Last updated Thu Nov 07 2024
How to Increase Conversion Rate on Shopify: 20+ Ways [2024]
Times are tough.
You need all the effective ideas you can get about how to increase the conversion rate on your Shopify store.
In this guide, you'll find 20+ proven ones, backed up by CRO examples and case studies from successful Shopify businesses.
Improve your conversions with effective Shopify popups and AI Wishlist
Built-in Shopify properties, unique discount codes, and Klaviyo segment targeting
Other useful guides for Shopify store owners:
How to get sales on Shopify: 10+ ideas (including reasons why you might not be getting sales)
Top Shopify stores [+their revenues] (reviews of stores like Allbirds, Bombas, and Gymshark)
40 top-rated Shopify apps (for store management, SEO, marketing, and sales)
How to increase the conversion rate on your Shopify store
1. Give a welcome discount
Give your unregistered visitors a welcome discount to entice them to buy.
Do so with a welcome popup campaign with a "sticky tab."
This format is the best because:
A welcome popup helps you showcase products or other content prominently on the homepage (instead of cluttering it with promo texts). If visitors close the popup—no worries, they can still get the discount, as the tab stays accessible.
Around 56% of Shopify stores are using this website conversion rate strategy:
Here's the welcome popup with a tab on Blume: the tab remains visible after closing the popup, allowing customers to get the discount later when they find a product they like:
This strategy to increase Shopify conversion rate works, as Blume converts 5% of their visitors (that equals hundreds of potential customers).
Fact
A recent study of Shopify stores revealed a rising trend in the popularity of welcome offers displayed with sticky tabs, even on mobile, as seen in top stores like Kith and WP Standard.
Wondering what kind of discount to give?
The most popular discount size among Shopify stores is 10%, (as businesses trying to protect their margins during the recession), closely followed by 20%.
Want to make it a bit more interesting for your visitors?
Consider making the welcome offer "a mystery gift":
Creating a welcome popup involves replicating the design of your Shopify store to make it look natural and setting the display rule to "New visitors."
If you'd like to try welcome offers with sticky tabs, try Wisepops. It has advanced Shopify conversion features, deep integration with Klaviyo, and a 4.9-star Shopify App Store rating:
Free trial with premium features, no cc required
Step-by-step guide: How to create welcome popups
"Easy to use, friendly support, and great performance! We've seen a significant boost in conversions since installing!"
Goddess Provisions, a Shopify App Store review
2. Personalize offers with Shopify properties
When it comes to increasing conversion rate on Shopify, ecommerce personalization is key. Good news: even as a small Shopify store, you can personalize many of your marketing offers on autopilot.
Enter Shopify properties.
They are dynamic display conditions you set up to show marketing offers in popups and forms. In simple words, you create offers that are displayed automatically only to visitors/customers who meet those conditions.
Here's how built-in Shopify properties look like:
The drill here is simple: create a personalized campaign, set up the display settings, and publish.
Thanks to them, you can create campaigns based on:
Visitor status (new or registered)
How many items a customer has in their shopping cart
How long ago a customer last purchased from you (X days)
The total value of a customer's cart (eg. over $50)
How many items are left in your stock
The number of orders placed by a particular customer
Shopify properties are available in many marketing tools. For example, Wisepops has them—along with built-in unique Shopify discount codes and even revenue tracking.
Learn about Shopify properties
See how to use goal and revenue tracking
Or follow these steps to add a popup to Shopify (connect your store to access Shopify properties).
Expert tip: Set up the max limit for campaigns a visitor sees during one visit.
Easily control the number of popups customers see on your Shopify store to keep their experience positive: Frequency settings.
3. Share promos with onsite notifications
Onsite notifications are a unique feature designed to increase the conversion rate on Shopify by engaging visitors with promo messages in the store's header.
Thanks to built-in targeting, onsite notifications can help you cover the entire customer journey, from generating leads and nurturing repeat customers.
Example:
OddBalls, one of the UK's leading underwear brands, uses them to build the email list, share promos, and drive traffic to product pages...
And—
Also display product recommendations and "recently viewed products" like that:
Onsite notifications are a proven way to improve conversion rate on Shopify:
25% of customers check them during visiting
Customers who check notifications are three times as likely to come back
Notifications come with Shopify properties, unique discount codes, and goal and revenue tracking
And, to top it off—
OddBalls made £50,000 with one onsite notification: Read the case study
“Onsite notifications were a significant driver in revenue for the launch of our new product range and we will be making use of the notifications for future campaigns and product launches.”
Dan Mitchell, Ecommerce Manager OddBalls
Black Ember, another Shopify store, used notifications for a different goal:
Engaging customer engagement with product launches.
First, they made a "Be-the-first-to-know" notification (which they integrated with Klaviyo), and then announced the arrival with this campaign below:
In just 21 days, that onsite notification drove 2,059 customers to that product, achieving a nice 30.2% CVR:
If you'd like to get more details: Black Ember case study.
Getting back to our topic—
Besides being a cool and attention-grabbing feature, another reason onsite notifications work so well is the targeting options.
With them, you can personalize your offers down to an individual customer level:
To learn more about how to improve your conversion rate on Shopify, check out our guide to onsite notifications or these stories of Shopify businesses using notifications.
Or try them for free and engage your visitors:
No cc needed, unlimited free trial. Learn more about notifications
“Our first priority is to provide our community with a positive, engaging, and easy-to-use UX. We have found [onsite notifications] to perfectly complement the design and functionality of our website.”
4. Use the AI wishlist
Another powerful feature of onsite notifications that'll help you increase conversion rates on Shopify is the AI wishlist.
The AI Wishlist, with its smart algorithms, predicts the products your customers will love. It then puts these items on the website for easy browsing and quick shopping with just a click, speeding up conversions in your store.
Here's this Shopify conversion tactic in action:
I visited a couple of products on OddBalls and got this reminder (check out the first notification in the feed):
When opened, it shows the items once again.
The visitor just needs to click the notification to go to any product directly:
This way, you can increase your Shopify conversion rate by encouraging shoppers to take a look at the items again before they leave.
One more example—
Dusk, a furniture and homeware store on Shopify, also converts visitors with AI wishlist:
And, as you can see, the visitors are able to add the products in the list directly to the shopping cart.
If you'd like to try this strategy, add notifications to your store (either by signing up via the button below or by visiting Wisepops on the Shopify app store).
Or—
5. Host a flash sale
A well-timed and promoted flash sale can help you improve your conversion rate on Shopify in a matter of hours.
Consider Charlotte Bio, a Shopify store selling organic cosmetics.
This brand ran a flash sale for six hours on a Tuesday and generated 17% of its monthly sales. To promote the launch to the visitors, a couple of popups along with a website bar were used:
To run a successful flash sale:
Decide on the offer. This means choosing the discount size and/or extra perks (free shipping, bonus loyalty points, etc.)
Choose the day. Most Shopify stores choose Fridays and weekends (especially on some meaningful dates) but any day except Monday should be fine
Choose how long the sale will run. Consider choosing a short timeframe, between six and 24 hours
Promote the sale in advance. Send emails, including one or two on the day of the sale, and use website banners or popups
Promote the sale after the launch. Let your visitors know about the sale with website popups, sticky bars, banners, or onsite notifications
Get campaign breakdown: Charlotte Bio case study
A step-by-step guide: How to run a flash sale [+examples]
“The campaign generated six times more customers in six hours than we get on a full regular day, which we really did not expect.”
6. Use BOGO offers
Your customers see offers like welcome discounts everywhere, so let's try something different.
Consider BOGO offers:
Buy one and get a free sample
BOGO (buy one, get one free)
B2GO (buy two, get one free)
B2GO (buy three, get one free)
Buy one get one half-price
Buy one from category A and get one from category B
BOGO offers are a popular way to increase a conversion rate on Shopify.
Here's an example of a B2GO offer for new customers:
Or—
You can even try a B3GO like this one:
Or—
You can give a free item for orders above a certain threshold:
Or—
You can let the visitor know about the free product immediately when they add a product to the cart like here:
See more examples of Shopify stores promoting sales and special offers:
7. Reduce shopping cart abandonment
To boost conversion rates on your Shopify store, focus on both offsite and onsite aspects of a cart recovery strategy: onsite: (cart recovery messages on your store) and offsite (abandoned cart emails).
Let's begin with the onsite strategy and address abandoned carts before shoppers leave.
Consider these ideas from other businesses:
NET-A-PORTER shows this cart abandonment popup with a product left in the cart when the visitor is trying to leave the store:
Or—
Use Shopify properties to detect items in the cart and show a campaign with a limited-time offer like Nora Gardner:
If you'd like to know how to create a cart recovery campaign, use this guide:
How to make a cart abandonment popup
As for the offsite part, use automatic emails:
email #1: sent almost immediately after the customer leaves
email #2: sent the next day
email #3: sent three days later (if still nothing in the cart)
The first two emails should remind the customer of what they left behind, while the third could offer a discount or other incentive to complete their purchase.
Get an app to recover sales:
8. Add exit intent offers
Exit intent popups are one of the most effective ways to increase Shopify conversions. While typically converting just 3% of visitors, the most effective campaigns achieve impressive conversion rates of up to 19%.
That's why we see exit intent popups everywhere on Shopify stores. Here's one from Art of Play with a 20% discount for new customers:
To increase your Shopify conversion rate with exit offers:
Choose an incentive (typically a discount but could be something else)
Get a tool to make exit popups (see the top Shopify popup apps)
Add the campaign to your Shopify store
If you'd like a reliable Shopify popup app, let me suggest Wisepops. It's got a 4.9-star rating from Shopify users and you can create any type of popup:
No credit card required, unlimited free trial
"Wisepops has been a fantastic unlock for our team as we continue to focus on acquisition and engagement. We have seen great success with our entry and exit intent campaigns..."
Wisepops review from Capterra
9. Try different versions of the value proposition
Revising value proposition is a really quick idea that could really affect your Shopify conversions. Your store may already have the value proposition, but consider giving it a second look to find some ways to make it even better.
A persuasive value proposition:
Gets to the details: What benefits will your target customer actually get from using your product?
Focuses on solving pain points: How does your product solve a problem or make life better for them?
Is unique: What makes it special and in demand? How does it showcase your edge over competitors?
Let's see some examples.
This is a value proposition of Baking Steel (a store that sells, well, baking steels)...
Next—
This one is from PRESS Healthfoods...
And—
This one is from WP Standard, a brand that sells premium leather accessories:
Also—
Shopify has a great video on creating value propositions if you're interested:
10. Run page-specific promos
You can also personalize your marketing offers to fit the product pages on which they appear.
For instance, if you have a top-selling product that could sell faster, bundle it or provide free shipping. This campaign will show up exclusively on that product's page.
Examples:
This campaign from Stumptown Coffee Roasters appears only on the page with the coffee blend called Colombia Huayku:
Next—
This product presents a mystery offer:
So, the point is to make the offer related to the product on whose page the campaign appears. This way, you'll increase the relevancy and get a better chance to get more Shopify conversions.
See how to create page-specific campaigns in Wisepops
These examples of discount popups and discount code ideas will also give you plenty of inspiration for your next campaign.
11. Use geolocation-specific offers
"Get a free delivery to your town"
"US customers get a discount"
and so on...
You can increase your Shopify discounts by making your offers more relevant to visitors with geolocation targeting.
You can create offers based on:
Country
State
City
Language
Say, if I want to give a discount in a popup that shows to Los Angeles-based visitors only, my settings would look like this:
Learn more:
12. Offer similar products in an upsell popup
One quick way to improve Shopify conversion rate is to use upsell popups that appear automatically when a shopper adds an item to the cart. Doing so will help you increase the average order value.
Many Shopify stores are using this conversion tactic—
Black Ember offers to upgrade one product to a kit for a better price:
And—
Clusterbucks shows these customer favorites when a customer adds something to the cart, allowing to buy them in one click:
There are two parts involved in creating such campaigns: the design and the targeting.
Design easily with a popup template in a drag-and-drop editor. In Shopify properties, select settings (cart item > is equal to > 1) to show the offer when a customer adds one item to the cart:
Get started:
13. Give an expensive item away
Product giveaways are a quick way to increase the conversion rate on Shopify as well as accelerate email list building.
Faguo, a Shopify clothing store, hosted a months-long campaign giving away a pair of premium-quality sneakers, selecting a winner weekly:
The campaign was quite successful.
Faguo added over 48,000 emails to their list (here's the performance of two variants of the campaign they ran):
If you're a small store, running a product giveaway for a short time (say, one week) would make more sense (and help you grow your list to send marketing emails to)
If you need help with this Shopify conversion optimization tactic, stop by these 10 giveaway ideas with examples.
If want to learn about how Faguo achieved such results:
Check out Faguo case study (also available in French)
Apps to add to your toolkit:
14. Try gamified campaigns
Gamified campaigns can help you increase conversion rates on Shopify by making the shopping experience more interactive and engaging. As the experience of many Shopify stores shows, this tactic is especially effective around meaningful dates.
Here are some examples of such campaigns.
Perhaps the simplest one is a spin-the-wheel campaign for lead generation (spin wheels outperform traditional popups by a lot: 30.33% vs 3.8% CTR).
OddBalls uses this tactic to collect emails from new visitors:
Next—
Only Natural Pet, a pet supplies store, shares discounts with unregistered visitors in a fun way: the visitor has to choose a paw to reveal their prize:
Next—
Soi Paris, a clothing store, had an Easter egg hunt on their website.
The goal for shoppers was to find an "egg" (which was a popup that looked like an egg) on product pages to get a special Easter discount:
The eggs were added to the pages with a new product collection—this way, Soi Paris also encouraged visitors to visit more pages:
Elodie Trebuchet, the digital marketing director of Soi Paris and one of the minds behind this project, had this to say about the results:
“We are really satisfied with the results of this campaign, it exceeded our expectations. In three days, it helped generate 42% of our revenue (month to date) with a nice average order value. We also received a lot of positive feedback from our customers. They really enjoyed our egg hunt!”
If you'd like to use gamified campaigns to increase conversion rates on your Shopify store, check out these resources:
Examples of gamified popups (with a step-by-step creation guide)
Spin the wheel popup guide (examples & best practices)
Soi Paris egg hunt campaign breakdown (with a tutorial to recreate the same campaign)
Or—
No cc needed, unlimited 14-day free trial
15. Extend VIP access to sales for one hour
This tactic will help you increase your Shopify conversion rate during sales, especially around some meaningful dates.
As some customers may not make it to your store during the sale, consider extending their access for a brief period, perhaps an hour. This will maximize the sense of urgency and help you get extra sales.
Many online businesses tried this tactic successfully for many types of sales.
Example—
Ideal of Sweden, has divided their Black Friday sale into three stages: pre-BFCM, BFCM, and post-BFCM. The last stage lasted only one hour and was announced only to newsletter subscribers:
"The post-BFCM phase was our final flourish. We extended a 'last-chance' offer to our newsletter subscribers and VIP members - 50% off everything, plus an extra 10% for one hour only. This was our way of saying thank you to our loyal customers, and it paid off with a CTR of 15.82%"
Learn more about this campaign: Seasonal campaign review
16. Target specific Klaviyo segments
If you're a Klaviyo user, you should create onsite campaigns for your subscriber segments. This way, you can leverage the customer data you already have to create personalized offers on your Shopify store.
This is how this feature works in Wisepops when Klaviyo integration is enabled:
When you create a campaign (say, a popup or an onsite notification with a discount), go to Display rules > Advanced to find segments to choose:
Targeting specific Klaviyo segments is an excellent conversion optimization tactic for Shopify because you can create such personalized campaigns as VIP discounts that appear to frequent shoppers, special deals for those who haven't bought from you in a while, etc.
Learn how to set this up in Wisepops:
How to integrate Wisepops and Klaviyo
How to target Klaviyo segments
This video will also help:
Klaviyo is the top email marketing app for Shopify but its lead capture forms are not as good. Businesses are turning to alternative lead capture and onsite marketing tools to grow their lists for nurturing in Klaviyo.
Read why many choose Wisepops: Wisepops vs Klaviyo signup forms comparison
17. Create a gift guide (and keep updating it)
Gift guides are essential part of Shopify marketing strategy, with 37% of stores using them.
They are typically presented as a dedicated page showcasing products or a collection of blog posts. Gift guides are valuable tools for shoppers, aiding them in easily selecting items.
Art of Play, for example, has useful gift categories (by recipient and price range):
WP Standard has a corporate gift guide (which is another great idea to improve Shopify conversions):
To create an effective gift guide, consider the following tips:
Cater to different budgets: Create sections for gifts at different price points to cater to all types of customers.
Use visuals: Include high-quality images or videos of the products to help shoppers visualize them.
Provide gift ideas: Offer suggestions for different types of recipients, such as "gifts for him" or "gifts for mom."
Keep it updated: Update your gift guide regularly with new and seasonal products to keep shoppers coming back.
By creating a gift guide and keeping it updated regularly, you can not only improve the user experience on your Shopify store but also drive more sales by promoting your products in a natural way.
18. Build trust with your homepage
This is an essential Shopify conversion rate optimization tip, especially if you're a new store.
Building trust comes down to several factors:
Inspirational content (lifestyle product imagery and videos)
Trust signals (customer reviews, badges, etc.)
Benefit-focused product descriptions
Your brand's mission and goals
A good way to get inspired is to take a look at other successful Shopify stores.
Take Flaus for example—they have reviews, trust signals (free shipping, money-back guarantee, etc.), and a clear value ("making flossing as comfortable as brushing teeth"):
If the visitor hesitates to take action—
This attractive website popup appears in a bit, encouraging them to share our email (note the trust elements here, too):
One more example—
The above-mentioned Blume's homepage also follows the same best practices: a large benefit-focused headline, reviews, and a nice product image:
Follow as many best practices as possible on your homepage to get a better chance to increase the conversion rate on your Shopify store.
Check out these ecommerce website design examples for inspiration on how online stores customize themes and design homepages and product pages.
Related:
19. Add conversion elements to checkout
Optimizing your checkout is a proven way to optimize your Shopify conversion rate. Research says that a lot of orders get abandoned at the checkout—but there's a lot that you can do to prevent it.
The first idea is to add trust signals like these guarantees (Taylor Stitch):
Also, you can propose to add extra items to the cart—
Check the "Top it off" section:
Or—
You can add a small section with a countdown to create some sense of urgency to finish the purchase:
You can also add a small exit intent popup with your best final offer to appear only on checkout, which could be helpful, too.
In Wisepops, creating such a campaign is possible by adjusting the page targeting settings:
Learn about page targeting.
20. Set up targeting and retargeting ads
Paid traffic can be a powerful way to increase Shopify conversions, especially with the right targeting and retargeting in place.
Here's what to do:
Install Facebook Pixel: Implement this to gather tracking data on each visitor for later retargeting
Create at least one custom audience: Customize this based on your visitor data
Create one lookalike audience: Tailor this to match your visitor data
Launch a conversion ad campaign: Configure it for the "View content" event and optimize for conversions
Create a retargeting campaign: Design an ad specifically for visitors who abandon the checkout process (eg. offer them a discount code)
Related:
21. Ask customers for feedback
There are several simple ways to start collecting feedback:
website surveys. Create website survey popups to ask visitors about their experience with the shopping experience
survey emails. Ask those who subscribed or bought from you to complete a short survey about any issues during buying
live chat. If you're chatting with a customer via the live chat, you can also send them a link to a survey or ask them a question directly
Popup surveys in particular are a versatile tool to collect feedback from both registered shoppers and new visitors, giving you different formats to try:
Use these resources to get started:
Summary
There are so many ideas you can try to increase your Shopify conversion rate, so I hope you will give some of these a try. It's all about finding what works best for your specific audience and continually testing and refining your strategies. With persistence and creativity, you can improve your Shopify conversion rate and see better results for your business.
Oleksii Kovalenko
Oleksii Kovalenko is a digital marketing expert and a writer with a degree in international marketing. He has seven years of experience helping ecommerce store owners promote their businesses by writing detailed, in-depth guides.
Education:
Master's in International Marketing, Academy of Municipal Administration
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