CRO Elements
A new set of Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) elements to stop the downtrend in affiliate marketing sites. Aiming to increase conversion for commercial purposes.
- Lead Product Designer
- Preliminary Research
- Competitor Analysis
- User testing
Project Overview
Following the latest global news and economic crisis, online traffic and e-commerce have been decreasing their numbers. This use case displays extensive research and solutions to stop this and turn the trends around.
The Problem
After the pandemic in 2020, when online traffic increased like never before, and following recent events in 2022 and 2023, e-commerce, online marketing and affiliation have been a downtrend.
With the conversion rate going down on our affiliate marketing sites, I went back to the drafting table to improve our product without compromising a design that was working fine. Finding the balance between a trustworthy site and increasing conversion rate by adding CRO elements.
Securing that the user's best interests were kept without disregarding the business interests.
The Solution
A new set of conversion elements to increase the conversion rate from the above-the-fold (ATF) or top section area. A variety of elements with a clear commercial purpose but also taking the chance to improve the user experience from the top section of the site, the first and most viewed area.
Focusing on revenue without sacrificing users' trust. With non-invasive elements such as a Top 3 conversion element in the ATF or an Exit intent pop-up to make users convert right before they leave our site.
Process
Research, preliminary info…
I started by looking at competitors to see how they handled the down-trend in the affiliate marketing industry.
Competitors focused a lot more on conversion and commercial purposes. But we had a major business strength in our user's trust. An advantage we didn’t want to forget. Our research focused a lot on finding the balance between commercial and user’ needs.
Heatmaps and site analytics show a clear pattern in our users' behaviour: most users don’t scroll past the first 40% of the site and around 80% of our traffic comes from mobile devices.
Due to these results, we’re focusing on adding new conversion elements to the ATF and making the sites more mobile-friendly, especially taking the ATF area on mobile and making it easier to scan and skim. Optimising the space in the ATF on mobile to reduce the length of the pages and reduce the scrolling for our users.
Data, tests & results
We took the opportunity to do cross-collaboration work with the departments from Commercial and SEO, plus the usual with development and content. With several iterations to find that balance between a design that drives more conversion and elements that comply with Google’s quality rater guidelines, to ensure page quality and EEATs (Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness).
We tested through A/B tests to see if the new design would increase the conversion rate, but overall to ensure it didn’t increase the bounce rate due to the addition of more commercial elements.
[to be included soon, results from A/B test and data on the impact of the Exit intent pop-up]
Wireframes
Prototype
[to be included soon, animated GIF + link to interactive prototype]
Results and next steps
After careful consideration, we can conclude these elements have impacted the conversion rate positively. That is without sacrificing the ease of use of our sites. Furthermore, these elements have improved even more users’ trustworthiness.
Our next steps include adapting these elements to other sites and styles in our company assets.
