conversion rate of your store. You can track Shopify’s reports or calculate the conversion rate yourself.

If you want to calculate it yourself, this is the formula typically used to calculate conversion rate: 

(Number of conversions/number of visitors) x 100 = conversion rate 

Let’s say that you consider a completed purchase to be your conversion and you had 80 purchases last week. Moreover, 1,200 people visited your website this week. 

This means that your conversion rate equals (80/1,200 = 0,06) x 100 = 6,66%. 

You could see differences between Shopify's findings and those from your own internal study or outside sources. This comes down to how Shopify and outside parties assign interactions and purchases, as well as because data synchronization took longer than expected.

What is a good Shopify conversion rate?

There are many sources that claim different things when it comes to defining a good Shopify conversion rate. 

The conversion rate ranges from 2.4% to 9.8%, according to Unbounce's 2021 Conversion Benchmark Report, which uses AI to evaluate 44,000 landing pages and 33 million+ conversions.

You can also use Shopify’s e-commerce conversion rate calculator to get the average conversion rate for your sector and to receive practical advice on how to raise your conversion rates.

In February 2022, 3,350 Shopify businesses were polled by Littledata, an e-commerce data company, which discovered that Shopify had an average conversion rate of 1.5%

Littledata also discovered that if you have a conversion rate of more than 4.8%, you would be among the top 10% of Shopify stores.

However, this is a complex metric, and you should also consider the cart abandonment rate when deciding whether your conversion rate is good or not. 

The average cart abandonment rate is 69.8%, according to Baymard Institute. This means that if your cart abandonment rate is bigger than 70%, you have a lot of space for improving your conversion rate. Look for shipping costs, complex checkout, or website optimization issues when analyzing why users abandon your store’s shopping cart. 

Why do you need conversion rate optimization? 

For a number of reasons, it's crucial to have a high conversion rate if you manage a Shopify site. 

A high conversion rate, whether it be for purchasing a product or joining your email list, first and foremost indicates that more visitors are making the desired action on your website. More conversions translate into higher sales for your company.

Second, a high conversion rate might aid in the expansion of your organization by bringing in new clients. The greater the number of visitors who complete the required activity on your website, the more probable it is that they will spread the word about your business to their contacts. Any business may benefit greatly from effective word-of-mouth advertising, and it all begins with a high conversion rate.

Last but not least, improving your conversion rate might assist you in reducing the price of acquiring new customers. You'll spend less on paid advertising the more clients you can bring in through organic traffic (traffic that comes to your site without you having to pay for it). Long-term savings from doing this will allow you to put money back into your firm in other areas.

How can you optimize your Shopify store for conversions? 

After learning what CRO for Shopify is and why you need it, let’s go through some of the most effective tactics for optimizing your Shopify store for conversions. 

A/B Testing

A/B testing or split testing compares two iterations of a website to see which one works better. Everything from the title on your main website to the product description may be tested using A/B tests.

A/B testing enables you to present two iterations of a webpage to users in order to ascertain which user experience yields the greatest results.

One version will eventually exceed the other, demonstrating which example leads to greater conversion rates.

Typically, an A/B test could examine: 

• Product pricing
• Headlines
• Highlighted products on the home page
• Description on product pages
• Product recommendations positioning
• Navigational copy
• Button color

This is just a fraction of what A/B testing can do. You can decide to experiment with literally any website element. 

You have to make two different versions of the web page you wish to test in order to run an A/B test on your Shopify store. For instance, you might make two variations of your home page with two different hero images if you want to test the first image that appears on your home page. Then, you would direct half of the visitors to Version A and the other half to Version B of your website. After a certain period of time, y ou would study the test data to determine which hero image performed better.

Simplify the checkout process

One of the most crucial phases of the consumer journey is the checkout procedure. Customers can leave their shopping carts empty and never return if your checkout procedure is excessively drawn-out or challenging. For conversions, it is crucial to improve your checkout process.

Streamline your checkout process by:

• Offer guest checkout for consumers who don't want to establish an account. 
• Provide progress indicators so customers know how many steps are still required to complete the checkout process. 
• Ensure that all form fields are properly labelled and simple to comprehend.
• Add recommended complementary products at the end of the checkout to increase your order value.
• To increase confidence, include client endorsements or trustmarks (like SSL certificates).
• Perform A/B testing for various checkout layouts to make sure you have the winning design.
• Ask for the minimum required billing information. Try to keep the form as short as possible. 
• Highlight the value you provide. Make sure that information like easy returns and free shipping are highly visible. 
• Offer live chat to make sure you address customer’s concerns in real-time. 
• Provide a variety of payment options so that clients may select the one they want.
• Make sure your checkout page is clean and uncomplicated, and provide customers the option to alter their minds after adding an item to their basket.

Even while it's not the only aspect of your sales funnel that requires ongoing improvement, your checkout process is undoubtedly one of the most important yet sometimes disregarded portions of the process. You can improve conversion rates and speed your checkout experience by paying attention to these suggestions.

Personalize your messages 

According to research, 80% of customers are more likely to buy from a brand that offers a personalized experience. 

Personalization is clearly important across the whole client lifecycle. For marketing teams, however, doing it right may not only delight your clients and make them into ardent supporters, but it can also give your messaging the boost it needs to produce greater outcomes.

Personalization is one of the best CRO techniques you can implement on your Shopify business. You have a better chance of engaging clients and motivating them to act if you tailor your marketing messaging. You may add personalization in a few different ways to your messaging:

• Collect first-party data and leverage it to craft messages. This is data you get directly from customers, without the use of cookies. You may get deeper insights and set off various messages or events based on various circumstances, like business kind, location, discussion subject, or actions performed, with the help of all of this rich contextual data.
• Create dynamic website content blocks. On your site, use dynamic content blocks to display material that is appropriate for each visitor based on their location, search history, or past purchases.
• Send targeted emails. Leverage the information provided by your email service provider (ESP), such as Mailchimp or Klaviyo. Based on consumer behavior, you may, for instance, send abandoned cart emails or order follow-up emails.
• Show exit-intent popups. This means that the system automatically launches an incentive-laden popup to persuade the visitor who is about to depart the website to do the required action after detecting exit intent (such as aggressive mouse movement to x out of the page).
• Use personalized browser popups. Offer coupons or special prices based on products that customers have previously looked at. 

You'll be able to engage with consumers more deeply and influence them to take action, like making a purchase or signing up for a subscription, by personalizing your marketing communications.

Create a sense of urgency 

One of the best methods to raise your Shopify conversion rate is by generating a sense of urgency by providing limited-time deals. However, we frequently consider sales that are only available for a day or a season when we use the phrase "limited-time discount."

How about making things even more urgent? With 60seconds, you can take urgency to the next level. Here’s how it works: 

1. A customer accesses a product page on your online store.
2. They see the goods but are still hesitant to purchase it. 
3. Suddenly, they are given the chance to request a 20% discount.
4. They have 60 seconds to accept the offer and add the item to their basket at the discounted price after you approve the deal.

Ecommerce experts utilize urgency to persuade customers and potential customers to purchase their items right away and at the lowest price. 

The creation of a sense of urgency motivates customers to make purchases now rather than later. Typically, urgent advertisements play on consumers' fear of missing out on a good deal.

You can motivate more clients to make purchases from your Shopify store and drastically boost your conversion rate by utilizing the power of gamification. Click here to learn more.

Take advantage of email marketing 

Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing techniques for improving the performance of your Shopify store. Shopify also confirms this, with 4.29%. To take the most advantage of email marketing, you can use three types of emails: 

Transactional emails

Transactional emails sent during the checkout process and provide the right information right when the customer is making the buying decision. 

According to Campaign Monitor, the open rates of transactional emails are eight times higher than non-transactional emails. Moreover, the average email click-through rate (CTR) for transactional emails, according to Constant Contact, is 11.3%. 

Here are the types of transactional emails you could send: 

• Registration email
• Order confirmation email
• Receipt
• Notification email
• Email to collect feedback
• Shopping cart abandonment email 

Promotional emails 

You can send promotional emails to all of your subscribers or, more frequently, only a certain group of them. 

Think of these emails as notifications you send when you have noteworthy information to discuss, so carefully consider your overarching objective, offer, and the subscriber group.

Here are some examples of promotional emails: 

• Time-sensitive promotion
• Seasonal sale 
• Content update
• Newsletters
• New product release

Lifecycle emails

Lifecycle emails are effective because they are personalized and only send pertinent information to a portion of your subscribers based on their activity.

Even a brand-new business owner may take into account the following lifecycle (or triggered) emails. Here are some events that could trigger a lifecycle email:  

• Abandoned cart
• Sign up
• Hasn’t logged in for a while
• First order email 

Here’s an abandoned cart example: 

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These emails all have the potential to have a big influence on client retention and happiness.

Streamline the user experience

Glitchy product pages are the single fastest way to ruin a sale. Visitors will leave your website quickly and click their way directly to a competitor's if they have to navigate through ten different menus to get the item they're searching for.

Make it simple to navigate through your product types and product pages. Make it simple for your consumers to browse and filter your product selection by attributes like color, shape, and product category. Your clients will find what they're looking for and complete a transaction more easily if you make it easy for them to traverse your categories and pages.

Here are a few tips to make sure your Shopify store’s user experience is streamlined and simple: 

• Make sure your website s responsive on mobile
• Check if your content is scannable
• Use high-quality product images
• Stay consistent across product pages and use the same brand elements
• Highlight your top products on the home page

Get inspired by this example of Ratio Coffee’s shop: 

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Show testimonials to build trust

Customer testimonials are statements made by your customers in the form of quotations, videos, or stories that show how your good or service has met a certain need.

In essence, it's a type of online review that enables your clients to discover more about you and your offering. Customer testimonials are often succinct because they just contain a few phrases or lines discussing your product.

Consider asking a friend you trust whether they would suggest a product they just purchased to you. Testimonials from customers serve a similar purpose. No wonder 88% of customers trust internet reviews as much as they trust suggestions from friends and family.

How to use customer testimonials? Here are some ideas:  

• Add them to your home page
• Add them to the product page
• Publish them to your social media profiles
• Add them to your promotional emails 

Here’s how Asos uses customer testimonials and reviews on its product pages: 

Bonus: Check out these 10 apps that will help you optimize your Shopify store conversion rate

Wrapping up 

Overall, taking action to optimize your Shopify conversion rate can be extremely beneficial for businesses of all sizes. By taking the time to identify areas of improvement and implementing changes, businesses can see a significant increase in sales and revenue. 

In addition, conversion rate optimization can help to improve the customer experience, leading to repeat business and positive online reviews. While the process may take some time and effort, the results are well worth the investment. 

With a little bit of planning and execution, any Shopify store, regardless of the industry, can see a significant improvement in their bottom line by optimizing their shopify store for conversions.

FAQs about conversion rate optimization for Shopify

How do I optimize my Shopify conversion rate?

Here are some of the most effective ways to optimize your Shopify store conversion rate: 

• Perform A/B testing for various elements on your website
• Simplify the checkout process
• Personalize your messages according to user behavior
• Create a sense of urgency 
• Take advantage of email marketing and send transactional, promotional, and lifecycle emails
• Streamline the user experience
• Show testimonials to build trust
• Use high-quality product images
• Write clear product descriptions
• Offer vafrious payment options
• Include free shipping above a certain order price
• Try an intelligent search tool

What is a good conversion rate for Shopify?

Littledata discovered that the average Shopify conversion rate is 1.5%. If your conversion rate is above the average, this is considered to be a good conversion rate. Littledata also found that the top 10% of Shopify stores are those with conversion rates of 4.8% or above.

However, if your cart abandonment rate is above 70%, this means that you still have room to improve your conversion rate.

How is Shopify conversion rate calculated?

This is the formula that calculates your Shopify conversion rate: 

(Number of conversions/number of visitors) x 100 = conversion rate 

Let’s say you had 80 purchases and 1,200 website visits last week. 

This means that your conversion rate equals (80/1,200 = 0,06) x 100 = 6,66%.