Ecommerce continues to experience accelerated growth, due in part to the pandemic which has caused a change in consumer buying behavior. Although 80% of shopping transactions still occur in-store globally, buyers are steadily shifting to digital commerce engagement.

Optimize Conversion Rates with Modern Technologies

To keep pace with today’s buyer, some companies are deploying customized digital environments and ramping up better online buying experiences. These tactics are helping organizations increase conversion rates and enabling them to realize a healthy competitive advantage. According to a McKinsey report , “customer loyalty is up for grabs.”

Since the pandemic 75 percent of consumers are engaged in new shopping behavior, 71 percent expect personalized online experiences, and 76 percent are frustrated if the buying journey is not tailored.

It’s imperative for companies that want to succeed in the battle of owning the digital consumer to replace legacy systems and adapt to new customer buying habits with modern technologies. As a key first step, business teams must adopt solutions that are non-linear, deliver end-to-end customer journeys, and utilize methodologies that improve the total ecommerce experience.

Conversion Rate Optimization Requires 3 Critical Strategies

There are many factors to consider in creating exceptional digital shopping experiences. There are three components that are critical to help advance ecommerce conversion rates and to achieve stellar SEO, content creation via an enterprise CMS, and Product Discovery.

We spoke with three leading conversion optimization experts from Google, GroupBy, and Authoritas. The following are their latest tips, tools, and recommendations for the best ecommerce optimization solutions.

1. Use Modern SEO strategies to drive traffic and revenue:

According to Laurence O’Toole, CEO of Authoritas, “SEO search is the most crucial channel in the marketing mix, contributing over 42% of visits to ecommerce stores and 37% of revenue. However, you need to have robust, modern search SEO capabilities to ensure your products and offerings stay at the top of the list.

A recent study from Inriver suggests that “consumers are five times more likely to search for products somewhere other than a brand’s own website. Implementing effective SEO strategy is therefore critical to capturing motivated buyers along their shopping journey as they research, window-shop, and compare products. It will bring millions of consumers to your product week after week, month after month, season after season, year after year.”

The investment in SEO pays off when a company provides consumers with delightful digital experiences. The value of moving beyond a traditional pure-play ecommerce platform to a modern Content Management System (CMS) can offer an enriched and personalized buying journey.

2. Increase ecommerce conversions by adding a CMS to your commerce platform:

With so many brands and online marketplaces to choose from, a future-ready ecommerce platform that attracts loyal consumers requires content that is engaging and drives business growth outcomes. Many ecommerce-based businesses are challenged by the reliance on legacy systems that yield limited digital experiences.

To meet customer demand and evolve the digital buyer experience, modern ecommerce system architectures have evolved to composable microservices that enable the integration of full-featured content management tools with transactional capabilities. By layering a powerful CMS like Crownpeak’s API-first, content-driven commerce platform onto your existing ecommerce platform, the marketing team can better optimize their content creation and delivery strategy, and improve personalization without the need for IT support, and work nicely within the entire company’s IT ecosystem.

3. Optimize conversion rates and shorten the purchase path with advanced Product Discovery

For companies that have not audited their digital shopping journey lately, it’s a process that demands constant attention. As customer and product journeys grow in complexity and scope, it’s natural that shopping barriers occur, which may contribute to a growing number of empty shopping cart sessions for the company. A recent Harris Poll illustrates that 52% of consumers abandon their entire cart, and Search abandonment costs U.S. retailers $300 billion every year.

Marketers need to ensure that their products are appropriately featured for the digital consumer. The selection of a highly reliable Product Discovery tool is invaluable for ecommerce optimization.

Companies like GroupBy are delivering next generation solutions that use Google Cloud Retail AI, which is machine learning that redefines ecommerce search. By leveraging this type of technology, a company can offer the consumer relevant and personalized search and recommendation experiences to foster growth for the organization.

Roland Gossage, CEO of GroupBy says, “Product Discovery technology is key to optimizing conversation rates, average order values, return visits, margin contribution, and top line revenue.”

How to Improve eCommerce Conversions

All three of these central elements can help to improve organic search visibility, site engagement, and product findability.

Carrie Tharp, Vice President of Retail & Consumer for Google Cloud states, “It’s critical to work with solution providers that understand data is a new currency and can build on top of each other to create these connected consumer journeys. For example, API based solutions where data is flowing freely and you're able to understand that end-to-end journey across attracting, engaging, and converting your customers.”

How are you optimizing your conversion opportunities for buyers? To learn more, watch the OnDemand webinar .

Tags: eCommerce