Add to Cart - What is it? How do I optimize for it?
Is your website in need of add to cart rate optimization? If your traffic is underperforming and your site could use some help to learn more from Growth Marketing Consultants.
What is an add to cart?
An add to cart is an action taken on an ecommerce website where someone is placing an item on a temporary list. Think of the last time you purchased from an ecommerce website. You likely took a few steps between seeing an item you liked and actually purchasing it. The add to cart event was the first action you likely took after deciding to make a purchase.
What is an add to cart rate?
The add to cart rate of an ecommerce website represents the proportion of traffic to a site that takes the add-to-cart action. Here is the calculation for add to cart rate:
ATC Rate = Add to Cart Actions / Website Visitors
How can I track Add to Carts?
There are two key places where you can track add to cart events:
Your ecommerce platform. Shopify out of the box provides add to cart tracking.
Analytics platform. Depending on the ecommerce platform you use, Google Analytics may have a direct integration. This will unlock in-depth data about who is adding to cart, where they are coming from, and when they are doing it.
What is a good add to cart rate?
The average ATC rate for a US website is 4.3% and 9.4% and above would put you in the top 10% of website. Take the time to understand the ATC rate difference between newer users to your site (Less than 30 days) vs older (30 days)
A note of caution when looking at your add to cart rate or really any relative metric within your analytics stack: isolate your data by traffic source and audience when possible. Why? If you are seeing that your overall site conversion rate is off the chart and you do not dig deeper to understand why you could miss that a specific traffic source or audience cohort was driving the increase. This happens a lot when you drive marketing tactics targeting a familiar audience (email marketing to existing customers for example).
How do I increase my ADD TO CART rate?
To increase your add to cart rate, you need to focus on a few key areas:
UX - The relevant pages in a user’s journey must be optimized for CTA clicks. In most cases, this would be through leveraging an add to cart button. Best practices for add to cart optimization ux:
All conversion action buttons above the fold.
Leverage action words in calls to actions. Example: Buy Now, Add to Bag, Add to Cart
Have your CTAs have high contract from the rest of the page.
Use promotional language around price. Example: cross-out price to reflect discounts, have free shipping messaging, risk-free return policy.
On mobile make sure buttons are large enough to tap.
Pagespeed - If your pages are slow, especially on mobile, a user is going to land on your page and bounce.
Funnel Context - If a user is new to your brand, they are probably not going to respond well to add to cart buttons within their first moments of interaction with your brand. This is why it is important to only have add to cart buttons on pages design for shopping.
Where should I feature an add to cart button?
Here is a breakdown of where and where not to have add to cart buttons on your website:
Homepage - Resist the urge to oversell on your homepage. This is the main gateway to your brand for most users. Use the space wisely and use it to tell the most concise and impactful story that you can. If you have your storytelling buttoned up, then a user will work their way down the funnel and ultimately add to cart.
Collection pages - It depends on the industry. For apparel companies where each item has multiple sizes, colors, iterations then it makes more sense to drive to the PDP page from a collections page. If you have a singular version of a product, then having ATC buttons on the collections page is good practice.
Product pages - Always have ATC buttons on your PDP pages. Design the entire page around the ATC button.
Blog pages - It depends on the type of blog page. If you use your blog for in-depth articles on subjects that are adjacent to your product or service and ATC button would be out of context. If you are telling a story about your industry and how your product or service fits into it, then go for it.
The bottom line:
If you are driving traffic to your site via any marketing channel, it is important to keep add to cart optimization in mind. If a user does not take this step then you need to do a better job of understanding your customer journey to ultimately improve your storytelling, site UX, and page speed.