Brice McBeth

Shopify and Amazon have become the standard for checkout optimization. Buyers are comfortable because they are familiar with those checkout processes. Also providing guarantee of security and product satisfaction is a must - but isn't always available in the default shopping experience. With 65-75% of traffic coming from mobile, the checkout MUST be optimized for mobile - sometimes even breaking down the checkout into multiple steps rather than a single page for mobile (seems to be counter intuitive and somewhat of a step-back, but it works)

Brands need to stop using ROAS as a key indicator of success on paid media. ROAS provided by the ad platforms is garbage because they fail to see the end-to-end customer experience across the multi-touch, multi-channel acquisition process. At minimum, you must use 1st party cookie attribution solutions with MTA attribution and LTV metrics. Other metrics to focus on rather than ROAS: - nCAC - LTV - TACoS

Aside from some of the obvious and/or straightforward ideas that will be added to this post, optimization of e-commerce has a lot to do with counter-intuitive details. As an example, adding a phone number to the header will increase consumer trust and can lead to as much as 15-65% increase in sales without generating incremental phone calls. Removing social media icons from prominent areas of the site will prevent user from leaving and being subsequently targeted by your top competitors - to the tune of 15-20% loss in conversions. And PLEASE.... STOP using ROAS as your key indicator of success on paid media. ROAS provided by the ad platforms is garbage. Use 1st party cookie attribution solutions with MTA attribution and LTV metrics.

Shopify and Amazon have become the standard for checkout optimization. Buyers are comfortable because they are familiar with those checkout processes. Also providing guarantee of security and product satisfaction is a must - but isn't always available in the default shopping experience. With 65-75% of traffic coming from mobile, the checkout MUST be optimized for mobile - sometimes even breaking down the checkout into multiple steps rather than a single page for mobile (seems to be counter intuitive and somewhat of a step-back, but it works)

"Clean, intuitive layout" can lead to over generalizing and subjective judgement. This is not a key indicator of e-commerce success. Just ask Amazon.com... not a clean layout, but rather extremely useful and packed with information to answer the buyers decisions and squelch any resistance. Why don't more brands ask for a website that is built like Amazon.com? Even small details like a "Best Sellers" as a top level category in the header helps direct new consumers to high converting products with confidence - statistically outperforming driving ads to a "clean" homepage. So what's a key indicator of e-commerce success? - Lower nCAC - Increased LTV - Improved TACoS

Outside of the great recommendations already given, I'd say TALK, TALK, TALK to other brands, peers, agencies, and solution providers. Leaders have to get out in the real world and have HARD conversations about HARD things. Find real pain points of other companies and when there is a pattern, then dig in!