u/ce-lauren

Take a deep dive into 8 real e-commerce landing pages that actually work. These include brands like Magic Spoon, Eight Sleep, and Myoovi. Some of them do things that are pretty cool, like one page that uses a quiz instead of a traditional layout, which actually doubles as a lead capture tool.

The landing pages that convert the best share the same key elements, including one offer and one CTA, a persuasive message aligned with the ad, social proof to build trust, and quality visuals.

If you also want to learn how to analyze your landing page once it’s live, that is covered, too. Tracking conversions by device and source, reading heatmaps and scroll maps to see where people drop off, watching session recordings to catch friction you can’t spot just in the numbers, and running A/B tests on the most important elements. 

The full breakdown with examples and screenshots is in the link. It will get your wheels turning with lots of ideas on how to improve your own landing pages. I know it did for me. 

I do this all the time and I never really thought about it until recently. I'll find something on my phone, add it to the cart, and then just leave it there until I get to my laptop to finish researching it and then complete the purchase. There is just something about completing the checkout on a bigger screen that feels easier.

I did a little research to see if I was the only one and I guess I'm not alone in this. There's a decent amount of data that shows mobile has the majority of web traffic, but that desktop still converts at about double the rate of mobile.

I think a lot of people can think of mobile and desktop as two separate experiences but really many of us are actually using both in the same purchase journey without even realizing it. The frustrating part from a business standpoint is that a lot of websites are probably optimized mainly for desktop when that's actually where people end up after doing all their browsing on mobile. If the mobile experience for browsing is difficult it's easy to just drop off before you even get to the laptop stage.

Does anyone else do this or have you gotten comfortable with purchases on mobile? If you run a site, do you treat mobile and desktop optimization as totally separate things?

I stumbled on an interesting article this morning that mentioned that only 0.2% of websites actually run A/B tests. This really surprised me because it seems like everyone always talks about A/B testing. It's everywhere I go and everyone is doing it. Or at least I thought. I had to dig in a little deeper and get to the bottom of it because this just didn't add up. 

There are approximately 1.13 billion websites globally and around 252,000 new sites created daily. Of those 1.13 billion websites, around 193.5 million are active sites. Tracking from BuiltWith's technology shows that about 2.2 million websites are currently using A/B testing or experimentation platforms.

Where the numbers start to make more sense is that the higher the traffic to the site, the greater likelihood that testing is implemented. The top 10,000 largest sites by traffic have an A/B testing rate of 32%.

So it seems like testing is actually common, but at scale, not just across the web as a whole. My guess is that most sites either don't think they have enough traffic to get meaningful results, or testing just keeps getting pushed down the priority list in favor of getting more traffic. It feels a little backwards when you think about it though. 

Curious if you run A/B tests and if so how often, or if it's something you've been meaning to get to but haven't yet.

Sources in the comments if you want to learn more, like I wanted to. 

There is a lot of CRO advice out there. You can search online and find random lists of tips and tricks, but no real context for how and when to actually apply it within your funnel. You might find tips like fix your checkout, add trust badges, or speed up your site. That’s cool, but where do you even start with these? 

We break it down by funnel stage so it all makes more sense. Here are the 7 stages worth considering: 

1. Foundations - speed, mobile, accessibility
2. Arrival - homepage and landing pages
3. Discovery - navigation, search, category pages
4. Evaluation - product pages
5. Purchase intent - the cart
6. Conversion - checkout
7. Loyalty - post-purchase

Many people jump straight to the product pages or the checkout and skip the foundation work entirely. But if you have a site that is slow or your mobile experience is broken, you want to start there first. 

The full checklist with 30+ strategies is in the link. Which stage of the funnel do you think most e-commerce stores get wrong?

We all have a running list of things we want to test, but somehow it never happens and it stays on a list that seems never ending. I can’t be the only one with a mile long list of things I want to try. Mine includes how many fields are actually necessary in a contact form, whether the CTA placement I've always used is actually the best spot, and whether a newsletter signup is worth adding. What are a few things on your list?

Selling on Facebook and Instagram sounds simple until you're trying to choose between 10 different apps and have no idea which one actually makes sense. 

Here's how to match your situation to the right app:

• Sellers without an existing store: Ecwid
• Shopify all-in-one (sync + tracking + ads): CedCommerce
• WooCommerce catalog sync: AdTribes Product Feed PRO
• BigCommerce stores (native route): Feedonomics Surface
• Magento / Adobe Commerce: Meta for Adobe Commerce
• Feed and ad-creative control (Shopify): Flexify
• Fix ad tracking on Shopify: Omega Facebook Pixel Meta Feed
• Fix ad tracking on WooCommerce: Pixel Manager Pro
• Large catalogs and multichannel feeds: Channable
• FB/IG selling plus marketplaces: LitCommerce

Find the full breakdown with pricing and ratings in the comments.

A website sidebar is that vertical column that sits next to your main content. It usually has things like menus, search boxes, author bios, links to similar posts, or a newsletter signup. It’s pretty common on a lot of sites, but I think many people just add one without really thinking about whether it's actually helping.

The general rule is that content heavy sites like blogs, news sites, or stores with large catalogs tend to benefit from them because they help visitors find things faster. But if your page has one job, like a landing page or a product page, a sidebar can just be a distraction.

And it is always best to skip it on mobile and just move the content somewhere else.

There are a few interesting stats behind this too. In one test, making sidebar CTAs sticky increased completed orders by 7.9%. Another site saw a 20% conversion lift on desktop just from a sticky CTA. When it's done well it can actually move the needle.

Has anyone here tested sidebar vs no sidebar? Link to the full breakdown is in the comments if you want to dig in more.

Curious how many people actually dig into the behavior side. Scroll depth, where people drop off, that kind of thing vs just looking at traffic and conversion numbers. Behavior data is useful, but seems like it can be overlooked.

There's always something to tweak, a headline to test, a CTA to move. At what point do you just ship it and start collecting real data? And how do you tell the difference between what actually needs fixing vs what you're just second-guessing because you've been staring at it too long?

I feel like landing pages are one of those things that never feel finished. There's always something to tweak, a headline to test, a CTA to move around.

At what point do you just ship it and start collecting data? And how do you decide what actually needs to change vs what you're just second-guessing because you've been staring at it too long?

Asking because I feel like most website mistakes are obvious in hindsight. What was yours?

I landed on a site the other day and immediately wanted to close the tab, but I couldn't explain why. Nothing was obviously wrong, it just felt off.

What actually makes you trust a site or not? Is it design, copy, reviews, something you can't even name?

I was reviewing some content around mobile cart abandonment and it's crazy how much time we spend driving traffic to sites only for checkout UX to tank it at the finish line. I'm curious what friction points people are seeing, either on sites you've worked on or just as a shopper yourself.