Award-winning Case Study: Pairing Product Attributes with Carousel Images for a 13% Increase in Add-to-Cart.

The Challenge: Data Without Context is not Compelling

Our client lampenlicht.nl has a wide array of lamps to choose from.

The product pages are rich with images, reviews, descriptions, and technical specifications.

In a bid to increase Add to Cart and revenue per visitor, we delved into qualitative (HotJar) and quantitative (Google Analytics) data for these product pages, and formulated a preliminary hypothesis.

It was clear that visitors paid a lot of attention to the product specs blocks, in particular the Show More link, and they also used a telling combination of category page filters – mainly Fitting, Material, Style, and Shape.

Keeping this in mind several A/B tests were conducted:

1. One variant highlighted specifications based on the filters used on the category page
2. Another auto-expanded the product specifications, without the need to click “Show More”
3. A third swapped the specs with the product description
4. A fourth placed a link to the specifications above the image carousel

Plot-Twist – Surprisingly all 4 tests showed significantly lower add to cart and revenue per visitor. None beat the control.

We then returned to the drawing board and sought context for the data through User Research.

The insights mined were:

1. People want to view more pictures before adding a product to the cart. They are keen to inspect the item from different angles.
2. USPs like “In Stock” and “Fast Delivery” also pique interest and generate purchase traction.
3. Highly technical specifications mean little to (most) buyers.
4. Buyers prefer filters that let them sort products by attributes that can’t be deciphered from the product images. Like whether the item comes with a bulb, or not.This in particular told a different story from the quantitative Google Analytics data which indicated that the most used filters on category pages were related to the structure and the build of the products.

Based on these findings a new hypothesis was crafted:

The Test: Placing Specifications/USPs Under Product Images

A script was run where specifications or attributes that mattered to prospective buyers (as sourced from User Research and Google Analytics) were formulated into statements and placed on the carousel images from the second image onwards.

The test was shown to all segments – new and returning visitors.
For both desktop and mobile.
To prevent the chance of a false positive, only 1 variant was coded.

In order to make sure we had a clean data set we set another activation condition for the experiment. Which was that the experiment could only start when the visitors started browsing through the product images and the 2nd carousel image entered the browser’s viewport. This was the cue for Convert Experiences to serve the variant or the control.

The Control: The original product page, without any tweaks. It was served to visitors over 28 days.

The Variant: Product Page with USP’s under product images. It was also served to visitors over 28 days.

The result?

Drilling into segments, return visitors and those who shopped on smartphones saw a 19% increase and a 15% rise in the Add-to-Cart metric at statistically significant levels with the variant.

This is intriguing since these segments also registered the largest number of sales, after viewing product specifications, pre test.

Product carousels without further context (attribute and spec data) are very similar to a comic strip with empty speech bubbles. Readers fill them in with their own stories, which may not serve your goal of driving more sales.

This case study from Mintminds and Lampenlicht.nl went on to get nominated for “The Best A/B Test” for the DDMA CRO Awards 2020 and went on to win the Dutch Search Award 2020 for best CRO campaign.

What Can You Learn from This Success Story?

• Where you place information is as important as what you place. E-commerce pages must satisfy user curiosity. But information can’t be relegated to an obscure corner and in ways that overwhelm. Answers to frequently asked questions have to be put in places where they make sense, and incentivize buyers to take the next action.
• Product pages are different from category pages. On product pages buyers look to filter products by their preliminary requirements. On product pages they want information that can’t be deciphered from images.
• Don’t forget revenue from accessories. When you do a good job of helping buyers understand what their purchased item comes with and what needs to be bought separately, you boost cross-sells, increasing average order values and average revenue per user.