How Shortening Customers' Path-To-Purchase Increases Conversions

The digital path-to-purchase has been a topic of discussion for many years for marketing specialists. As digital media changes and evolves, so do customers' shopping behaviors. Using data to track and understand your customer buying journey will enable you to react and deploy targeted advertisements throughout the path-to-purchase. Additionally, proactive brands enable their customers to shop directly from the content, and this immediacy adds value to your customers' shopping experiences.

Shorten the customer journey within product imagery 

With today's fast-moving trends and advancing technologies, people's patience and attention spans are shorter than they used to be. In addition, consumers want convenience and don't want to waste time looking for the product they saw in an email or on your homepage. Allowing customers to see a product and immediately purchase it without leaving the page is a much more convenient experience.

Many brands use lifestyle or group product imagery in their emails and websites.  And great imagery is proven to increase conversions, as Digital Commerce 360 notes that 93% of consumer purchase decisions are influenced by both product and lifestyle images. However, using a single CTA (call to action) on these images sends customers away from the page to browse through multiple products, which isn't the most user-friendly experience.

Distracting and directing customers away from their original purpose can cause frustration. Even shoppers with high purchase intent can get lost and distracted browsing bottomless product pages. Therefore, create checkout opportunities from a variety of places, from reading your blogs or emails to browsing your website and catalogs.

Convert by using shoppable content

The solution to creating a shorter path-to-purchase is simpler than most people think. Make your pages shoppable by adding hot spots and links to all lifestyle and product images. Whether on your homepage, a blog, category banner, or an email, linking each product directly will mean that your customers don't need to go searching for it on an endless category page. Better yet, allow hot spots to open pop-up lightboxes so that customers can select their personalized options (such as size and color) and immediately add to cart without navigating away from the original page. 

Ethan Allen uses Creator across their site to multi-merchandise images. Below is a recording of how they utilized hotspot links in the category banner image using Creator. See how customers are able to click on the image, select the color and size they want, and immediately add the item to the shopping cart - all without leaving the page. Once done, the customer can continue what they were doing on the page. 

To learn more about how Creator can help you convert customers quicker through interactive shoppable content with a shorter path-to-purchase, schedule a quick 30-minute demo.