/conv/ - Conversion Rate

people aren't returning stuff as much as they used to. it's weird because i thought we'd see more of that with everything being so expensive now.
>Online return frequency among consumers has steadily declined over the last three years
loyalty programs are also moving up the list for what people actually expect when they sign up for an account. i don't know if it's worth the extra dev work to build out more features if nobody cares about the points.

found this here: https://baymard.com/research-articles/ecommerce-quantitative-ux-insights-2026

just saw some stuff about stripping all the links out of the header so people can't wander off. apparently instapage is what the big teams use for this 1:1 ratio thing, but honestly removing every exit sounds like a recipe for high bounce rates if the copy sucks lmao.

more here: https://instapage.com/blog/product-landing-pages/

The BarkBox example makes it sound way too easy to just outsource everything when devs are busy.
>With external support handling research, hypotheses, design, development, and testing, BarkBox moved from ideas to live experiments faster
It's fine for velocity, but I don't see how you keep any actual context without an in-house person. Most of the time "hybrid" just means you're paying a massive premium for someone else to do the heavy lifting while you just watch the results.

article: https://www.invespcro.com/blog/cro-agency-vs-in-house/

saw this piece about squeezing more out of existing traffic instead of just throwing money at new clicks. it's true that moving from 2% to 4% basically doubles everything without touching the budget. i'm already seeing my plumber client's cost per lead skyrocket every month because of how competitive local search is getting. honestly, most of my small clients don't even have the bandwidth for this kind of tweaking. they just want more calls and don't care about the math behind the lift. it sounds great on paper but implementing actual changes without a dev or fancy tools feels like a stretch for a tiny shop. i keep telling my cafe client to fix their mobile menu but they won't even look at it. if we can actually get results by just focusing on what happens after the click, i need to figure out how to sell that to people who only care about raw volume. it's a lot of work for a 1% bump in some cases.

full read: https://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/cro-best-practices/

saw this case study today and it's pretty wild. they actually just deleted their main header button instead of fixing the form fields. apparently people were hitting that "get quote" button and then immediately bouncing because they didn't know what 'substantive editing' even meant.
>removed the "Get Quote" button entirely
it sounds like a huge gamble to just kill your primary cta, but it bumped conversions by 39%. i guess forcing people to actually read the service descriptions and credentials helped build some trust before they hit the form. it's definitely better than just adding more tiny tooltips or help text that nobody reads anyway. it's a genius move it's mostly just aggressive navigation changes. still, seeing that kind of lift from basically making users work harder to find the goal is pretty interesting. i wonder if this would even work for a simple ecom checkout though. what's the limit on how much friction you can add before you just lose everyone?

article: https://conversion-rate-experts.com/removing-cta-win-report/

been seeing so many people mess up their surveys by asking too much at once. i stopped asking "why did you buy" on the thank you page because it's way too heavy for someone who just finished a checkout flow. instead, i only ask one thing: what was the single most important factor in your decision today? it keeps the friction low and doesn't feel like an interrogation. honestly, if you're asking five different questions right after they gave you money, you're just begging for bad data. people are tired. keep it to a single click or a tiny text box so they actually finish it lol.

i stopped using placeholder text as labels because it's total garbage for accessibility once someone starts typing. i always keep the label visible above the box so people don't lose context mid-flow. anyone else still relying on placeholders for simple forms?

just saw something about how 5th-7th grade reading levels convert at like 11.1%. it's basically just saying don't use big words, which i've known for years.
>small, evidence-based improvements
it's a nice way to rebrand the same old a/b testing we've been doing since forever. calling it an "ongoing cycle" doesn't change the fact that most of us are just fixing leaks as they happen anyway. marketing gurus love new names for old habits i don't see how this stops you from swinging for the fences and failing, though. does anyone actually have a workflow for this that isn't just a mess of spreadsheets?

more here: https://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/iterative-testing/

tried removing it but users keep scrolling back up to check their subtotal.
>the extra screen real estate is worth the distraction
it's killing my conversion rate because they lose track of the actual buy button lol.

i hate seeing clients run a single variant across both desktop and mobile when traffic is lopsided like this. if you don't separate your segments it's basically just noise that hides the real winners. i saw one test last week where mobile was tanking but desktop was up 10% and the aggregate result looked flat. has anyone else had to kill a winning test because of bad segmentation?