Hey optimizer!

Alright, let's talk shop! This week's ConversionMail is packed with the kind of simple changes that make you wonder why you didn't think of them sooner. Ready to dig in?

🇬🇧 Calling All UK eCommerce brands

On July 9th, we're heading to Canary Wharf for what might be the best eCommerce mixer of the summer.

No sales pitches.

No awkward networking.

No corporate small talk.

Just 200+ founders, operators, marketers and agency leaders getting together for good conversations, genuine connections, drinks, food and a great evening on the terrace.

We'll also be hosting a fireside panel featuring myself, @oliverwhudson, and Emini Jaggan-Hilton, where we'll be discussing the current state of eCommerce, AI, acquisition, CRO, what's working right now, and where we think the industry is heading next.

If you're running, scaling or supporting an eCommerce brand and want to meet some of the smartest people in the industry, we'd love to see you there.

5pm till late.

The Sipping Room, Canary Wharf.

Who's coming?

How We Unlocked a 6-figure Increase Form a "Small" UX Issue

We recently ran a test for an apparel brand that generated:

• +10.4% Conversion Rate

• +12.9% Revenue Per Visitor

• +12.8% Profit Per Visitor

• +$38,699/month projected revenue

And the change?

We redesigned the size selector.

That's it.

No new offer. No discounting. No redesign of the PDP.

Just making sizing easier to understand.

The Problem

The original size selector combined:

• Men's sizes

• Women's sizes

Into a single experience.

On paper, that doesn't sound like a huge issue.

But when you're about to spend money, uncertainty kills momentum.

Customers were landing on the PDP and immediately asking: "Which size applies to me?"

Even a few seconds of hesitation can be enough to prevent a purchase.

The Clue Was Hidden In The Heatmaps

When we reviewed the data, something interesting stood out.

Users weren't clicking sizes randomly. They were first clicking the gender that applied to them. Then looking for the correct size.

The click distribution made it obvious. People were trying to self segment before making a selection.

The interface simply wasn't helping them do it.

The Hypothesis

If we separated Men's and Women's sizing into clear tabs and only displayed relevant sizes after selection:

• The experience would feel more intuitive

• Decision making would become faster

• Uncertainty would be reduced

• More users would complete their purchase

What We Changed

1. Added a clear Men's / Women's selector

2. Only displayed sizes relevant to the selected gender

3. Reduced visual noise and cognitive load

4. Made the entire sizing experience feel more natural and familiar

No fancy CRO tricks. Just aligning the interface with how customers already think.

The Result

📈 Conversion Rate: +10.41%
📈 Revenue Per Visitor: +12.88%
📈 Profit Per Visitor: +12.85%
📈 Average Order Value: +2.23%
💰 Estimated Revenue Impact: +$38,699/month

Why This Worked

One of the biggest CRO mistakes I see is treating friction as something dramatic.

Most friction isn't dramatic. It's tiny. It's confusion. It's hesitation. It's uncertainty. It's making customers think when they shouldn't have to.

The best CRO tests often aren't about persuasion. They're about removing unnecessary effort.

Takeaway

Before launching another redesign, another discount, or another paid campaign...

Ask yourself: Where are customers having to think harder than they should?

Because sometimes a six figure uplift is hiding inside something as simple as a size selector.

11 CRO Hills I'll Honestly Die On

1. Best practices 100% exist in CRO.

I don't care what anyone tells you. Any brand can increase post click performance by leveraging conversion and persuasion principles, applied to the right people, on the right pages, at the right moment. Anyone saying otherwise is coping.

2. Above the fold does 90% of the heavy lifting.

If your above the fold isn't strong, people aren't scrolling. Full stop. Every high converting page needs these five things above the fold: social proof, trust and credibility, benefit driven outcomes, a clear CTA, and clean UX. Get these wrong and nothing else matters.

3. You can't optimise your way out of a bad product.

It's incredibly difficult to scale a poor product through CRO alone. Get product market fit first. Once you have that, everything else compounds.

4. Your post click experience has never been more important.

As AI takes over ad platforms, your landing page now sends signals back up the funnel. It directly impacts campaign performance on Meta and beyond. Winning post click isn't just a conversion play anymore, it's a media efficiency play.

5. You don't need more tests. You need bigger swings.

Most brands are running too many small tests and moving nowhere. The brands scaling fastest are making bold, meaningful changes, above the fold, offer structure, funnel architecture. That's what moves the needle.

6. Conversion rate means nothing.

Anyone can improve their CVR by slashing prices 50% and blasting their existing list. That's not optimisation, that's erosion. Track revenue or profit per session instead.

7. On PDPs, your image carousel matters more than your entire page layout.

The data is clear, more people scroll through your image carousel than your full landing page. Sell inside the carousel. Don't just rely on your page to do the job.

8. You need more pre sell landing pages, not fewer.

The brands scaling right now have volume, listicles, advertorials, long and short form sales pages, quiz funnels. One page isn't a strategy. A library of pages is.

9. Funnel velocity is now just as important as creative velocity.

Everyone's obsessed with feeding the platform new creative. But your winning creatives paired with different post click experiences? That's an untapped multiplier most brands are completely ignoring.

10. User interviews are the single best source of customer insight available.

Too few brands pick up the phone. Post purchase surveys are useful, but 30, 60, and 90 day customer interviews will give you insights that transform your entire campaigns.

11. AI has made CRO faster. It hasn't made it better.

Speed doesn't equal performance. AI is an F1 car. Most brand operators are still learning to drive.

Strategy is and will always be king and no model tells you what you need to hear. It tells you what you want to hear.

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