eCommerce Marketers, looking at ROAS from ads as one single metric makes it very hard to analyze why it's high or low.

Instead, by breaking it up into individual parts, the dependencies becomes much clearer.

In case of e-commerce ads, detailed funnel metrics can be looked as
Impressions -> Link clicks -> Landing page views -> Product views per session -> Cart additions -> Checkout -> Purchases.
Analyzing drop rates at each stage will give valuable insights on how overall efficiency can be improved.

As you see in the above funnel, your website plays a major role in each sales that you generate starting from increasing page views to final purchase. So, having a good website can increase your returns from Marketing spends drastically and you will be able to scale your eCommerce business in quick time. 

A general rule of thumb is that, Higher the website conversion rate, higher will be your returns from Ad spends.

Are you wondering what are the factors of an eCommerce website that affects conversion rate?
Following are a few recommendations that will help in increasing your website's conversion rate.

1. Increase landing page view to Link clicks ratio - Enhance your Website Speed.

• One of the key metrics which impacts performance of a Facebook campaign is ratio of landing page views to link clicks
• Link clicks is the total number of clicks which divert users to website. This is different from all Clicks which we usually track in ads manager. The difference is that, link clicks does not include clicks to Facebook page, likes or comments.
• Landing page views is the number of views on website resulting from the ads. 
• Now you may expect the two to be same. But usually there is a 20% drop between link clicks to landing page view due to users hitting back button in between, clicking by mistake, internet connectivity issues etc. 
• It's important to track this metric. For some websites, we see this metric to be as low as 60-65%. This happens when the website loads slowly. This single metric can have a huge impact on performance of a campaign.
• How to improve? Go to google page speed insights and check out mobile performance of your website. If it's low then follow some of the recommendations listed there like reducing the size of images or removing certain scripts, etc., to improve page speed.
  
  

2. Increase No. of products viewed per session - Include Similar Product Recommendations.

• A good share of traffic on your website comes from ad platforms like Facebook where a user clicks on a specific product and lands on the product page. This user has not seen any other products on your website other than this one.
• This is where showing related products can help. These could be other products from the same category or other products in the similar price range that the user might be interested in buying. 
• This will prompt the user to explore more products.
• A general rule of thumb to keep in mind - The more products you show a user, more the purchases will happen on the website.

3. Increase Cart Additions - Improve your product page to avoid distraction & drop-out.

• Product page is one of the most important pages on a website since this is where all traffic from ads land.
• While we all know some of the critical elements a product page should contain like name, price, discount, size chart, add to cart, buy now etc., 
  However, there are a few best practices which can help increase conversions
  • Limit the number of call to actions - for e.g. click to call or check availability at store kind of buttons beneath add to cart would divert users.
  • Avoid going extra creative on Calls-to-actions. For e.g. 'Add to Bag' instead of 'Add to Cart' can be confusing.
  • Avoid review section if the number of reviews are low. Less reviews are dampeners.
  • 'Add to Wishlist' or 'Subscribe to newsletter' buttons usually acts as a distraction and can reduce Add to carts.
  • If the product description is too long then it can be grouped to avoid making the page too long.
  • Ensure user does not have to scroll a lot to get to add to cart button. Above the fold is usually recommended.
    One good practice is to freeze add to cart button at the bottom of the screen.

4. Avoid visitors dropping off from website to External links through Social Media Icons

• Social media icons like Facebook, Instagram and in some cases even Instagram feed is often seen on E-commerce websites. While it looks like a standard practice, it bounces people off the website and back to social platforms.
• Imagine we are paying money to Facebook and Instagram to traffic and just when they are about to purchase on the check out page we show 'Other cool products from Instagram'. This can lead to people clicking and dropping off the checkout page.
• At best social icons can be on Homepage, but strongly recommended not to have them on Cart page or Checkout page. 
• On thank you page, social icons can be included as it would not impact conversion.

5. Increase Final Purchases after Cart Addition - Optimize your Checkout page 

• Checkout page being the most crucial page for your conversions, should not have any other external links other than to Initiate payment or close the browser.  
• Which means no extra links like About Us, Home, Products etc.,  
  This also includes Menu on the top left or social icons 
• No header and footer. To the extent that even the Logo on the checkout should not be clickable.
• Fewer the distractions on the checkout page, better are the chances for the user converting into a buyer.

6. Increase Final Purchases after Cart Addition - Pros & Cons of having COD option 

• 75% of sales on most Indian e-commerce website come via COD orders.
  Even on Amazon share of COD is significantly high.
• An A/B testing by offering and not offering COD resulted that by not having COD,
  conversion rates can drop as much as 75%
• Which means that 3 out of every 4 orders are lost if COD is not given as an option.
• If COD is an absolute NO, then make sure to mention 'No COD available' across the user's journey which begins right from the ads on Social media platforms till end of the purchase funne