Conversion Rate Optimization Results for Urgency Tests – Infographic
When you create a sense of urgency, you give people an incentive to buy immediately.
CRO Testing Shows Power of Urgency Tactics in E-Commerce – An infographic by the team at Ignite Visibility
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There are two ways to create a sense of urgency in your CRO testing:
- Fear of loss – limited time to buy
- “But now and get free shipping!”
- “This sale ends at midnight!”
- Scarcity – limited quantity
- “Hurry! Only 2 items left in stock!”
- “Registration closes once we reach 100 attendees!”
Case Study: Creating a sense of urgency increased conversions by 332%
Marcus Taylor of Venture Harbour launched a type of Groupon deal for musicians. In the CRO testing, he gave away $1,250 worth of products for just $69 for 100 hours.
He tried two variations:
- Variation A – no sense of urgency text
- Variation B – fear of loss sense of urgency text (“Time left to download”)
- The conversion rate of Variation B was 3x higher than Variation A.
- After implementing the variation to all visitors, conversions increased from 3.5% to 10%.
“If you do your job right, customers have to feel guilty if they don’t buy right now.” – Joseph Sugarman, AdWeek Copywriting Handbook
“Opportunities seem more valuable to us when their availability is limited.” – Robert Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
A 1975 study showed that people value items more when they’re scarce. Researchers put a jar filled with 10 cookies in front of participants and another jar with 2 cookies in front of a separate group of participants. Even though the cookies and the jars were the same, the participants valued the nearly empty jar of cookies more.
5 Specific Types of Urgency to Use in E-commerce CRO Testing
- Time-based urgency
- Order now and get it by [Date]
- Limited time offer (“10% off the entire site for the next 60 minutes!”)
- Live auction or countdown – works best for webinars or events that will happen on a specific date
- Limited Edition Items
- Quantity Based Urgency
- Limited quantities
Be Careful! Creating a Sense of Urgency Can Backfire!
- If it’s a bad offer, it doesn’t matter how much urgency you add
- If you make a statement that isn’t true (“we’ll sell out in the next few days”), the customer will know you’re lying and you’ll lose the sale
- Don’t create artificial scarcity (holding low quantities in inventory just to keep up the appearance of scarcity)
- Remember: urgency does not equal persuasion!
Sources
- http://www.sellbrite.com/blog/5-top-urgency-tactics-you-can-use-to-boost-ecommerce-conversions-today/
- https://vwo.com/blog/use-urgency-scarcity-increase-ecommerce-sales/
- https://econsultancy.com/blog/63680-15-ways-ecommerce-sites-can-use-urgency-to-increase-conversions/
- https://blog.kissmetrics.com/urgency-to-fuel-ecommerce-sales/
