The Importance of CVR Improvement in E-commerce and How to Approach It Using GA and Clarity

In the e-commerce industry, where clicks can determine sales, CVR improvement is considered one of the most crucial strategies.

CVR stands for Conversion Rate, and in e-commerce, it refers to the percentage of site visitors who make a purchase or register as members.

E-commerce companies heavily rely on digital platforms for revenue. CVR improvement enhances user experience and increases engagement.

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Microsoft Clarity (Clarity) are commonly used tools for working on CVR improvement. This article examines how to approach CVR improvement using these tools while highlighting key elements.

5 Reasons Why E-commerce Companies Should Work on CVR Improvement

Here are five reasons why e-commerce companies should focus on CVR improvement.

Enhancing User Experience

For e-commerce companies, every experience from the moment a user accesses the website to the final conversion is crucial.

CVR improvement focuses on understanding user behavior, preferences, and challenges, allowing companies to customize their platforms for a seamless experience that leads users to conversion.

Driving Revenue

The ultimate goal of e-commerce is to drive sales and revenue. Even a slight increase in conversion rate can significantly boost revenue. CVR improvement optimizes the online shopping process, from product pages to checkout, maximizing conversions.

Differentiation from Competitors

There are countless e-commerce sites. To attract more users and provide an excellent experience that keeps them coming back, differentiation is key.

CVR improvement allows e-commerce companies to continuously refine their sites and gain a competitive edge.

Cost-effective Strategy

Investing in CVR improvement yields higher returns than investing solely in marketing activities. Higher conversions from existing traffic reduce customer acquisition costs and improve profitability.

Personalization and Targeting

CVR improvement segments users based on behavior, preferences, and attributes. This segmentation enables the site to offer personalized experiences and content, promoting higher conversions.

How to Approach CVR Improvement Using GA4 and Clarity

GA4 and Clarity are free tools available for CVR improvement, and the process involves the following steps:

1. Investigate conversions: Identify pages with high and low conversions.
2. Check pathways: Analyze the routes users take to access high-conversion pages and identify exit points.
3. Set segments: Determine which segments (age groups, regions, etc.) have high or low conversions.
4. Review user experience: Observe the actual behavior on pages with high exits or low conversions.

To carry out these steps using GA4 and Clarity, follow this order:

1. Investigate Conversions: GA4

GA4 allows for conversion tracking. Identify which channels (search pages, ads, social media, etc.) have the highest conversion rates and decide on optimization and budget allocation. Analyze which actions, such as content viewing or newsletter registration, lead to conversions.

Setting conversion goals and understanding how far you are from achieving them is a feature of GA.

Reference sites (checked on 2023/9/5):

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/12966437?sjid=6649431969246486320-AP https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9322688?hl=en

2. Path Analysis: GA4

Understand the paths users take within the site and identify points where users drop off to find optimization opportunities.

For example, if many users drop off at the address input stage, you can make entering the address easier. If many users drop off at the payment stage, you can offer more payment options. For more detailed analysis, use Clarity.

Screen showing path analysis (path exploration) in GA4, demonstrating transitions per event, but can also be displayed per page name.

Reference sites (checked on 2023/9/5)

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9317498?hl=en

3. Segment Creation: GA4

Create segments based on specific user groups (users who made a purchase, users who abandoned their cart, specific regions, etc.) or behaviors, and analyze the behavior and conversions of each segment.

You can analyze the behavior and trends of specific user groups. This helps form more effective strategies than general data based on overall user behavior.

For example, if there are many accesses from overseas, consider making the site multilingual.

Example of creating a segment for users accessing from mobile, visualizing the regions from which access was made in the above image.

Reference sites (checked on 2023/9/5)

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9304353?hl=en

4. User Experience Verification: Clarity

Clarity is a tool focused on improving usability and user experience. It can reproduce actual user movements in real-time, allowing you to identify site issues by visualizing specific user actions.

You can analyze the data analyzed in "2. Path Analysis: GA4" in more detail and clarify site issues. Clarity allows you to check the following items:

Detection of Negative User Behavior Detect behaviors that negatively impact user experience, such as frustrated clicks or dead clicks.

Understand how many users are negatively impacted on the dashboard.

Reference sites (checked on 2023/9/5)

https://clarity.microsoft.com/insights

Check Actual User Movements

Replay actual user actions with session recordings to visually confirm them. Specifically, visualize mouse cursor movements such as frustrated clicks or dead clicks to identify page issues.

Check actual user movements on the session recording screen. The orange line indicates the cursor's trajectory.

Reference sites (checked on 2023/9/5)

https://clarity.microsoft.com/session-recordings

Heatmap

Heatmaps visualize which parts are clicked by users and how much they are scrolled. Through visualization, you can identify user interests, unclicked elements, and overlooked areas.

Heatmap image: The red areas are clicked more frequently. Blue areas, on the other hand, are clicked less frequently.

Reference site (checked on 2023/9/5):

https://clarity.microsoft.com/heatmaps

Points that cannot be grasped even using the above tools

We introduced methods for improving CVR using free tools, but there are some points that cannot be grasped.

Optimization of product pages

In the case of GA4, complex settings may be required for some sites to perform event tracking.

If there is a lack of detailed settings regarding specific pages or elements, it becomes difficult to establish measures for optimization.

User intent

With GA4 and Clarity, you can understand where users dropped off or what they focused on, but you can only speculate why they left. You should consider many factors such as cart abandonment analysis, the path to payment, and purchase motivations. If this speculation is incorrect, there is a possibility of making incorrect CVR improvements.

Benefits of using Air360

With our DX analysis tool, Air360, you can understand the following points that cannot be grasped through analysis with GA4 and Clarity.

It tells you why events occurred on the EC site

Air360, which specializes in analyzing EC sites, can easily analyze reasons for not purchasing or causes of drop-offs based on user behavior on the website (clicks, swipes, etc.).

Deep dive into the causes of user behavior

You can freely set user behavior and user segments to delve deeply into the data. Since Air360 automatically tracks all data on the website, the accuracy of the analysis information is high, and anyone can easily conduct in-depth analysis.

Author Ryunosuke

With experience in customer support in the web industry, currently engaged in editing content and data analysis related to IT and AI. In English-speaking countries, the pronunciation of "Ryu" is difficult, and being called "Runosuke" is a concern.