A study by Microsoft in 2000 revealed the average human attention span was just 12 seconds the same as a goldfish! 18 years of digital growth later and that figure has fallen to just eight seconds! Unsurprisingly catching and holding consumer attention is one of the biggest challenges facing digital marketers. Removing distractions along the consumer path to purchase is key to overcoming this. But what are those distractions and how can you remove them? Let's take a look at 5 ways you could be unconsciously distracting consumers:
After spending time researching on your website your customer decides they'd prefer to buy your product through Amazon. However when they arrive at your product page on Amazon they find a conveniently placed ad for your competitor's product right below the 'Add to cart' button! Hmm did I choose the wrong cycling helmet? Maybe I should look at more ' And just like that the seeds of doubt are sewn and your customer abandons your Amazon product page and clicks onto another. You've just fallen victim to a Product Display Ad. Yes your competitors can distract your customers by placing highly targeted ads for their products in the middle of your Amazon product pages. In fact according to zonlifesuccess.com targeting a competitor with a Product Display Ad is a great way to steal competitor sales ! This is because you can select specific products and target them within a campaign or in multiple campaigns . But what can you do to stop your competitors stealing your sales at this pivotal moment? Fight fire with fire! To eliminate the possibility of your competitors targeting your products target Product Display Ads at your own products. Starbucks are already doing this very successfully in the US to keep competitors at bay:
The average eCommerce store loses over 75% of its sales to cart abandonment. Some industries even experience average cart abandonment as high as 83.6%. But why do your customers leave so abruptly? It has a lot to do with your checkout process. Here are some of the main reasons your customers abandon the checkout process:
Your SEO and advertising efforts have paid off! A new customer has landed on your website. It's all plain sailing from here to purchase right? Wrong. Unless it's immediately clear to the visitor where to go once they've landed on your site there was almost no point in sending them there in the first place. Your advertising promised that you have what they need but if they can't find it they're going to return to Google in search of another option. Good site navigation is essential for great consumer journey and user-friendly browsing. But getting it right is a tough challenge that requires testing specific to your website to determine which type of navigation works best for your customers. However here are some general guidelines for getting navigation spot on:
A customer is shopping for a new sofa online. They've arrived on your furniture website and navigated their way to a product page for a beautiful couch. They're ready to hit 'Add to cart' when they notice the social media sharing buttons on the product page. That makes them think about something they saw on Facebook earlier and their mind wanders away from your couch and clicks back to Facebook. The conversion is lost. Avoidably so. There's a time and a place for social media sharing buttons your product page is not one of them!
While customers can be attracted by choice studies prove too many options can be overwhelming leading to fewer sales. Striking the right balance is key. That is offer choice but not too much choice. So say you're a pencil brand offering loads of different pencil options - those with rubbers those without hard pencils soft pencils round ones triangular ones and so on. How is a customer supposed to choose? Sorting the pencils into categories will help. Human brains love to categorize things. It's a fundamental part of how we cope efficiently with the world around us. So as soon as a website offers us categories we find it easier to choose. So instead of offering all 1001 pencil options at once initially offer a limited choice wooden propelling or plastic. Once they've selected an option present them with another limited choice round triangular or hexagonal and so on until the consumer is satisfied they've found exactly what they're looking for. By drilling down using categories the customer no longer suffers from 'analysis paralysis'. Certain marketing methods can be similarly overwhelming to consumers. For example often marketers try to cram multiple offers and CTAs into email campaigns. However simplifying emails so they require just one action is proven to be far more effective. Take whitegoods brand Whirlpool for example. When they amended their savings email campaign from an email with multiple CTAs to an email with a singular focused CTA they achieved a 42% increase in clicks.
Make it super easy for your customers to purchase with the following 5 tactics:
Removing these distractions should greatly improve your conversion rates but should you need more guidance on how to optimise the consumer path to purchase and drive up conversions contact the ChannelSight team today.
