Ideally every visitor has every chance of converting, from purchasing to signing up to a newsletter or getting in touch. There is no one-size-fits-all in commerce. Each CRO project we work on is different as we need to uncover what moves the needle for your business.

Understanding that there are more metrics in play than conversion rate is super important. Your average order value (AOV) and return on ad spend (ROAS) both matter just as much. Conversion rate optimisation is where we start. Ultimately, improving revenue per visitor, your conversion rate and AOV combined, is the end goal.

A conversion happens when a customer takes an action on your website, one you wanted them to take. At the start of a project we decide what these conversions need to be, the messaging that encourages the action and how each action is woven into the customer journey.

What does conversion rate mean?

Your overall conversion rate is the % of visitors (sessions NOT individual customers) that complete any given action anywhere on your website.

A conversion can be when a customer:

• Places an order
• Engages with a pop up
• Signs up for your newsletter
• Adds to cart
• Takes a survey
• Fills in an enquiry form
• Books a consultation
• Calls your phone number or clicks “email”
• Completes a direct booking

All of the above and more, enable you to continue to connect with and market to potential customers following their interaction with your business.

Benchmarks become meaningful once you account for the variables. Some of the forces that shape conversion rate sit outside your direct control: how often people buy your products, the timeframe they need to decide and how they usually shop, do they look online and head to a store or the reverse? Do they search on Pinterest or Instagram then do an image search for the best option in Claude? 

What sits IN your control is everything on your website and everything that leads to it.

What is a normal conversion rate?

There is no ‘normal’ conversion rate. It depends on your business model, margins, price points, average order value (AOV) and customer behaviour, even geo-politics has an impact.

Conversion rates vary hugely by what the business sells. A High-End Crafts Business  like fine-jewellery should expect a different CR to a Daily Ritual Business selling skincare.

For the Shopify stores we build, ideally we like to see a conversion rate of 2–3%. Seems low right? Lots of people expect it to be closer to 30–50%. A lot of work goes into creating a digital ecosystem that warms up visitors until they are ready to convert into a warm lead or make a purchase. Globally only 1.6% of ecommerce visits convert into purchases (Statista).

When was the last time you checked your CR? Head to your Analytics page in Shopify or your Google Analytics profile and take a peek. 

A healthy CR does not indicate a healthy business.

Your conversion rate is only one component in your quest to run a profitable business. You can have a very strong CR and still be unprofitable if your pricing, margins, or customer acquisition costs don’t support it.

Your CR could be 17%, but if your Average Order Value (AOV) is low and your ad spend is high you will lose money on every sale. In that example, you are better off improving other areas of your business first e.g. sales strategy, marketing, logistics and profit margins, rather than chasing a higher CR.

Often, small improvements to AOV (bundles, upsells, pricing structure) or reductions in ad spend (better targeting, creative and funnel efficiency) will do more for your profitability.

How to work out your conversion rate.

So, what's the formula? CR = actions taken in a timeframe divided by website visitors in the same timeframe. Below are two examples.

If you are running a High-End Craft Business with an expensive premium or luxury price point I would expect your CR to be lower. You likely have fewer visitors and a higher price point that attracts a certain % of the market. In addition, you may have a showroom on the Pimlico Road or at Chelsea Harbour, where your customers regularly visit and do business in person. These conversions are something you ought to track too.

A Daily Ritual Brand, such as supplements, skincare or artisan coffee, will have a higher CR. You have a more affordable price point, with a larger % of the market open to buying your product. Wholesale will probably make up a significant % of your turnover, as will subscriptions too, meaning that you can include these numbers in your CR.

Ecommerce Business

• 10,000 people visit your Shopify store
• 250 sign up for your newsletter to receive a discount code
• 15 get in touch about a commission
• 400 check out successfully.

(Newsletter signups: 2.5%, enquiries : 0.15%, checkouts: 4%.)

CR = 6.65%

Creative Service Business

• 10,000 people visit your website
• 250 sign up for your newsletter
• 125 get in touch
• 4 sign up to work with you.

(Newsletter signups: 2.5%, enquiries : 1.25%, checkouts: 0.04%.)

CR = 3.79%

The homewares brand may need 4000 orders a year with an AOV of at £350.00 just to break even. Whereas, an interior designer may only need 4 customers a year with an AOV of £250k to be profitable. 

The key takeaway is that CR alone does not tell you whether your business is healthy. A lower CR can support a highly profitable business IF other metrics work for your business. Focus on the metrics that drive profit for your specific model and use CR as a lever in a wider growth strategy, not the only measure of success.

What should you measure to optimise your conversion rate?

We always start with the pages that show high traffic and high bounce rates. Lots of visitors, but almost no clicks. These are the pages your customers land on from your marketing efforts.

We then look at desktop vs mobile design and structure.

Once I can see what is happening I work out WHY…

The metrics I review come from your overall conversion rate, your PDP conversion rate, add-to-cart-conversion rate, checkout conversion and conversion by device.

When someone views your website for the first time, they generate an impression of it. I wrote about this in my post on brand perception. What is communicated when they first visit has a huge impact on whether they will buy or not. Get rid of those 5 pop-ups that disrupt the experience!

To establish a baseline, I look for:

• Overall conversion rate
• PDP conversion rate
• Add-to-cart-conversion rate 
• Checkout conversion
• Conversion by device
• Where the journey breaks, on which page, which section, which link?
• Which small fixes keep them interested along enough to convert

In addition, I look at:

• Brand perception
• Brand application
• Overall user experience
• How annoying are your pop-ups?
• Email campaigns, from abandoned cart to welcome series
• Information hierarchy
• Your traffic sources
• Functionality, too much or insufficient…
• Photography and video quality
• Use of visual assets, illustrations or iconography
• Product descriptions
• Messaging overall
• Calls to action (headlines and buttons)
• FAQs (or lack thereof)
• Blog posts, content and strategy

From regularly looking at your analytics data we can learn:

• Your peaks and troughs
• What sells and what does not
• What needs optimising on each page
• Where the customer journey needs optimising
• Where to spend more or (less on) your paid ads

CRO is about making the journey clearer, not the website faster. The 3-click rule is a myth in my opinion, yes make it easy for customers to buy AND remember they spend 3+ hours watching Netflix. Meaning, if your product and content are great they will stay for the show. 

What to fix on the pages that matter most.

Every customer is at a different stage in their buying journey. Some just discovered you via Substack. Some are in your digital ecosystem and read every newsletter and blog post. Some are on your website right now happily checking out.

Where do customers drop off?

Most likely on your PDPs and then on collection pages, the homepage, landing pages and at checkout.

WHY: insufficient information, no product filter system or a filter system that isn’t advanced enough, insufficient trust building touchpoints or info section, surprise shipping costs. 

The Product Page

PDPs are my speciality, I can't think of a Shopify store I have audited with a perfect PDP. 

There is no info about the business and no positioning or credibility. Product descriptions are lacking in specificity with insufficient supporting information to ensure trust is built. Where are your reviews, shipping info and FAQs? Add them, please.

They need to know, am I in the right place and am I going to find what I want? All the information has to make the purchase blindingly obvious.

Collection pages

If you have a wide range of products, is the filter system optimised for how THEY search? Are the product images clear enough? Are colourway and/or size swatches shown under the product image?

The Homepage

If a new visitor cannot tell in 5 seconds what you sell, who it’s for and why you are the only option…pooff gone, tab closed.

Your homepage is for people who already know your brand. BUT they still need their preconceptions calmed and hopes confirmed. Sort of like finding a restaurant in a foreign city via Google Maps and feeling the relief that it’s full of locals and a winner! 

I look for one primary CTA button above the fold, proof that you are trusted (reviews, press, client logos) and a structure that provides the customer with best-selling pieces, a shop the look section and a way to access all policies.

Checkout

Unexpected shipping costs are the prime culprit, lack of payment options like G-Pay or Apple Pay, trust and design play huge roles here. Shopify checkout design is now an industry standard, don't stray from the OG version. A little friction is good, 5 shipping options is fatal.

Design for device

Design for devices is industry standard and yet I frequently see funky (neglected) mobile sites. Customers want to see your shipping policy, a brief item description, size options and variants above the fold, not hidden away. Images need to be full screen and cropped for mobile, text needs to be sized correctly, products in two columns on collection pages.

Traffic sources

Where do your customers come via? Your newsletter, paid ads, organically via blog content? When was the last time you reviewed and optimised these? Do the ads match the pages linked? It will irritate your customers if the product is out of stock or they are diverted to a random collection they don’t want to shop.

When was the last time you checked if your Shopify store was visually optimised for the 68% of your customers who shop your store via their mobile?

What does my CRO service focus on improving?

Both behind-the-scenes and superficial optimisations. What are you selling and to whom? Why do they want it? What does it solve for them? Is it actually clear what you are selling and do all your pages have the supporting information necessary?

From £20k custom engagement rings to hand-painted chairs for your goddaughter, there are things blocking your customer from feeling comfortable in pressing pay now or submitting an enquiry.

The service is holistic service and the objectives are to:

• Reduce buying friction
• Build trust
• Refine your website user experience, messaging, imagery, structure etc.
• Unravel and re-outlay the customer journey
• See where your website connects to the touchpoints in your wider digital ecosystem.
• Introduce strategy ideas to keep you hungry for future improvements.

What results can you expect from the CRO service?

If you already have a nice stream of traffic to your website you can expect to see great results: your analytics changing and your CR increasing across your key conversion points. What I expect to see is more newsletter subscribers, less drop-off earlier on in the customer journey, more sign-ups to subscriptions, improved cost per acquisition (CPA), improved average order value (AOV) and hopefully increased customer retention, depending on your product category.

In the early stages you will usually feel the “quick wins” first: obvious friction gets smoothed out, customers stop hitting dead ends, and things like checkout, mobile and key PDPs start to feel calmer and more trustworthy. Those changes alone can move the needle without touching your ad budget.

Over the following months, as improvements stack across product pages, collections, navigation, messaging and checkout, you typically see more meaningful lifts: higher conversion rate from the same traffic, healthier revenue per visitor and lower acquisition costs for your paid campaigns. CRO doesn’t just tidy your site; it makes every visitor worth more.

If you run paid ads or lead generation this is not the time to stop; it will negatively impact your CR and you want to maintain or refine the traffic flow to see what worked.

Every Shopify store I've audited has had something worth fixing - and every single one has had untapped opportunity too. If you're ready to find out what yours is hiding, book a complimentary call. No jargon, no generic checklist, just a forensic look at what your specific store needs to grow.