When you have an eCommerce site, the number one goal is to turn more visitors into paying customers, right?
Well, not everyone who visits your website will turn into a paying customer. Some might have landed on your page from a random Google search and quickly bounced.
Others might be checking out your Careers page and applying for a job. Some might be window-shopping.
The list of reasons why someone could be on your site is endless.
However, one great metric to identify the number of qualified buyers is “add to cart rate.”
In this post, we’re going to dive deep into what this metric is, how to calculate it, and tips for increasing the number of visitors who add something to their cart.
- What is Add-to-Cart Rate?
- What is agood add-to-cart rate?
- 31 ways to improve your add-to-cart conversion rate
- How to measure Add to Cart rate in Databox?
What is Add-To-Cart Rate?
Add to Cart Rate is the percentage of visitors who add at least one item to their cart in a given session.
In order to calculate your add-to-cart conversion rate, you take the total number of sessions where someone adds an item to the cart and divide it by the total number of sessions.
What is aGood Add-to-Cart Rate?
According to Databox’s own Benchmark data, add to cart rate for any ecommerce business is 326 (monthly). This data was pulled from Facebook Ads, so it shows the median value for add-to-cart rate from Facebook Ads campaigns.
This benchmark was calculated from anonymized data from close to 50 companies. Are you an ecommerce business and want to benchmark your marketing performance, including metrics like FB Ads CTR, CPC, add-to-cart conversion value, and more, against other companies like yours? Join the Benchmark Group for free.
*Important note:Databox Benchmark Groups show median values. The median is calculated by taking the “middle” value, the value for which half of the observations are larger and half are smaller. The average is calculated by adding up all of the individual values and dividing this total by the number of observations. While both are measures of central tendency, when there is a possibility of extreme values, the median is generally the better measure to use.
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Browse Databox’s open Benchmark Groups and join ones relevant to your business to get free and instant performance benchmarks.
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31 ways to improve your add-to-cart conversion rate
Improving your add to cart rate not only correlates to more sales, but it can also help you identify your top-performing products as well as bottlenecks in your checkout process.
Here are 31 tactics you can implement.
- Make it easy for people to buy
- Display your value props prominently
- Include a CTA above the fold
- Add an additional add-to-cart button at the bottom of your product pages
- Add live chat or a chatbot
- Create a seamless customer experience
- Create a sense of urgency
- Run A/B tests
- Add social proof
- Include customer reviews on your product pages
- Write compelling product descriptions
- Address customers’ objections and fears in your product copy
- Incorporate neuromarketing tactics in your copy
- Write persuasive copy
- Add FAQs on your product page
- Write microcopy below the add-to-cart button
- Make sure your site is easy to use and looks trustworthy
- Optimize your site for mobile purchases
- Curate your list of recommended products
- Set add to cart as your goal for paid ad campaigns
- Allow customers to zoom in on product images
- Bundle products together
- Offer a discount for first-time customers
- Create an exit-intent popup with a discount offer
- Add SMS opt-ins on your product pages
- Include add-to-cart buttons on category pages
- Make sure the cart remains visible from every page
- Offer free shipping
- Use sticky calls to action
- Experiment with different pricing strategies
- Analyze the customer behavior flow report in Google Analytics
PRO TIP: Get Useful, Actionable Data on Your Ecommerce Store’s Performance
To improve the performance of your online store, it’s vital to have access to useful and actionable data. But, with so many metrics available to track, it may be hard to determine which ones will actually help you move the needle.
That’s why we have created a concise dashboard template that only tracks the most important metrics for analyzing the core elements of your ecommerce businesses, such as:
- Transactions and orders. How many transactions does your online store process in a day, a week, or a month? How many orders, and how many were placed on the same day of the previous month?
- Sales volume and trends. See how much money has been generated from sales in the current month. Analyze daily trends to compare with your sales goals and take action to reach them.
- Website traffic trends. Track the number of new and returning visitors to your website and the number of individual sessions initiated by these users.
- Conversion to customers. See what percentage of your website visitors convert to customers.
- Revenue per customer. See how much revenue you get from each unique visitor that interacts with your store during a given time period.
- Amount per transaction. Track the average dollar amount each customer spends on a sale.
- Best-selling products. See your most popular products in terms of volume and revenue in a given period.
And more…
Now you can benefit from the experience of our Google Analytics 4 experts, who have put together a plug-and-play Databox template showing the most important KPIs for monitoring your online store’s performance. It’s simple to implement and start using as a standalone dashboard or in ecommerce reports, and best of all, it’s free!
You can easily set it up in just a few clicks – no coding required.
To set up the dashboard, follow these 3 simple steps:
Step 1: Get the template
Step 2: Connect your Google Analytics 4 account with Databox.
Step 3: Watch your dashboard populate in seconds.
1. Make it easy for people to buy
“To improve your add-to-cart rate, you want to add an add to cart button on every page showing a product,” says Jonathan Aufray of Digital Growth Hackers. “Why? In many eCommerce stores, you see a list of products, then you need to click on a specific product, and only after that, you can add the product to the cart. This is not an effective customer journey. Instead, you can add this Add to Cart button next to each product even when you show many products on a page.”
”Improving UI and UX will definitely help you improve your ATC rate,” explains Shannon Denton of Total Girl Boss. “Look for elements that need improvement on your website and you will notice an increase in your ATC rate.”
For example, Rameez Ghayas Usmani of PureVPN says, “Reduce conversion steps to just 3-4 to provide convenience for the users to make the purchase in the least possible steps. Adding a quick checkout button will always help customers to avoid the hassle of conversion steps and heading to the conversion page directly.”
Jacob Landis-Eigsti of Jacob LE adds, “When we work with companies, often the process is too confusing. They either make the add to cart far down on the page, or they put it at the very top, but don’t have a checkout option further on the page. We find including several buttons that take you directly to the checkout has nearly doubled the add to cart rate.”
For example, Allan Borch of Dotcom Dollar says, “I own a company that sells digital products and my best tip for successfully improving this metric is to make it more convenient for people to purchase products. We do this primarily by allowing shoppers to add items to their cart while they’re browsing the product pages.”
“The primary objective of these product pages is to get users to buy something and not just read the information posted there. In our case, shoppers appreciated being able to buy directly from the list pages because it made completing the purchase go a lot faster,” Borch continues.
“Most shoppers don’t want to spend five minutes just to go through the checkout process. Having the option to buy items from list pages lets them complete checkout in just under three minutes and has boosted our add-to-cart rate in the process.”
2. Display your value props prominently
“My favorite tip to increase your site’s add-to-cart rate is prominently displaying your value add propositions,” says Duncan Halliday of Powerful Outreach.
“Whether it’s free shipping or returns, or a price guarantee, prominently displaying them is important. Most people display their value-adds in a site-wide header, or near the call to action, where they can convince on-the-fence shoppers to click add to cart when they otherwise might not.”
3. Include a CTA above the fold
“I have progressively improved the percentage of site visitors who add our product to the shopping cart by moving the call to action (CTA) to above the fold,” says Connie Heintz of DIYoffer.
“This way, customers are not lost on what to do (or more precisely, what I want them to do). After all, we usually pay more attention to information at the top of the page compared to that placed in the middle or at the bottom of the page.”
Matthew Tenney of GlassesUSA.com says, “Your add to cart CTA should always be within the viewport, always visible. Give it as much screen time as possible.”
Eckhard Ortwein of Lean Case adds, “The CTA button is one of the crucial factors that determine whether or not a visitor will add an item to their cart. That’s why it’s essential to make this button highly visible on the webpage.
If your customer decides to add the product to their cart, but they aren’t able to find the add to cart button, they will feel frustrated and will leave your site. So the add to cart button should stand out from the rest of the content. You can do it by using a contrasting color from your site’s color scheme. The shape and the size of this button also affect sales, so you should make sure it looks well-proportioned compared to the other elements on mobile and tablet as well.”
William Chin of MyWifeQuitHerJob.com further suggests, “Increase the color and size of your add-to-cart button so that it stands out. We tested the beautifying of our add-to-cart button and also removed our Facebook and Pinterest buttons that might have been drawing attention away from our add to cart.
Specific colors will resonate with your audience. For our eCommerce site (BumblebeeLinens.com), it’s hot pink. Find your color by doing the appropriate research for your vertical and figure out what’s more likely to drive that user to click your add-to-cart button.”
4. Add an additional add-to-cart button at the bottom of your product page
“One of the most important things an eCommerce store can do to improve their add-to-cart rate is to add an additional call to action at the bottom of the page,” says Caroline Podgurski of BirdRock Baby.
“Most Shopify themes for example only have a single add to cart button near the top of the page. Visitors who read the entire product page are some of your warmest prospects, so I highly recommend adding an additional button at the bottom of the page so they can easily proceed to checkout.”
5. Add live-chat or a chatbot
“Install a chatbot or some other type of live chat software on your website,” says Caitlin Pyle of Proofread Anywhere. “This gives potential buyers an opportunity to get their questions answered quickly so they’re not having to search for your contact information.
If they have to search too long for your contact information, there’s a chance they may lose interest or think you’re not legit and will move on.”
Rebecca White of Prana Brush adds to this, “Based on my experience, my one tip for increasing add-to-cart rate is to implement a real-time chat window.
Our comparison of the data before and after showed that being available to our readers to answers questions immediately over chat dramatically increased their willingness to browse our site (increasing average page views), increased the time they spent on our site (increasing dwell time), and increased their confidence in our brand and their willingness to make a purchase (increased add-to-cart rate and conversions),” Brush explains.
“In general, we saw a 20% increase in average page views and dwell time and a comparable increase in add-to-cart rate. Our advice for other companies is to consider implementing chat boxes but being careful to do so cautiously.
Chat boxes are only effective if you have the ability to monitor them and respond to questions in real-time. If your resources are strained, it is better not to have a chatbox than to have one that cannot be properly staffed as this may negatively impact a user’s perception of your site.”
Related: 15 Proven Ways to Reduce Your Average Support Ticket Response Time
6. Create a seamless customer experience
“To improve this, I recommend going back to consumer research and understanding your customer journey,” says Melissa Hughes of Foundation Marketing.
“To increase your percentage you need to understand the content someone needs to actually add something to a cart and show that level of intent. Customer journey mapping will allow you to see all the opportunities to influence this behavior.
Paige Arnof-Fenn of Mavens & Moguls shares, “It is important to create a seamless experience for your customers regardless of channel or device. Consumers now engage with a company in a brick and mortar store, online or mobile app, by catalog, or via social media. They can access products and services by calling a company on the phone, by using an app on their mobile smartphone, or with a tablet, a laptop, or a desktop computer. Every piece of the consumer’s experience should be consistent and complementary.
If a customer has previously engaged or purchased your product or service, your marketing should reflect that. If a customer has put something into a cart but hasn’t yet purchased, use your content to reference that intent. People use multiple devices during a single transaction process. Make sure that you are able to listen and respond to these interactions.
Ecommerce retailers should preserve items in a shopping cart across devices so if you add an item to your mobile shopping cart, it should still be in your shopping cart when you access the site on your desktop too for example. If you recently bought a pair of pants they can recommend a great shirt or sweater to go with it. The goal is to provide better service to your customers which should drive more sales.”
Alex Birkett of Omniscient Digital adds, “Your goal shouldn’t be to optimize your add-to-cart rate in isolation, but rather to deliver experiences that maximize the overall value of the website (usually measured by ‘revenue’ overall or in an A/B test as ‘revenue per visitor’). Of course, improving product page copy and design, removing distractions, improving user experience bottlenecks, and all the other typical conversion rate optimization actions will likely *also* improve your add-to-cart rate.
But optimizing solely for that — or any micro-conversion — is a mistake. It shifts the incentive structure to provide a holistic customer experience that results in improved business metrics to shuffling visitors one step further down the funnel (which can easily be gamed with clever UI design or copy). Who cares if someone adds a product to their cart if they don’t end up purchasing? What if you improve the add-to-cart rate but lower the overall value of that cart (and the revenue per visitor)? Optimize for metrics that matter.”
7. Create a sense of urgency
“Creating a sense of urgency or scarcity can help improve your add-to-cart rate,” says Daniella Pozzolungo of PupDigital. “If people have the sense that they might miss out on a product they want, they are more likely to add to cart and purchase. You can do this with notifications of how much stock is available, having limited time offers, or by selling limited edition products.”
Djordje Milicevic of StableWP says, “One of the most powerful ways to increase the add-to-cart rate is including scarcity and urgency triggers on your product pages. Urgency and scarcity work for a fundamental reason – people fear loss.
This fear is also known as the fear of missing out (FOMO). So, by making your items seem rare and your special deals time-sensitive, it impacts the shopper on a subconscious level making them act now or miss out. Some of the most effective FOMO triggers are limited stock levels, countdown timers for discounts or special deals, highlighting items with tags like ‘limited edition’ to make them appear special, time-limited bonuses, or free gifts for first-time customers, and many similar techniques.”
Justin Hawes of K&N Sales agrees, “Making people feel as if they’re about to miss out on or lose a great opportunity is an effective way to drive conversions and sales. The easiest way to do it is to indicate the limited number of products in stock, creating an illusion that it’s about to run out. It will be an emotional trigger, persuading visitors to take more immediate action and click add to cart button before somebody else does. You can also offer a limited period discount. An effective way to create time pressure is to use a countdown timer on your site. It will show viewers how many days, hours, and minutes they have to make a decision.”
Andrei Vasilescu of DontPayFull adds, “This sense of urgency to add a product to cart can be created in two ways – either by reducing the availability of the product or by limiting the availability for a short timeframe. When customers notice the highlighted message ‘Only 2 left in stock’ along with the product, they hurry to add the item to their carts before the stock runs out. The same urgency occurs in the minds of the customers when a particular product is offered for a very limited period. So, creating a sense of urgency is the best way to increase the Add-To-Cart rate and boost conversion.”
For example, David Morneau of inBeat outlines, “The tip that worked best for our clients and us to improve the add-to-cart rate was introducing urgency into the checkout process.
The fear of missing out is, and the human need for instant gratification help shift your customers’ brain from a passive state of browsing to an active state of making a purchase.
Tactics to create urgency are:
- Make it clear what your stock levels are: “Only 2 left in stock!”
- Include countdown timer for offer expiry: “12 hours left till offer expires!”
- Show customers how many other users are looking at the product.
- Add countdown timer for same-day shipping.”
And, Kevin Charette of Heap says, “Heap customers saw an average lift of 2.9% of revenue per visitor when they started including scarcity into the ecommerce sites.”
8. Run A/B Tests
“Split test your product page layout thoroughly,” says Alistair Dodds of Ever Increasing Circles. “This is especially true for your call to action buy button wording, positioning, size, and color.
Too many people assume that Shopify and WooCommerce template developers are focused on this outcome but that’s not always true. You need to verify it through testing to ensure you are maximizing your add to cart rate. Don’t rely on a third party to have done your thinking and testing for you.”
Hung Nguyen of Smallpdf suggests, “Use absolute numbers instead of percentages.
I’m sure many marketers recognize that adding a sense of urgency can improve a business’s add-to-cart-rate. However, many don’t AB test how their copy can affect how users behave when it comes to online purchases.
For instance, instead of showing a popup or modal offering a 50% discount, hit visitors with a Save $30 instead. Similarly, clothing stores usually display the number of stock left for each item, e.g., ‘2 left in stock.’ Hotel booking sites, such as Booking.com, also adopt this use, showing users how many rooms hotels have left when a user visits its profile.
Think about it, with the previous example—2 left in stock sounds way more pressing than 1% of stock left. Customers don’t want to think, they just want to decide if they wish to purchase—and feeding them with easy-to-digest information is the way to go.”
For example, one thing to test is different CTA copy.
Casey Dawson of Online Optimism says, “One way to increase your add-to-cart rate is by changing the phrase featured on your add-to-cart buttons. Studies have shown that phrases like buy now or purchase now can steer customers away from finalizing a web purchase because these phrases imply that the add-to-cart button is actually a one-click buy button (as seen on Amazon).
Try using softer language like add to cart or add to bag on your add-to-cart buttons: these phrases lower the stakes of clicking the button, clarify the button’s function, and will lead more customers to complete purchases on your eCommerce site.”
Related: 26 Ways for Improving Your Ecommerce Conversion Rate
9. Add social proof
“I think that dynamic social proof is an extremely underrated tactic that is highly effective for improving conversion/add-to-cart rates,” says Sally Wills of Yieldify.
“You can deploy triggered onsite messages that use live website traffic data to show the number of other shoppers viewing products in real-time. In a world where we are all chasing the next big trend, seeing what products are the most popular with other shoppers really adds to that FOMO feeling. Ultimately you want to create a sense of urgency for the consumer to make a purchase, and if they feel that the product is in high demand and might sell out – then it’s mission accomplished.”
Kenny Trinh of Netbooknews adds, “There is a halo effect that we call, a type of cognitive bias that makes humans judge other people or entities based on a single trait. That’s why we are told to make a good impression.
In terms of an eCommerce site, you can use this effect to improve your conversion rate by combining this effect with social proof. Ratings and reviews are one of the most crucial factors that help shoppers decide whether to buy or not to buy your product.
By influencing your shoppers, as soon as they land on your website you can show the product ratings and reviews at prominent places such as below the product name itself. The excellent ratings will nudge the buyer to act faster.”
10. Include customer reviews on your product pages
“Include User Review on Product Page,” says Simonas Steponaitis of Hosting Wiki.
“Product reviews play an important role in customer’s decision making. Before making a purchase decision, potential customers first check the product rating and consider the product. According to a Testimonial Engine report, 72% of consumers will wait until they’ve read reviews before taking action on a purchase.”
11. Write compelling product descriptions
“In order to improve add to cart rate, one of the best things you can do is to have a great product page,” says Dan Serbanescu of Leather Depot. “People want to know exactly what they are buying. They need to feel like touching the product in a physical store. So, try to use quality pictures taken from all angles, or even better, add a video there too.
Customers respond very well to descriptive videos because many people noticed pictures can be “faked” a little (they tend to have the best lighting, are taken from a good angle, etc), so they may not express reality 100%. You should also have a suitable product description, containing all the information the customer needs. Don’t leave questions unanswered. For example, if you are selling clothes with different sizes (M, L, XL), also add an informative size chart (in inches/centimeters) with things like total length, sleeve length, chest diameter, etc. This way, your customers will know exactly what size M actually means.”
Michael Anderson of SIGNAL+POWER says, “There are two tactics that can help to improve add to cart rate sitewide. The first is to craft unique product descriptions that really communicate the product’s unique value proposition to the customer. These descriptions should be concise yet they should contain all of the information a customer would need to finalize their purchasing decision.
The second tactic is to add a live chat service to your website in order to communicate with potential customers and quickly answer questions. If a user has a question, odds are they want it answered right away. By using a live chat service to communicate with the user directly, you can answer their questions and guide them along the conversion process. This includes adding one or more products to their cart.”
Molly Burke of Jungle Scout adds, “Here’s how an A+ product description can improve your add-to-cart rate:
- Reduce returns and negative reviews of your products by communicating specific features, benefits, and specs
- Show off your product in amazing detail with customizable modules
- Tell your brand story and grow brand awareness
According to Amazon, you could increase your conversion rate by 3-10% just by using an A+ description.”
12. Address customers’ objections and fears in your product copy
“A call-to-action with a nearby message that helps dispel any buying doubts will help improve the add-to-cart rate,” says Shem Mandajos of Tankarium.
“One major reason that customers fail to press the add-to-cart button is that they still have remaining inhibitions about purchasing the product. However, if businesses dispel those negative thoughts with words of reassurance like money-back guarantees, the chances are high that visitors would proceed with the purchase.”
13. Incorporate neuromarketing tactics in your copy
“The two key motivating chemicals in the brain are namely, Cortisol (what we avoid) and Dopamine (what we desire),” explains Shayan Fatani of PureVPN.
“Put the knowledge of these stimulants, identify and address the consumers’ pain points or desires like is this size going to fit me? and look to solve it through let’s say a size chart. It is a simple formula, addresses fear, and gives a solution.
14. Write persuasive copy
“The single best way to improve your add-to-cart rate is to craft every word of copy for maximum persuasion,” says Brian Robben of Robben Media.
“The headline needs to be dynamic, enticing, and powerful. The product text should jump off the screen. The CTA buttons need to be A/B tested until they’re perfect. Every single word on the page needs to be optimized if you want to do this right. Be overly descriptive, while maintaining concise language. It can be grueling, monotonous work, but it pays!”
15. Add FAQs on your product pages
“We have found that including frequently asked questions and product & company info on the product page has drastically improved add-to-cart rates,” says Morgan Hennessey of Electric Enjin.
“If you look at your Google Analytics behavior flow, you might notice that many users bounce from the product page to an About Page or another informational page, like your FAQs. This is because you’re missing vital information that supports the buyers’ journey. Especially if you’re an industry disruptor, such as “low-carb junk food” or “DEET-free bug spray,” people are going to need to understand your product a little more before actually purchasing something they are unfamiliar with.”
16. Write microcopy below the add-to-cart button
“My one tip to improve add-to-cart rate is to strategically place some micro-copy right below the button,” says Nikola Roza of Nikola Roza- SEO for the Poor and Determined. “This almost universally works because people who’re on the fence of buying actually want to buy.
They really want to get the item they’re after and just need a bit of reassurance that it’s ok to do it. That nothing bad will happen if they buy. And that it’s a no-risk situation for them.
The goal of using micro-copy is to instill a sense of security in the potential buyers, so that the last bit of doubt they have is removed. So that they purchase, and afterward feel elated they’ve made the right decision.”
Venkatesh C.R. of Dot Com Infoway adds, “Take a look at certain tips and tricks that you need to follow to improve your ATC rate and make your Commerce venture highly profitable.
1. Adding some bonus texts within or below CTA encourages visitors to take action
2. If you use a small button, then make it big. So, one can use it hassle-free
3. Use high-quality and attention-seeking images of products
4. Create a good micro-copy
5. Make sure there is enough space between those of tappable links
6. Try to limit the use of options like Buy Now or Shop Now’”
17. Make sure your site is easy to use and looks trustworthy
“A critical part of improving ATC comes with good site design with a nod to user experience,” says John Donnachie of ClydeBank Media. “Ensure that your add to cart button is not only above the fold (visible without scrolling) on desktop, tablet, mobile but large enough to touch on all screen sizes. Reducing friction as much as possible will improve ATC rates.”
Mike Allen of The Fashion Jacket says, “The most significant aspect of online shopping is about how trustful and professional your website looks.Does it have a brand alike theme? Does it have a heart-winning picture for the customer? Have you described the features of your product well enough and cover all the questions that your customer may have in his mind?
Moreover, buyers are always reluctant to trust not-so-prominent shops and they always doubt whether they will receive an exact product as in the picture or not. To overcome their doubts, it is better to add a video of your product, show it from all angles, just like a customer does in physical shops.
Give them a sense of surety that they are at the right place to purchase it. Additional details can be included such as a discount or free delivery options that would further persuade the user to render a greater add to cart rate for your eCommerce platform.”
Sam Harper of Hippy Feet adds, “Add-to-carts start on your landing page. We obsess about product images, product descriptions, button color, and more, but none of this matters if you don’t build trust from the second a customer lands on your site. This means providing a clean user experience that educates potential customers on what makes your product/service unique and valuable.”
18. Optimize your site for mobile purchases
Yaniv Masjedi of Nextiva says, “If visitors feel confused or lost while browsing through your site, the chances are high they will not proceed with buying.
Investing in a site builder with a reliable mobile-adapting feature is the secret to ensure a mobile-friendly user experience. If you have the budget, you can partner with a website designer for the improved personalization benefits.”
Tiffanie Hartenstein of ORACLE Lighting adds, “One of the best ways to increase your add-to-cart rate is to make links and buttons easy to click across devices. This means making sure clickable content is not only large enough and clearly visible, but that there is plenty of space between clickable content.
As consumers increasingly shop on their phones instead of only desktop computers, it pays to ensure that your site is user-friendly across devices. Your mobile customers are far more likely to add items to their carts if it’s easy to press the right button.”
19. Curate your list of recommended products
“Improve your add-to-cart rate success by implementing a feature on your website that shows similar products that the audience may like,” says Olivia Tsang of SuperMoney. “For example, if your user just added a baby product item, be sure to also show items that are relevant to baby products or its best sellers.”
David McHugh of Crediful adds, “Re-evaluate your list of recommended products.
When visitors on your homepage, carefully consider what products and items that are first recommended to them. Obviously, you can’t list your entire product line in recommended product lists, so you want those products to really be the best and strongest you offer.
When visitors to your site look at your recommended products and none of them stick out or look enticing, their inclination won’t be to keep searching the rest of your products, it will be to abandon the site and go somewhere else. Get in touch with your market by using surveys, competitor analysis, and split testing to figure out what the average customer wants, and make sure your list of recommended products reflects that.”
20. Set add to cart as your goal for paid ad campaigns
“Set add to cart as your goal for acquisition campaigns,” says Haley Anhut of Clean Origin.
“Many eCommerce managers, website owners, and analysts bend over backward trying to find ways to improve add to cart rate, and most will fail. However, I believe that you have to look at what’s happening before potential customers even get to your site. Whether you’re using Facebook Ads, Pinterest, Google Adwords, or any other digital marketing initiative, your marketing team has the option to set a goal when they’re launching new campaigns. It seems obvious to me, that rather than focusing only on sales (a much bigger hurdle), that marketers should focus on getting serious shoppers to the cart!
By using this approach, you’ll be spending your marketing dollars much more effectively. Take Facebook for example.
If you are doing 100 sales a day, Facebook’s algorithm has 100 customers to model lookalike audiences after. But you could be seeing 1,000 cart visits a day, giving you a much larger audience to model your lookalike audiences after. Not only will this create a more effective marketing funnel, but it will also create a symbiosis between your marketing team and your product team.”
21. Allow customers to zoom in on product images
Julio Viskovich of Thompson Rivers University recommends, “Ensuring that each of your products has a zoom feature allowing customers to view all angles of the product gives them a better customer experience with your product making them more likely to use their shopping cart.”
An alternative approach would be to add more product images, so that users can see the product from all angles.
Hardeep Johar of Stone and Tile Shoppe says, “Increase the number of detailed product images so that the customers know exactly what they will get. When people are shopping online, they can’t touch or feel the item they like or put it on. So you need to let them have an opportunity to get a sense of the product by using images only.
It’s better to show images in the context to reduce the fears and doubts. Don’t use DIY product photos; instead, invest in high-quality product images. If you have many images of the product, you can add a scroll to the product pictures, so they show on one line. You can also use 360-degree rotating images and videos on product pages to help your customers visualize the product better. In this way, you’ll offer your customers a more immersive experience, and they will be more inclined to buy from you.”
22. Bundle products together
“Bundle and Save initiatives are HUGE for, not only add to cart rates, but also for unit sales volume,” says Daniel Heuer of Copyfluent. “If you’re able to save customers money, they will spend more, believing they are getting a greater value. This will also increase their likelihood to purchase.”
23. Offer a discount for first-time customers
Jack Choros of IronMonk Solutions recommends, “Offer a discount on a first time purchase. You can also promote products that go with the product currently in the cart. As in ‘customers who bought this also bought’. Amazon does this very well.
At the end of the day, you have to follow up with customers if you want them to continue taking action or increase the rate at which they take action.”
24. Create an exit-intent popup with a discount offer
“Add an exit-intent popup integration with an instant discount coupon code,” says Richa Pathak of SEM Updates. “I implemented this strategy for one of my eCommerce clients and it boosted their ROI by 37% immediately, including a 60% increase in add to cart actions.
Exit-intent is now more powerful with predictive analytics and machine learning. The algorithms work great with better recommendations and audience behavior analysis with the site, so the software knows at what % of discount would be able to drive the desired action.
A powerful recommendation engine is a brain that works in behind and drives more add-to-cart actions. In this era of technological advancement analytics and data is almost essential for eCommerce success.”
25. Add SMS opt-ins on your product pages
“Add a click-to-text widget to your product pages that encourage visitors to sign up for SMS updates,” says Alfredo Salkeld of SimpleTexting. “When they sign up, send them an offer for 10% off.
Yes. Toroe Eyewear is an e-commerce store that added this widget to their website. Within 30 days, they generated an extra $7K in revenue and increased the store’s conversion rate by 200%. Here’s the full case study with screenshots.
Why does it work?
For people who are on the fence, the 10% off is enough to encourage them to add the product to their cart. Those who abandon their carts can be brought back with a text message drip campaign.”
26. Include add-to-cart buttons on category pages
“To improve add-to-cart rate, companies can include add-to-cart buttons on category pages,” says Bruce Hogan of SoftwarePundit.
“Almost all companies include an add-to-cart button on product pages. While these are the most important, some customers are ready to add an item to cart from category or search result pages. By enabling this flow, companies can make it easier for some customers to add items to cart and increase their websites’ conversion rates.”
27. Make sure the cart remains visible from every page
“If your average customer buys multiple items versus a single product, ensure your website doesn’t automatically send them to the cart page,” says Elijah-Blue Vieau of The Influence Agency.
“Instead, ensure the cart status remains visible (top corner or sticky at the bottom of the page) and they remain on the page. Sending users directly to the cart page every time they add something means they have to click back on their browser to continue shopping. This can be super frustrating, especially on mobile devices.”
28. Offer free shipping
“Offering free shipping will improve your add-to-cart rate increasingly,” says Tom Massey of Snowy Pines White Labs. “People hate to pay for shipping, and most people will feel more inclined to make a purchase online when they don’t have to pay for shipping.”
29. Use sticky calls to action
“I really like using Sticky Call to Actions,” says Will Laurenson of Monkey Blocks. “A sticky call to action follows the site visitor as they scroll the page. It allows you to provide much more content on the page, all the benefits, descriptions, and testimonials you could ever need, knowing that the CTA is always there on the screen.
Long-form content is known to perform better, and it can be ever more so with a sticky CTA. If used properly, they’re really unintrusive, but yet obviously there and available to the visitor to click as soon as they are ready.”
30. Experiment with different pricing strategies
“One tip for improving add to cart rate is using the psychological pricing strategy,” says Khris Steven of Khrisdigital. “This is a pricing and marketing strategy based on the theory that certain price points have a bigger psychological impact on customers than other price points.
By simply reducing the left digit of your original pricing by one (0.1) or three (3) has been an interesting but yet effective tactic to improve add-to-cart rate.
More often than not, we come across this technique when we make purchases, but we really don’t pay attention. For example, our brain processes $3.00 and $2.99 as different values – to our brain $2.99 is $2.00, which is cheaper than $3.00.
For higher-priced items of $100 or $1000, you can turn them to be $97 and $997 respectively.”
31. Analyze the customer behavior flow report in Google Analytics
“When we’re looking at an eCommerce client site, we dig into Google Analytics data to look at customer behavior flow,” says Stephanie Riel of RielDeal Marketing.
“At what point in the funnel does the customer get tripped up in the purchase process and leave before adding to cart? Then we look at those pages to identify opportunities for optimization. Maybe product descriptions can be cleaned up and simplified, etc.
Using a data-driven approach you can pinpoint where your potential customer is getting tripped up in the sales funnel process and make optimizations. Then, rung a targeted ad campaign on Facebook or Instagram with a focus on Add-to-Cart conversions and see how your add-to-cart rate performs.”
How to measure Add to Cart rate in Databox?
When it comes to calculating your add to cart rate, there are only two metrics you really need to know: Total Sessions and Number of users who add at least one item to their cart in a given time period.
So, you can set this up by creating a data calculation in Databox. In this case, you’d take the number of add to carts divided by total sessions.
Once you have this built, you can then add it to any of your dashboards.
In addition, here are some additional metrics that you can track and visualize in ecommerce reporting software like Databox.
- Cart Pipeline – This allows you to see all of your Add to Carts, Checkouts, Orders, and Visits in one place. This is useful for identifying any potential friction in the checkout process.
- Facebook Ads Add to Carts – This is the number of Add to Cart events attributed to your ads, based on information received from one or more of your connected Facebook Business Tools during the specified date range. This is helpful for identifying the true ROI of your paid social ad campaigns.
- Facebook Ads Add to Carts By Campaign, Ad Set, and Ad – In addition to tracking the total number of Facebook add to carts, you can also split this data up by campaigns, ad sets, and even individual ads. This is useful for identifying your top-performing copy, targeting, and creative.
In conclusion, measuring your add to cart rate can give you insights into the number of interested shoppers on your site, your top-performing products, and help you identify any points of friction in the buying process.
