La Redoute triples A/B test success rate with EmotionsAI
3xsuccess rate of A/B tests
4%increased revenue per visitor
La Redoute is a French multichannel retailer specializing in home decor as well as apparel. Its e-commerce site is the top ranked French site with over 7 million unique visitors each month.
CHALLENGE
The team at La Redoute was eager to change up the way they optimized the website. They wanted to find ways to improve engagement through optimization, especially on mobile.
They turned to EmotionsAI by AB Tasty to help deliver the most individualized experience possible for visitors to their site.
Using AI-powered segmentation to build better experiments, they started to let the psychology behind their customers’ decisions help shape their optimization.
RESULTS
After implementing EmotionsAI and creating new emotions-based audience segments, La Redoute saw a significant impact on their engagement rates. The enhanced customer experience led to a 4% increase in revenue per visitor as well as a 3% increased conversion rate.
TAKEAWAYS
Since using EmotionsAI, La Redoute has tripled the success rate of their A/B tests, completely changing their approach to optimization.
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Shiseido revitalizes experience optimization strategy with AB Tasty
6Markets Testing
The cosmetics giant has perfected the blend of beauty and data science.
Now Cynthia Bevilacqua, who leads EMEA e-commerce CRO & digital product roadmaps, wants to harness it.
6 Markets Testing
11 tests per month
1 Year WIth AB Tasty
When it comes to the beauty industry, competition is fierce. New brands pop up every day and that means legacy brands need to evolve or risk getting left on the shelf.
With a company philosophy rooted in the artful blend between beauty and science, Shiseido has fully embraced digital transformation in pursuit of being the leader in the data-driven beauty industry.
Today, the company works with AB Tasty to optimize e-commerce experiences for brand Shiseido and NARS in the EMEA region. Just one year into the partnership, Shiseido is now actively running around 11 tests per month across six markets.
But it wasn’t always like this.
At the start of 2022, Shiseido wanted to transform their existing but constricted experimentation strategy into an intuitive and scalable optimization program. The product team was eager to reach a new level of A/B testing capabilities as well as better optimize the time and resources spent on implementation and execution.
Cynthia Bevilacqua, digital product and user experience manager at Shiseido, knew it was time for a change. “This was March 2022, so the CRO mindset was new. We were doing some A/B tests, but it was limited to three or four tests in one year,” she recalls. “Up until this point, optimization was not a core focus. And I really wanted to change that.”
Place alternative payment options closer to “add to cart”
Offering payment installments is one way to motivate users to add more items to their cart. Even if a user doesn’t take advantage of the offer, having the option helps alleviate hesitancy around pricing.
The team at Shiseido wondered whether moving the Klarna payment copy block closer to the “add to cart” CTA could improve the click rate. With an A/B test targeted to the NARS and brand Shiseido UK markets, the team tested placing the price, Klarna copy and CTA closer together.
This small layout change led to a massive improvement with 129% increased clicks on “add to cart” for mobile and 159% for desktop.
ORIGINAL / VARIATION
Mobile
129% increased clicks on “add to cart”
24% increased clicks across all payment options
Desktop
159% increased clicks on “add to cart”
72% increased clicks across all payment options
New partner. New mindset.
A large global footprint requires a lot of cross-team collaboration. From their vantage point within the regional division, Cynthia’s team fields incoming requests from their local markets while also balancing strategic brand ideas from the global HQ in Tokyo.
With oversight on A/B testing and CRO strategies for the Shiseido EMEA region, Cynthia’s next hurdle would be setting a strategy for experimentation across each of the region’s unique markets. More frequent testing enabled by AB Tasty meant simply replicating any test in a new country wouldn’t cut it if they wanted to grow strategically.
“When we made the switch to AB Tasty, we wanted a partner who could help us with specialized testing in each market. We knew a one-size-fits-all did not work for our brand. You cannot say that because a test works well in the UK, that it will equally be successful in France or Germany because the consumer behavior can be quite different across each market.”
To sift through the prioritization of rolling out tests to new regions, Cynthia leveraged AB Tasty’s testing capabilities to implement internal processes. First, evaluating hypotheses through testing and data. Then, successful tests are added to the development roadmap, while the learnings from unsuccessful ones are shared with regional stakeholders and a new round of iterations starts.
“This process helps us ensure that we are not wasting valuable resources and bandwidth. AB Tasty not only enables us to quickly validate the hypothesis with data, but they also help us to say ‘no’ to a request because the data shows it’s not beneficial to the end customers.”
“AB Tasty not only enables us to quickly validate the hypothesis with data, but they also help us to say ‘no’ to a request because the data shows it’s not beneficial to the end customers.”
Cynthia Bevilacqua Digital product and user experience manager at Shiseido
Boost engagement with a higher visibility virtual try-on CTA
Shiseido collected insights that showed customers who interacted with a feature during their decision-making process had a tendency to convert.
Focusing on the French market, the team set up a variation giving the virtual try-on CTA a complete makeover. A small image, camera icon and brighter button color helped increase the CTA’s visibility on the product page.
Compared to the original CTA (which saw an average of 10% click rate), the revamped virtual try-on button saw a whopping 95% increase in clicks. “Add to cart” clicks also increased by 73% for those who used the feature.
ORIGINAL / VARIATION
95% clicks on virtual try-on
73% clicks on “add to cart” for virtual try-on users
16% overall clicks on “add to cart”
61% in transaction rate
Celebrating a culture of experimentation
After a year of working with AB Tasty, the team at Shiseido is thrilled by the tangible results and internal adoption of a CRO mindset. Since moving from four tests per year to over 10 tests per month with AB Tasty, Shiseido has significantly improved the customer experience. The success from 2022’s experimentation rollout resulted in an opportunity for Cynthia to grow the expertise of her team notably on strategic decision-making and roadmap management.
“The partnership we have with AB Tasty’s customer success team is great because we strategize together about our objectives. They feed us different ideas for testing and understand what’s working from other clients. It is fuel to get us thinking about our roadmap and what we should try to implement next.”
The experimentation mindset also fits perfectly into Shiseido’s desire to be a key player within data-driven beauty companies. With stakeholders invested in the testing mindset, Cynthia’s team is empowered to continue putting ideas to the test first before rolling them into a development roadmap.
“The test-and-learn approach is important to have because it’s not about what you think. ‘I think’ is not something we can use. We need data to tell that story,” Cynthia explains. “And now, this is our new reality with AB Tasty.”
WINNING TOGETHER 5 tips for operational excellence
It’s not easy (or practical) to tell someone their opinion is wrong. That’s why Cynthia Bevilacqua, digital product and user experience manager at Shiseido, advocates for using experience optimization platforms like AB Tasty to deliver data-driven decision-making from individual team members all the way up to stakeholders. It’s essential to sustainable growth.
Here are five tips to optimize team operations:
Monthly team meetings for individual tests and results
Quarterly stakeholder meetings for KPI deep dives and macro-insights
Clear KPIs and tracking dashboard
Gradual data-backed rollout to other relevant teams
Business performance or customer pain points at the center of every test
Deepening the partnership with AB Tasty
One learning that Cynthia’s team is incorporating into their 2023 strategy is giving tests more room to breathe in order to collect better data. Launching fewer tests and running them for a longer duration of six weeks with a minimum detectable effect (MDE) calculation allows the team to gather accurate data to inform the actions for the next iteration.
Entering year two of the partnership with AB Tasty, Cynthia is looking to unlock the next level of experience optimization by expanding the solution to Shiseido’s other EMEA brands. For Shiseido’s mature markets, the team plans to introduce personalization campaigns and build more mature testing. And by encouraging digital to local market teams to incorporate experimentation and the testing-first mindset, Cynthia is further driving Shiseido’s data-driven beauty company vision.
“Initially, we were focused on setting up the team for success through processes and an embedded CRO strategy. Now, we’re ready to accelerate with AB Tasty by using the data intelligence from the past year to drive our global experimentation program,” Cynthia says. “We won’t test just anything — we need to always make sure our tests are addressing a user pain point.”
Clarins UK Invests in Continuous Testing and Learning
30Markets worldwide
10Experiences/month
Innovating with Confidence: Clarins UK Strategy for Feature and Product Launches
Clarins uses testing and experimentation for all feature or product launches on their site. Learn how it informs their work and how they measure impact with AB Tasty.
Clarins is the number one global company for premium skincare and beauty products with a commitment to responsible beauty and an entrepreneurial spirit that informs everything they do. Their vision is to promote well-being and cosmetics for all women.
With over 150 markets around the world, the UK market is one of the strongest performers so we popped over to the Clarins UK office to speak with Roisin O’Brien, e-commerce trading manager, and Alejandra Salazar, e-commerce content manager, on their experimentation strategy.
Both Roisin and Alejandra use testing and experimentation as part of their everyday work. Their priority is to create the best experience that they can for their users. Data gathered from testing is analyzed to help them better optimize and personalize the customer experience.
The Importance of Continually Testing and Experimenting for Clarins UK
For Clarins, experimentation is woven into the fabric of the company. With the help of AB Tasty, their global team has enabled the company to become a leader in digital transformation, launching e-shops around the world and ensuring a consistent brand experience online and offline.
Clarins only pushes out significant features or products online once they have done testing first. As Alejandra describes it, “For us, backing up all experimentation with data is very important. The importance is that customers find products and what they need on the website, rather than complicating their journey.”
For us, backing up all experimentation with data is very important. The importance is that customers find products and what they need on the website, rather than complicating their journey.
Alejandra SalazarE-commerce Content Manager
In order to drive that experience, both in-store and online, experimentation and optimization are key to how they continuously improve. Experimentation enables them to try out new ideas, improve the customer journey as well as reach their commercial targets.
We wouldn’t be able to drive the numbers that we do without being able to test the experiences that we offer. We always run tests on new promotions and offers to make sure that we’re delivering a great customer experience as well as ensuring the commercial priorities of the website
Roisin O’BrienE-Commerce Trading Manager
Two variants that allowed the Clarins UK to effectively promote their gift sets with AB Tasty
Testing Gift Set Promotion
Because of this culture of experimentation, the UK team has deployed many different tests on their site – and shared those results with the global team.
One of their most successful tests was one where they encouraged users to opt for a gift set when shopping for certain items. Using AB Tasty to badge different products that were available as a gift set on the product listing and description pages, this simple test not only increased awareness, but also improved the transaction rate.
Roisin confirms: “Testing, experimenting, optimizing are all really important to continually improve on what we are already doing” We wouldn’t be able to drive the numbers that we do without being able to test the experiences that we offer. We always run tests on new promotions and offers to make sure that we’re delivering a great customer experience as well as ensuring the commercial priorities of the website.”
Adding the wishlist functionality to the product listing pages and the product description pages allowed users to save their favourite products and remember to purchase them later on.
Creating a wish list for customers
Many e-commerce managers are aware of how important the PDP pages are to tell the story of your brand. Today, they can often be the point of entry for your users on your site, which means they need to quickly communicate a sufficient amount of information about your brand. With that in mind, using AB Tasty, Clarins was able to provide an option for visitors to create a wishlist on these pages.
This test meant users could save a product they liked, or keep an eye on their favorite products to buy them later. The test proved to be a success as it resulted in a boost to their basket page views and a 1.84% increase in transactions.
As Alejandra explains, “By adding the wishlist option, you’re simplifying the customer’s journey and you are also making their decision a little bit simpler once they decide to convert.”
AB Tasty helps Clarins to test and experiment at speed. In a short space of time, they can assess whether new features or changes are working on the site in order to give a seamless customer journey. As Roisin points out, “We’re really passionate about continually optimizing what we’re already doing well, whilst also testing new theories to drive a great customer experience.”
MeUndies Lifts Revenue with Product Page Promo Banner
+9.98%Transactions
MeUndies, a leading retailer of underwear and loungewear, has made waves by offering comfortable and sustainable products with fun and stylish designs at an affordable price. Using AB Tasty, they were able to improve transaction rate by quickly adding promo banners to product description pages.
CHALLENGE
With ad campaigns driving traffic directly to product pages, MeUndies needed to capitalize on a segment of users that may have bypassed messaging informing that traffic of current sales and promotions.
TEST IDEA
Using AB Tasty, MeUndies tested the addition of a promotional widget to the product description pages during a peak sales time (Valentine’s Day) to increase clarity and remind visitors of the available promo code on select products.
Original PDP (Left) vs. the Variation with Banner (Right)
RESULTS
MeUndies brought more visibility to their promotions — no matter the user’s entry point into their website. The result was an increase in transactions by 9.8% with 10% more clicks on the “add to bag” option.
TAKEAWAYS
Creating eye-catching and relevant promotional banners on product pages improved the ROI on MeUndies’ ad campaign. Bringing more visibility to available promotional codes on product description pages through AB Tasty ultimately led to more purchases and greater revenue.
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King Living Increases Revenue 15% by A/B Testing on Site
+15%Clicks
+15% Overall Revenue
King Living is an award-winning Australian furniture retailer that has made a name for itself through selling bespoke items. After noticing a substantial number of drop-offs, King Living utilised AB Tasty to run two experiments to better understand consumers’ purchase behaviour, and, in turn, make data-driven decisions to improve user experience and generate more sales.
Improve product findability for customers
King Living’s website was very content heavy, and customers often had to navigate through content blocks before reaching the product. The team hypothesized that this resulted in drop-offs because it took too long for customers to find what they were looking for.
With this hypothesis in mind, King Living chose to experiment by hiding secondary navigation and displaying products before content. This move resulted in 15% more clicks on product images and 90% increased revenue for all of King Living’s ‘Jasper’ packages.
Consumers are more likely to take action if the information they are seeking is clearly presented to them. In this case, images were more effective than descriptions in communicating what the product was.
Through this experiment, King Living also discovered that their customers do not need a button to go to ‘Products’, which influenced the company’s Product Listing Page and Product Detailing Page redesign.
We noticed that our users don’t actually need a button to go to ‘Products’, so that’s influencing our design decisions in the whole PLP, PDP redesign.
Improve customer conversion by building stronger call-to-action
King Living noticed a substantial number of drop-offs on their check-out page, and pinpointed a few areas for improvement regarding their call-to-action (CTA) – inactive appearance, usage of internal speak and lack of focal point. These factors combined resulted in a CTA difficult for customers to comprehend.
In this experiment, they bolded the important points and translated internal speak into understandable language for consumers. King Living also made their call-to-action appear more visible by shifting away from grey, which is known as the colour of inaction. Through this experiment, King Living’s revenue grew by an astounding 15%.
Having an engaging CTA is important, even at the end of the purchase journey. Consumers are more compelled to follow through with their purchase when the CTA “speaks” to them. This makes a huge difference in minimising drop-offs.
“We had a 15% increase in revenue while that test was running – millions of dollars when you look at it in an annual sense,” Vanja says.
We had a 15% increase in revenue while that test was running — millions of dollars when you look at it in an annual sense.
Experimentation via AB Tasty helped King Living minimise drop-offs, increase conversions and grow business revenue.
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Sage Sees Transaction Lift From A/B Testing Website Copy
+30%Traffic
+7% Transactions
When Sage, a global provider of cloud business management systems, needed to revamp their homepage and conversion funnel, they knew who exactly to turn to: CRO manager Marion Ravel. Here’s how she has used experimentation to test her optimization ideas, leading to higher transaction volume for Sage France’s B2B e-commerce website.
As one of the world’s biggest business management software providers, Sage doesn’t just offer cloud technology services — it also enables entrepreneurs around the world to make smart and fast decisions. From finances, operations, and human resources, Sage prides itself on being a partner to 6 million customers at small and medium businesses in more than 20 countries.
Sage’s digital footprint is made up of local e-commerce websites, supporting multiple products for different personas. For the team at Sage France, this means aligning regional initiatives with the global corporate strategy, while also ensuring a seamless buying experience within a complex website infrastructure. Intuitive user navigation is a must for Sage France’s website, which offers subscription-based software based on business size, profession and sector.
It’s a challenge that Marion Ravel knows too well in her 10-year career of working in marketing and conversion rate optimization (CRO). So much so that Sage France created a position specifically for her to tackle the team’s growing complexities of website optimization.
As Sage France’s CRO manager, Marion places experimentation and customer experience at the forefront of her strategy. She handles both e-commerce and customer product marketing, where she works to build a bridge between selling software and providing customers with product updates and specialized offers.
ABOUT MARION RAVEL
Marion Ravel, CRO manager at Sage France, has over 10 years of CRO, A/B testing, UX, and e-commerce marketing experience. At Sage France, she is responsible for mapping the online customer journey, identifying user personas and ensuring that each pathway is highly optimized through A/B testing and continuous iteration.
The challenges of building a seamless CX
While Sage France had a successful acquisition strategy in place, the website was not fully optimized nor suited for today’s customer demands.
“To update a website, you need to tackle it bit by bit through testing. It would be a huge investment, and potentially erroneous, to redo an entire website and not be sure of which change ignited the positive impact,” Marion explains.
Sage’s e-commerce website is also linked to the customer support page, meaning that any change had to be seamless. For example, conversion can happen on the e-commerce site, but then invoicing would take place on the customer page, so a heavy amount of coordination was needed to ensure a cohesive customer experience.
Recognizing the scale of the challenge ahead of her, Marion knew she needed to find the right technical partner to test, validate, and seamlessly implement her optimization strategies. Luckily, Marion was already a champion of AB Tasty’s client-side solution since 2016.
“The support I’ve received from AB Tasty has never wavered throughout the years, even when I’ve changed companies,” Marion says. “At Sage, we tested many other website optimization solutions for the sake of comparison, but there was no one that came close. AB Tasty is the best tool to implement all your testing with intuitive plug-ins and a dashboard that provides clear insights. On top of that, the Customer Success team has always been helpful and friendly so I didn’t see why I would switch partners.”
At Sage, we tested many other website optimization solutions for the sake of comparison, but there was no one that came close. AB Tasty is the best tool to implement all your testing with intuitive plug-ins and a dashboard that provides clear insights.
The ROI of testing with AB Tasty
In its most basic form, the conversion funnel represents the potential buyer’s journey, from the moment they land on the homepage to when they make a transaction or, in the case of a B2B SaaS business, generate a lead or subscription sign-up. The team at Sage noticed there was a drop in their conversion funnel between the homepage and the product page. Nearly 18% of visitors from the homepage bounced without viewing the product page.
From Marion’s perspective, the product page simply was too crowded with text and CTAs that were competing for attention. Before investing in radical changes like creating new icons that needed corporate sign-off, Marion wanted to test her theory that the UX had to be simplified. She stripped each product category of its clutter, leaving only the title. Quickly, Marion learned that it was not the right direction.
“From the testing, we realized that people were still hesitating about clicking on product categories. The data was showing the category titles were not enough. So we iterated by adding more copy to guide visitors into clicking further into the products,” Marion explains.
Testing isn’t always about finding the winning formula; it’s about learning — quickly. After a month of modifying the product pages, Marion saw an increase of 30% in traffic from the homepage to product pages, representing an increase of 7% in transactions and a decrease of 7% in bounce rate.
“Before AB Tasty, we couldn’t measure how effective our changes were and how customers were reacting. We were just working with opinions and assumptions, and really struggling to put both of them aside. Now with AB Tasty, I’m always surprised with the results of an experiment,” she says.
Before AB Tasty, we couldn’t measure how effective our changes were and how customers were reacting. We were just working with opinions and assumptions, and really struggling to put both of them aside. Now with AB Tasty, I’m always surprised with the results of an experiment.
The evangelizing of experimentation
In the two years that Marion has been working with Sage, nothing has changed internally more than the user-feedback mentality. AB Tasty has helped the team collect unbiased data through experimentation and derive insights for future continuous iterations.
“The way our culture has changed internally is also resonating well with our users, since they see how their feedback is being implemented. It’s the combination of AB Tasty and customer feedback that enabled us to build an optimized website that delivers on the customer experience,” Marion says.
She is also on a mission to take data-driven experimentation to center stage at Sage, via monthly newsletters to stakeholders within Sage where she shares CRO achievements and learnings.
“I realized quite early in my career that it’s important to share your successes and how you got there. It’s more interesting why certain variables or differentiations didn’t work, and what we changed to achieve the positive results,” Marion says. “It’s a continuous effort of testing, learning and optimizing.”
ABOUT SAGE
Sage is cloud business management system provider, offering integrated accounting, payroll, and payment systems — enabling entrepreneurs worldwide to make fast, informed business decisions and improvements. The global enterprise software company was founded in 1981 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, and has since expanded to over 20 countries, 13,000 employees and millions of clients.
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How Hanna Andersson Experiments Its Way to Higher Lifetime Value
+8% PLP Clicks
+22% Purchase Rate
About Hanna Andersson
Adored by parents around the world, Hanna Andersson offers a wide range of children’s clothing and matching pajamas for the entire family. Founded in Portland, OR by Gun Denhart in 1983 as a purely catalogue company, the brand has since successfully made the transition to online sales.
Increasing Customer Lifetime Value
“One of our challenges is marketing our toddler collection,” explains Morganne Hatfield, Marketing Analyst at Hanna Andersson. “We recently combined the kids line and the toddler line into one collection. But toddler is a key demographic – if we can get moms to discover and fall in love with Hanna Andersson clothing for their young children, chances are they’ll stay loyal customers as their kids grow, increasing their overall customer lifetime value (CLV).”
Creating an e-commerce growth engine
Expanding a product line is a far-reaching goal that affects all aspects of a business. Morganne’s challenge was to figure out how to use Hanna Andersson’s website to increase awareness and sales. But where to start! The team could rewrite product descriptions, increase or decrease product image sizes, add customer reviews or implement a cross-sell bar…
The possibilities were endless: what was the best tactic to increase growth?
Experiment to increase uplift
Enter experimentation. Hanna Andersson’s SVP of Digital was a firm believer in the merits of testing and using data-driven rationales for optimization. Through a prioritized experimentation roadmap, the team could systematically test their optimization ideas, learn from the results, and implement winning variations. No more guesswork or time lost in internal debates.
Is a picture worth a thousand conversions?
One idea Morganne was eager to test involved the default image shown on the product listing pages (PLPs) and product description pages (PDPs) of the toddler section.
When someone went browsing through the toddler collection, the first image on the page showed the clothing item sized for an older child – not a 1 to 3 year old. Though the product itself was identical, it certainly didn’t look the same when sized for a lanky seven year old versus a toddler still round with baby fat. Her idea was to test whether it was worth the effort to photograph the smaller sizes and use them for the toddler product page images. Would they convert better?
Morganne decided to test swapping out the default image with one where the item was sized for a toddler, but only if the user was navigating from the toddler section of the site. “I wanted to test if buyers would react more positively to the age-appropriate clothing, whether this would increase basket rate and overall conversion rate.”
Control
Test
Significant revenue impact
After a quick set up, the test was live and results rolled in: the experiment was an absolute success. “I was honestly surprised by just how well it worked – clicks on PLPs increased by about 8%, and purchase rate on those items by 22%, which is huge. At the time of this test we only had a handful of toddler-sized items online. But we’ll soon be offering 100% of our line in these sizes, so if you multiply these results by hundreds of products, the revenue impact is significant.”
“Our merchandising team was thrilled”
Not only did the test have a positive impact on immediate business metrics, it was also another step in solidifying the marketing for the toddler clothing line.
“When I shared these results in our quarterly review, our merchandising team was thrilled,” explained Morganne. “Having this kind of data-driven evidence helps us confidently make strategic investments – this knowledge is really helpful,” concludes Morganne.
AB Tasty enables agility
AB Tasty’s ease of use was instrumental in the success of this experiment. Without the marketing-friendly interface and widget library, it wouldn’t have been possible to get this test up and running in under a week.
“It’s great to be able to use AB Tasty to launch these kinds of campaigns independently, without having to bother our dev team,” says Morganne. “We’re really pleased with the results we’ve had, and how agile the AB Tasty Customer Success team has been. The widget library especially – the countdown banners, NPS surveys – have been key in enabling us to be autonomous and launch campaigns fast. ”
Looking forward
This test on the toddler line was undoubtedly a success. But that doesn’t mean the testing ends. Continuous optimization is key to fully reaping the benefits of experimentation and personalization, and Morganne intends to continue perfecting the customer journey. “We dug into the data and realized that, although 70% of our traffic comes from mobile devices, there’s still a lot of room for improvement when it comes to converting that traffic,” explains Morganne. “We’re excited to see what more we can achieve with AB Tasty!”
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Cluse Sees an Uplift in Transactions With Product Landing Page Optimization
+1.12%Uplift in transactions
+2.39%Increase click-through rate to the PDP
Known for their modern, simple, and elegant watches & jewelry, Dutch watch brand Cluse has established itself as one of the fastest-growing accessories brands.
The Challenge
Cluse noticed that the bounce rate for their product landing pages was high and found that not many users clicked through to the product display pages. There was no clear call-to-action for the user to progress to the product display page.
Original
Test Hypothesis
To encourage more users to click through to the individual product pages Cluse set up an A/B/n test including different CTA color variations. The “View Details” CTA button was inserted below the product image, linking to the respective product display pages (PDP). With a clear CTA the objective of the test was to increase users reaching the PDP from the product landing page, which in turn would increase the add-to-cart clicks and transactions.
Results
Targeting all users across desktop and mobile, the A/B/n test ran for 3 weeks across Cluse’ French domain. The winning variation (pictured below) significantly increased the click-through rate from the product landing page to the product display page as well as driving an increase in transactions.
+2.39% increase in click-through rate to the product display page
+1.12% uplift in transactions
Winning Variation
Takeaway Tips
Make it easy & clear for your users to reach the product display page. Optimizing the gateway to your product pages can help you convert users into customers.
Small changes to your CTA’s can help you achieve quick wins.
Analyze the data you have from an AA test or insights from other means, to better understand the user behavior on your site, and help you come up with test ideas that could help improve the users’ experience on the site.
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How Lush’s Focus on Human Connection Optimized the Digital Customer Experience
250%Increase in click-through rate
$7.5KIncrease in sales during the experiment
Lush is a cosmetics company known for its emphasis on fresh ingredients and cruelty-free products—not to mention being credited as the original inventor of the bath bomb. From early days in England to currently operating 250 stores across North America, Lush continues to have a dedicated following for its soaps, shampoo bars, moisturizers, and scrubs.
The Challenge
For retailers (and all businesses for that matter) entire strategies had to be reworked in response to COVID-19. Digital became the central, if not sole, channel to focus on.
At Lush, the team had implemented a travel campaign before social distancing and non-essential business closures were government-mandated. While the campaign had initially been performing well, there was a drastic dip in engagement as travel restrictions tightened.
Lush knew that they needed to pivot. But they also needed to consider how current circumstances were affecting their customers. What was the best way to connect with people during this time? How could they strike a balance between offering familiarity while not coming across as out of touch?
The Test
Lush focused on their homepage promotions, evaluating everything from the banner image to CTA phrasing and featured products. The team created two campaigns that subtly addressed the new reality of staying at home and socially distancing.
The first variation was centered around self-care. Lush offers head-to-toe cosmetics products that range from relaxing to invigorating. The idea was for customers to put together an entire regimen for themselves, perhaps gravitating to products they wouldn’t normally have had time for (like scalp treatments and bath bombs). The second variation was built around the theme of sending care packages to loved ones. Even though people couldn’t physically see friends and family, they could send these gifts as a thoughtful gesture or for special occasions.
Results: Part 1
It quickly became clear that the care package promotion was the better performer, with a 250% higher click-through rate than the self-care campaign. During this experiment, the care package promotion also generated $7,500 more in sales than the variation. While the team couldn’t know with absolute certainty if people were buying care packages for their own use, it was clear that this messaging had more of a pull. So, Lush decided to dig deeper into this trend. They launched another A/B test that compared the general care package promotion with a variation focused specifically on Mother’s Day.
Truthfully, the team wasn’t sure how users would react. Would they gravitate to the theme of Mother’s Day or would it be unintentionally upsetting for those unable to see their parents in person? Testing provided a safe framework to find out.
Results: Part 2
The Mother’s Day campaign did appear to resonate with users more, gaining a higher click-through rate than the more general care package promotion. Following the results from this test, Lush started mapping out a similar campaign that focused on Father’s Day to keep the momentum going.
As Lush demonstrates, effective experimentation is continuous. In one of the first tests launched in this series, Lush saw the positive impact of messaging that focused on human connection. Leveraging this insight, they were able to develop a series of campaigns that explored this further: considering everything from how users would respond to specific holidays to whether promotional images that featured people performed better than those with just products.
Takeaway Tip
It takes users approximately 50 milliseconds to visually assess a website and decide whether to stay or leave. Lush’s strategy shows a sharp awareness of this short time frame. They weren’t concentrating on refining just one or two details of their website, but how every element came together to form a holistic experience. In this way, their approach became more psychographic, asking questions related to what piqued users’ interest and how this impacted the customer experience. And in doing so, Lush was able to stay in sync with its customer base during a time of rapid and widespread change.
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Whether you’re a converted couch potato or an experienced athlete, Decathlon has something for everyone. Present in 52 countries, Decathlon designs and sells sporting goods, both online and in 1,600 brick-and-mortar locations.
Challenge
Decathlon’s mission is to make sports accessible to all. One of the ways they accomplish this is through offering a wide array of choice – 10,000 products covering 80 sports are sold on Decathlon’s website. With a range of price points and styles, there is an almost dizzying array of items to choose from. For some shoppers – especially those trying out an activity for the first time – this amount of choice might seem overwhelming.
How could Decathlon help shoppers get situated?
Social Proof Hypothesis
“We know that social proof – the idea that, when unsure, people look to others for direction – is a powerful and effective concept,” explains David Harari, Customer Success Manager at AB Tasty. “In the context of e-commerce, this means people are influenced by what their peers are interested in when deciding what to buy. We wanted to test out if a simple line of social proof messaging would nudge website visitors further down the purchase funnel.”
To do this, Decathlon’s UK digital team ran an experiment based on AB Tasty’s Social Proof widget. The AI-powered widget dynamically surfaces the number of times a product is viewed by other shoppers on a site in a given timeframe. This gives other browsers an idea of which items are getting more traction.
Product page with social proof messaging
“We thought it could be that extra little nudge to hit ‘add to basket’ – and might help certain customers continue through the purchase funnel,” elaborates Florent Beck, UX Leader at Decathlon UK. The team set up an A/B test on 400 product pages to see whether this kind of social proof messaging would have an impact on visitors’ purchase decisions. The text was inserted automatically just below the customer reviews ratings (another element of social proof), and above the product description. “What was really handy about the AB Tasty widget was that we can set a minimum amount of views before the message showed. In this case, we chose 20 – so if fewer than that number of people viewed the product, the message wouldn’t show, and once it hit 20, it would automatically appear,” explained Florent.
Results
Adding this simple line of social proof messaging not only increased clicks on the ‘Add to cart’ button, it also bumped up transactions and revenue. For all audiences, clicks increased by 1.5%, transactions by 2.4% and revenue by 1.3%.
Interestingly, when the team segmented the results by certain audience profiles, they realized that the social proof messaging worked better on returning visitors. They clicked 2.8% more, with an increase of 3.3% on transactions and 2.8% for revenue lift. “This might indicate that shoppers that know and trust the Decathlon brand are even more likely to put stock in others in the Decathlon community, versus first time visitors who are more wary,” explained David.
Even more interesting was when they dove into the data to look for what kinds of products this messaging worked best with. They also discovered that the social proof approach worked better for lower priced items – less than 10 pounds – versus more expensive, ‘investment items’, like a nice bike or set of skis. This kind of information can help Decathlon increase the efficacy of their campaigns in the future, and scale up this tactic for other markets.
“We value our community at Decathlon. What’s great about this kind of social proof messaging is that it’s a way to automatically let people take the opinions of other Decathlon shoppers into account – if a certain product is popular or trending, others can know that in real time as they’re browsing. From a business perspective, it increases our transaction rate and revenue, and from a customer experience perspective, it helps orient shoppers.” – Florent Beck, UX Leader, Decathlon UK
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Alejandra Salazar
E-commerce Content Manager
Roisin O’Brien E-Commerce Trading Manager
ABOUT MARION RAVEL
