5 Tips for Engaging and Converting eCommerce Website Visitors

Conversions are the ultimate digital marketing success metric – especially for eCommerce businesses.  While data on traffic, returning visitors, shares, and likes tell a story about brand and product awareness, conversions and sales are the one true testament to the quality of your campaigns and landing pages. Not to mention, they have a direct impact on your bottom line.

All this to say, you should focus your digital marketing efforts on driving conversions and sales. To do this, you need to create engaging content and appeal to your ideal customer’s wants, needs, and/or pain points. In this post, we outline five content ideas that can help you boost product sales and grow your eCommerce business.

1. Engage Website Visitors With a Quiz

If you sell products that aren’t as “everyday” as a pair of shoes or jeans,, you’ll have to be creative in how you build intrigue and promote buyer confidence.. In other words, eliminate any doubt a potential customer might have about your product. Interactive quizzes are a great way to do this — depending on the questions you pose, you’ll be able to show them if they have a need for your product, how it will fit into their lifestyle, and/or how it can help solve their problems. Plus, you can make it easy for them to purchase by including an “Add to Cart” option as part of the quiz results.

Here is an example from Somnifix, who use a quiz to help their customers understand how mouth taping can help them stop snoring, get a better night’s sleep, and wake up more refreshed.

It’s a simple 10-step quiz that will only take a moment to complete, and ultimately go a long way in assisting a conversion – which is what you should also be aiming for. The bottom line: keep your quiz short and engaging, and add a clear call-to-action at the end.

2. Add Videos to Your Pages

A picture is worth a thousand words, or so the saying goes. In which case, a video should be worth at least a couple thousand.

A video is often a great way to showcase a product and bring it to life in a way that words and photos just can’t do. 

Apart from showing your product in action, you can also create explainer videos, tips and tricks, and how-tos. All in all, you can use video as a way to engage potential buyers in a different way.

Here is this example by Vidyard, who used a funny little video to preempt one of their courses.

Keep in mind that production quality matters a lot, so you might need some extra resources to make this tactic work. Also, video doesn’t lend itself to all kinds of products or buyers, so think about your target audience and whether they’d need a video (or at least appreciate the effort) before you splurge on some footage.   

3. Use Social Proof

When used correctly, social proof can be the ultimate conversion tool. After all, people love seeing how others have fared with a product, and there is no better way to find out than to read reviews, testimonials, and awards. Just make sure to strike the right balance so you don’t look like a show-off. 

To use social proof effectively, add it to your landing pages, but don’t put it front and center; use positive reviews, but not ridiculously positive ones that might seem too good to be true; include star ratings with your product listings and add awards where appropriate As long as you are honest and the testimonials you use come from real people, you should be fine. 

Here is an example from Bay Alarm Medical, who feature social proof prominently, but with taste and  in just the right amount:

At the end of the day, sharing social proof is like letting your happiest customers do your selling for you. Not to mention, it’s a great way to build trust — and keep you informed on what’s working well in your business and (in the case of negative reviews) what you might need to improve. 

4. Make Friendly Suggestions

Help a buyer find what they’re looking for before they actually know they need it by subtly suggesting products they might like. 

Do this with an “others have also bought,” “frequently purchased together,” or “you may also be interested in” plugin and consider adding an incentive like a special discount or free shipping. These can be just what your eCommerce website needs to nudge someone into making a purchase. After all, look at Amazon.

Or, we can take this example from The Book Depository

The key here is to suggest products  that actually make sense to a particular buyer, so choose a good piece of software to help you out here. 

No matter what you do, be tasteful with your suggestions and avoid overdoing it — after all, no one likes when offers, items, and deals are shoved under their noses at every step.

5. Leverage FOMO

You can use modern society’s “fear of missing out” to your maximum advantage, with the clever application of discounts and special offers that include an actual timer.

If you tell shoppers that they can use a special code to get 20% off a product by such and such a date, it will not have the same effect as telling them they have 73 hours and 47 minutes left to put a code to good use and save the same 20%.

Social media is a great avenue for promoting these kinds of offers, but you should also prominently list the countdown and the offer on your landing pages.

In this example from Zoma, they’ve added a countdown ticker to the top of the page

It’s prominent but also subtle — giving visitors the reminder (and gentle push) they need to take advantage of their limited-time offer.

Final Thoughts

Of course, the success of these tactics will depend on the kinds of items you sell in your eCommerce store, and some will perform much better than others. Which is why you’ll want to consider your target audience first, what their needs, problems, and hesitations are, and how these tactics might work for them — and, by default, your bottom line. 

From there, look at the data from each effort to see what’s working well for you — and what’s not worth investing in further. That way, you’ll know how to continue boosting engagement and driving conversions long-term.  

If you’re ready to try any of these tactics and need a boost in cash flow to cover the associated costs, you can start getting your payouts in real-time with Payability.