GEORG JENSEN and Optimisation of Conversion Rates
Having tools for A/B testing is not the same as actually testing. Conversion rates are imperative, and improving them has always been a part of the process at the Georg Jensen. We all have a limited amount of resources to achieve what we set out to achieve.
The team at GJ were running experiments before starting to work with Unconditional. Most of the tests were based on industry knowledge and, frankly, gut feeling. Before Danni Veng, Head of Ecommerce, joined the group, they even had an Optimizely subscription for a year (which costs around $50000.00 per year, according to Captera). Unfortunately, in a company of the size of Georg Jensen, there are lots of initiatives that seem to be more critical than improving user experience and conversion rates. To move optimising conversion rates up the priority list, you need someone in your team to focus on the process and understand the results, even if you outsource the entire activity to the agency.
Excuses, excuses
CRO is usually hard to understand for someone who has not seen the process in play, sometimes even hard to believe it will work. It was challenging to build a corporate business case for Conversion Rate Optimisation at GJ as a track to follow and allocate funds. For example, GJ first had to rebuild some parts of the website from scratch and then optimise them. They had to rebuild an entire template of how the product page looks, and such projects get in the way of A/B testing, especially on those pages. Having someone skilled in CRO to manage processes like this is crucial, not to waste time and resources.
CRO is a professionals enhancement
Working with the agency helped the development of Danni’s approach to CRO.
Even though I understand Conversion Rate Optimisation well, this is just one of my responsibilities as a Head of E-commerce at GJ. So, I could not have implemented CRO without an agency because many resources are required to set up the A/B testing and optimisation process properly.
GJ has an E-commerce department and a team that can look at data and investigate user journeys. Despite that, it takes a dedicated specialist and time to get to the necessary depth to achieve the winning tests.
Having the winning test gives me a personal boost and reaffirms that I am on the right track. Even in situations where some tests do not generate positive results, we can learn something new about our customers and their behaviour.
Dannis ability to integrate the agency into the usual processes at the company allowed a better understanding of the CRO process in practice.
The final drop of the funnel
GJ management had a much easier decision to make once they saw the potential that is locked away. There is no better way to show it than to have a significant win or a loss of an A/B test. In this case, we got a little lucky and hit the jackpot with a recommendation panel test in the UK market. That was the final drop and tangible proof we were looking for. There was no getting away from the impressive result because it generated a 10% uplift in revenue. This one test illustrated the whole CRO process and the value it brings to the business. This result gave Danni a more significant mandate to continue investing more in Conversion Rate Optimisation.
For example, in user recordings, we were able to see that a significant amount of users do not scroll at the home page and the homepage scroll depth is considerably low. There’s an immediate scroll drop at the average fold. We assume that users at the homepage don’t find the content at the average fold to be relevant and engaging. That might be because most visitors are interested in jewellery, while the homepage displays home decor categories first. While featuring a more comprehensive range of inspirational categories rather than specific products higher on the homepage will increase homepage engagement and thus will increase the conversion rate of those categories.
This version won by a (median of) 8% and was tested through more than 130.000 sessions and more than 3000 transactions. This means it is 98% statistically significant and will generate significant revenue and has done so even during a testing period of 70 days.
Benefits of quick-wins
For GJ, it was hard to allocate enough time to get deep into the data they have and discover something actionable quickly. One of the ways we found some true showstoppers was to look through video recordings of website visitors using the checkout process. When we came back with the results, it was like an alert going off
We need to fix this!
We also expect an agency to help with reports and improving the quality of the data. Properly tracking events, enhancing e-commerce tracking and reporting it with accessible tools truly matter to us.
The value in the audit
There is value in the audit itself. It makes concrete propositions to improve user experience, and it becomes easy to present CRO insights to the team and management.
I love that you make concrete propositions to improve user experience by tweaking the website’s design and copy.
In the audit, you get the data necessary to further the growth mindset, make the right decisions, and prioritise the changes you want to make.
Secret advantage
Now GJ sees CRO as a vital process because it is very concrete and more growth-oriented. It has become one of the cornerstones for a growth mindset and growth culture. The experience with the agency allowed Danni to illustrate what he has to do to build a data-driven team, even frame the e-commerce department in this way.
We are getting all the stakeholders that care about the conversion rates to understand the complexity of ingredients that affect it—starting from the quality of the traffic we bring, vertical integrations, payment options and finishing with the imagery, visuals and copy.
Don’t think about conversion rate optimisation as fixing the conversion rate. Think that it is part of getting a unique advantage in the market.
