Increase eCommerce Conversion Rates by Examining Cart Abandonment & Conversion Flow

Grant Marlowe - December 16, 2015

With the holiday season around the corner we wanted to talk about the different ways to increase your ecommerce conversion rates, specifically centered on shopping cart abandonment and the conversion flow process. Initial questions to ask are:

• How intuitive is the user flow?
• Is there a clear prompt directing the user to the next step?
• Is your checkout process optimized for mobile users?

You want the checkout process to be as streamlined as possible and to make sure there is no part of it which is broken. It never hurts to routinely go through the process from the user’s perspective in order to understand what they are experiencing and make sure everything is functioning as intended.

The Goal Flow report available within Google Analytics is an extremely powerful report that produces a visual of the path users are taking through your checkout process and can tell you if your users are navigating the content as expected. It answers questions such as:

1. How many users have started the checkout process?
2. What percentage of users that start, actually complete an order?
3. Are any visitors abandoning in the middle of the funnel?

Once you have set up funnel steps for each touch point involved in the checkout process, use the Goal Flow Report to examine the data. This makes it easy for you to pinpoint if and where users are abandoning the process. An unusually high percentage of funnel exits at any particular step may indicate an issue with that stage in the checkout process.

There are two facts to note about the Goal Flow report compared to some of the other funnel reports available in Analytics: 1.) The data shown is retroactive, and 2.) You have the ability to apply advanced segments to your flow process.

For more information on these reports and others in Google Analytics, please email us.