A review of Maplin's website from 2011 - my recommendations on what they should be focusing on in order to improve conversion rate

1. Opportunities to increase customer retention
Opportunities to increase ATV
Opportunities to improve online conversion
Opportunities to increase traffic to site
How would I go about making these changes?

2. All sales KPIs down from same period 2011 and 2010
Worrying sign that site not working and traffic not converting
Opportunities to increase ATV

3. 1 – Improve product pages / accomm cross sell / upsell
I am buying a camera – so what else
would I want?
-Printer?
-USB sticks?
-Photo frames?
YES! So cross sell me on page –
customers who bough this also
bought..
DON’T send me off page to sale
stock bring AOV down
DON’T show related items BTF and
buried on page
UNDERSTAND logic in showing 3
items which are cheaper than the one
they expressed interest in !!!
UPSELL if showing any other
products

4. 2 – Define AOV Strategy
AOV of £45 would assume a VC
strategy to upsell on this – eg
Free delivery over £60
£15 discount on orders over £70
Yet no strategy or good offers
with MVC
Subdivide campaigns into
categories to understand cat
level AOVS

5. 3 – Define Trade Up rules on homepage
Only 1 product on
homepage above
the £45 mark
Start applying
logic behind
trading
Are these
products in top
500 sold or top
searches?

6. 4 – promotion strips
Missing ANY promo
strips
Shout about FREE
Shipping
Shout about promo
offers

7. 5 – Promotional bundles
Good offer but where
are all the other
bundles?
Hidden!
These need trading – not hidden
away
Title not clickable, poor imagery
Ensure these come from analytics

8. 6 – Checkout cross sell
No cross sell at all at checkout
May we also suggest…
People who bought also bought…
I could have been cross sold 2 other
gadgets of similar value?
Grouping products in CMS

9. Opportunities to increase traffic to site
Traffic flat YOY

10. 1 – Popular keyword searches
Top keywords used to get to site (non brand and non checkout)
Rollout to top 10 / 20 phrases and develop content plan – start adding cross
site to anchor text links etc
Add these topics to priority blog postings – building our regular blog page
updates – START MAPLIN BLOG!!!
2 – “Growth” keyword searches
Keyword phrases that are “sticky” on site and
driving decent volume – why? Possibly these
could be driving more traffic
“digital wireless cctv camers”

11. 3 – New / Returning customers
New
Returning
•Poss MVT new vs existing customers
•Returning – more focus on cross sell and offers / discounts

12. 4 – Matched search query reporting
Invaluable info yet not set in GA for
Maplin
Needs set up asap to see the actual search
phrases typed to get your ads showing
Build into PPC campaigns and SEO strategy

13. 5 – Popular pages viewed
Again – these 3 pages in demand and in top 10 – 2 of which with low bounce – develop content plan
based on these pages :
- Write blog articles around popular topics
- Focus social media efforts in promoting pages
- Poss YouTube videos around those topics and embed them into your Top Pages

14. 6 – New content updates
Biggest traffic days for the site are consistently Monday
•Publish blog articles on those days
•Begin and end contests on these days
•Spend time on social media during those days
•Publish events to your website
•Make architecture or functionality updates on low traffic days

15. 7 – Pretargetting
Google record all product searches and by
adding negative tracking pixel on Maplin
identifies those browsers who have NOT
visited site before
Google matches the relevant product
search with merchant centre feed
Our experience – Adds another 15% on top of PPC traffic

16. 8 – CSE presence
Very little presence here – need to understand approach and standardise
Remove / standardise old branding
Our experience – Adds another 30% on top of affiliate traffic

17. 9 – Expanded use of product level data
Product Plus Box
Product extensions
Sept launch of Amazon Product ads
Amazon Product Ads launch September

18. 10 - Product listings and ppc
Our experience – 16% increase in CTR
Copy – what does this actually mean!!!??

19. 11 - Offline
Ordered a product –
delivered 2 days later with
a catalogue
Where was the 2nd
order
discount?
Incentivise me to place an
order within a month!!!!
Direct me online to claim
my second order discount
vouchers / RAFs
Multichannel ambition – start here for quick win

20. 12 - PPC - consistency
- No sale for hard drives
Poor landing page
No mention of hard drive or sale at first glance
No seller reviews

21. 13 - PPC - volume
At only 10% of visits is there more reach for PPC traffic?

22. 14 - Social - stores
Too many missing
images!!!!!

23. 15 - Stores / Mobile
Half UKs adult population have smartphone
10% own a Tablet
How do stores fit in here?
•Latest Wi Fi offering in store – getting customers online in-store
•Look at latest reviews online
•Order online with added incentives for data capture
•Cross promote online – eventually tailoring
Tailored promos at geo target level (200 stores)
Latest stock updates at geo target level
Mobile POS solutions possibly on in store Ipads – test? Fun / practical / don’t need
to queue
“In our first week of operation, iPad transactions accounted for 20 per cent of sales.”
Liz Evans, managing director, Oasis

24. 16 - Facebook

25. 16 - Twitter

26. Opportunities to improve online conversion

27. 1 - Bouncing Keywords
High bounce
Checking product
A – not price
competitive at £15
B – PPC copy and
Pricing incorrect

28. 2 - Bouncing landing
pages
High bounce
Copy good and
ranking well
BUT – where is copy
on page – BTF!!!

29. 3 - High value traffic sources
Generating good visit volumes here – is there any more reach in working with these
sources?

30. 4 - Low value traffic sources
Are you wasting money here on high volume high bounce referrers?

31. 5 - Home page trading
Review high volume products or other KPIs and feedback to homepage trading – need
agreed objectives for homepage trading

32. 6 - Landing page analysis
This needs to
be linked to
Webmaster
tools!!!
Example below of
how I use with
Simply Be…
Low CTR –
why?
Page was
poor with
destination
page
incorrect

33. 7 - Landing page analysis

34. 8 - Exit page analysis
Simply be – mainly account
functionality exit pages – my
account etc
Maplin worryingly have
high rates of exit from
Home page and Category
pages

35. 9 - Exit page analysis
Why so many Category pages?
Why such high homepage exit rate?

36. 10 – Home page trading
None of these products are in the top 500 products sold
for last month – demand for products is not met by
homepage product pushes
LINK WEBMASTER TOOLS TO GOOGLE ANALYTICS – TRADE TOP SEARCH
QUERIES!!!!
Logic behind product
pushes on homepage?

37. 10 – Home page trading 10% don’t see
anything else

38. 11 - Category page trading
Cables and connectors search – maplin vs comet
5 clicks to product
Set up funnels for
these pages?

39. 12 - Product page conversion
Why drive traffic away from
converting?
No link back to product page

40. 13 - Checkout Process
Online order process
Too much colour
Poor design
Immediately getting a 500
page error

41. 13 - Checkout Process
After going back, then forward
managed to get to Order Conf –
BUT No cross sell with delivery
options BTF

42. 13 - Checkout Process
Why not promote this earlier In
order process – eg incentivise on
product page? Gets lost at this
stage
Funnel report?
Again Cross sell?

43. Too much colour
Makes customer work
too hard to understand
order
Caps / Lower case
Layout
Code at bottom
13 - Checkout Process

44. 14 – Useful links – data rich content you can use here!!!
Buying Guides , Product videos, Latest questions and answers, product finders etc
THIS IS ALL KEY INFO HELPING CONSUMER TO FIND PRODUCTS AND
CONVERT SO WHY BURY AT TOP OF PAGE – GET IT MORE VISIBLE ON
PRODUCT PAGES AND HOMEPAGE!!!
???????????

45. 15 – Implement Google Content Experiments

46. 16 – Expand Attributes
CONFUSING / NOT BEST PRACTICE
Make the Nav easy for browsers!!! Expand more attributes – eg Printed T shirt
Too many colours
Status – B Grade?
ReOrder?

47. Opportunities to improve online conversion

48. 1 - Improve current email process
Just received email with poor subject line !!

49. 1 - Improve current email process
Claim your discount vouchers – takes you to page
with no vouchers but email sign up
Then vouchers available BUT BTF
93% Leave sight – probably cannot see the
vouchers – lost opportunity to retain / 2nd
order

50. Last weeks email had multiple
links to 500 errors
- not tracked properly in GA –
needs to be addressed
1 - Improve current email process

51. 2 - Review and expand current ECRM program
Assumin Yours
here
JD Williams here
Automated
Segmentation
More personalisation

52. 3 - Email retargetting/ abandoned basket
Automated
5 days after sale - still not
received email
confirmation of purchase
Need to improve contact
with relevance
Post purchase emails
•Encourage reviews
•Incentivise (esp for those products
with no reviews!)
•Cross sell
•Abandoned basket Get 10% off your
second order?
•Like this? RAF and get 10% off next
order?
•Regular customer? Send re-order
details?

53. 4 - Improve product visibilty - Let the customer find the products!!!
This is high volume – why so high?
Prob because cant find on homepage or
nav – tablet , solar panels etc – these are
products they cant find – poss lost sales
Look at terms they are searching for – these
should be accessible on site – but are
buried!!!!!
8 out 10 search terms are deal /
clearance based

54. 5 - Improve homepage offers – creative and content
Creative quality?
Taking you to – rapsberry
image with all info BTF
No html copy – all
imagery
Get CTA ATF

55. 6 - Funnel visualisation from slider and category pages to
basket
So much traffic going into theses pages yet
no real funnel visualisations
10% of traffic is being paid for yet
category level funnels not set up for
category landing page traffic

56. 7 - Monitoring landing page high bounce rate and action
Why high bounce? Freesat landing page bounce rate is 46% higher than average
Reason – no product on page, no CTA No Sell
Start monitoring and collating high bounce rates –
compile guideline document for site learning

57. 8 – Retargetting
Get lost browsers back to site
Cost effective on 5% CTD (AOV £45)
-abandoned baskets
-abandoned products
We are seeing 70% of products
purchased not browsed
25% are new customer setups after
seeing retargetted ads – lost
customers!!

58. 9 – Help us to improve
What is done with this info?
Actioned?
If so tell your customers!!! Incentivise/ test placement
throughouut site – best place?
“We listened to you and this is what we have
done”
10 – incentivise new customers
What is done with this info?
Actioned?
If so tell your customers!!! Incentivise/ test placement
throughouut site – best place?
“We listened to you and this is what we have
done”

59. How would I go about making these changes?

60. Analytics
Implement a FULL review of site stats from GA – dig deeper, more in depth review and
feedback
Fix problem parts of account asap
- link account to Webmaster tools for full keyword info
- set up matched search query reporting in GA
- set up landing page analysis reporting in GA
- Review funnel visualisations and set up new ones for homepage / cat / checkout
and sliders / checkout
- Content experiments set up
Feeds
Complete review of product level sales – missing images, feed quality etc – meetings with
Summit media to review and change
Email
Quick win here – reduce 500 errors and change visibility of vouchers will increase sales
Paid activity
Full review of paid for activity and who is driving poor traffic vs who is driving quality traffic
Full review of paid search activity and strategy – creative, landing pages, copy, offers
Full review of email activity – why so many errors? Rectify and implement sign off changes
KEY STAKEHOLDERS - Agency, Google Retail , Head of Online, Online team
Where appropriate, present findings – not just to online but TRADING
Low cost / relatively easy to effect

61. Low cost / relatively easy to effect
Site Trading!
How is site traded? Develop relationship with Trading / Merch team re what is being
traded, when, why, frequency
THIS IS KEY TO BETTER TRADING! Shared goals here
- 2 site trading meetings p week – what is coming up and mid week sales
- Monday morning sales meetings – actual vs forecast
- review forecasting and understand product selection
Reporting – get trading involved in GA findings – what is our data telling us re product and
site useage?
- feedback issues re products – why some have high bounce?
- feedback issues re bounce rates – why high on some products
- feedback issues re light copy
Trading Relationship is key….!

62. Site Trading relationships
Online Marketing to Trading
1 Traffic and how it is behaving – relevant info to shape buying behaviour
2 Keyword search terms – high volume , low / no product – action
3 Product level reporting – what is selling / in demand at product level
4 New / Existing demand split – what products driving high new cust levels?
5 Content reviews – descriptions, titles, p page issues – feed back need to be good
6 Customer reviews – issues with product, action these, how do we manage?
7 Social – what are people saying? Issues with delivery? Poor press? 341k = important!
8 Assists – in new cust channels what products are assisting – build this into
recommendation technology?
9 Merchant centre – great for best practice – CAP titles, missing brand, missing
categories, special characters – feed back
10 Attribute demand – high volume terms may show new attribute demand to build into
FG nav – “Printed T Shirts case study re PPC”
11 Misc - Out of stocks / Product sequencing / CRO / MVT – work together!

63. Site Trading relationships
Trading to Online Marketing
1 Products – what we should push, whats hot, whats not
2 Range planning – next season ranges, lingerie, new toys, media and impact
3 Margin (high / low) – where are we making the margin, where are we taking the hit
4 Promotion – Aggressive trading – homepage, category pages, ranges to push etc
5 Daily deals – 24 hour offers, D and I codes, exclusives
6 Next season – Planning, Launch, CMS uploads / publishes, and content planning for
season, working together to ensure smooth transition
7 Competitive reviews – new attributes, more product info, where are we missing
product etc
8 Work together re CRO – Marketing feedback any issues with site dropout and
devise plan to optimise purchase process – site dropout alerts and review processes
9 Work together re MVT – what are our key criteria for testing – and what? Continual
feedback of test results and how we refine our promotional strategy

64. Medium cost / more difficult to effect
Reduce leakage across site - Review all points on site where traffic is leaking with no
CTA – eg SHUTL page – compile summary of all these links which could be affecting
conversions
Cross sell – No cross sell activity at present or no logic behind recommendations – work
with merch / trading on one category and define rule based logic – Peerius?
Checkout process (current issue) – IT review of bugs in current checkout process and
review all dropout
Content review – Document all possible areas of site which do not make sense / confusing
and make short term changes until site overhaul. Change wording – make it easier to
understand (and tag them for pre / post change comparison)
Useful links – Work with Platform to understand of quick win could be bringing this content
into product pages if poss and cost up
Product copy – Needs pulling higher up page – work with Platform re costings / timescales
etc
KEY STAKEHOLDERS - Platform, IT, Head of Online, Online team
Where appropriate, present findings – not just to online but TRADING

65. High cost / significant change
Site Structure / layout / content review / redesign !
Home page / Category pages / Content Review / Checkout process
Needs significant buy in re site development from senior management. Initial findings are
that the site is not working as effectively as possible due to layout, content placement,
checkout and navigation – BUY IN REQUIRED
1 Expand my initial findings into fuller document
2 Present to Head of Online / Multichannel Director
3 From this Buy in / approval from CAPEX / Director level to proceed with review
3 Present to Platform / Websphere and cost in
4 Review and discuss change possibilities and where this can be impacted
5 GET BUY IN FROM ALL DEPARTMENTS
Oversee and Co-ordinate site improvements and redesign

66. Thank you for your time!!!