October 20, 2021

5 Easy Website Updates to Boost Holiday Sale Conversions

October 20, 2021

As a D2C business, your brand’s website is the very heart of your operations. It introduces prospects to your products, showcases your brand, and keeps your shop up and running 24/7 — no matter where your customers are based. As Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) come near, it’s no surprise that many e-commerce retailers are hesitant about making changes to their greatest marketing asset.

The good news is, you don’t have to embark on a holiday overhaul for your website to achieve BFCM success. Instead, consider these small, strategic website updates aimed at priming your digital presence for conversions on these major shopping days.

Check to Ensure Your Website Can Handle BFCM Traffic

While flashy ads and can’t-pass-on promos are critical to a high-converting D2C campaign, much of your BFCM success relies on the bones of your website. This starts with site speed.

Can your website handle an influx of visitors on the year’s most popular shopping days? Better yet, how does your website load on mobile? One study revealed that 74 percent of visitors will leave a website if it doesn’t load on their phone within five seconds.

As the biggest mobile shopping day of the year, Black Friday shoppers expect your website to pop up ready to shop within just seconds of clicking your ad, email, or short link on social media.

To ensure your website makes the cut, check your site speed using PageSpeed Insights, a free tool from Google. This lightning-fast website auditor provides scoring, along with in-depth analysis and specific recommendations to help you improve your website’s performance.

As the biggest mobile shopping day of the year, Black Friday shoppers expect your website to pop up ready to shop within just seconds of clicking your ad, email, or short link on social media.

Give Your Homepage a BFCM Holiday Makeover

A BFCM homepage update doesn’t have to be utterly complex. Consider a BCFM home page treatment the same as any of your other seasonal campaigns, just with a great emphasis on promotions.

Update your homepage to include:

A Hero Image

that greets visitors with promotions the moment they arrive.

A Sticky Bar

that displays promotions and a countdown for special sales.

An Email Sign-Up Invitation:

“Get early access to our hottest holiday sales!”

BFCM Exclusives

such as sale items, limited edition items, and special gifts.

By adding one, some, or all of these elements to your website, you can put your promotions at center stage, grow your email list, and in turn, increase conversions during the most wonderful time of year for D2C businesses.

Spotlight Special BFCM Savings Directly on Product Pages

We all know that the tech takeover of recent years has shortened attention spans and chiseled away at the patience of our customers. The days of holiday shoppers digging for deals are over. Today’s BFCM shoppers want to know how your special promotions translate to dollars saved the moment they visit your webpage.

Make a quick adjustment to your product pages that shows just how deep your holiday discounts are. Cross out the full price of an item and display the special BFCM price next to it. This enables customers to quickly scan and understand the difference in price if they buy immediately rather than wait. You can bolster the promotion even further by adding the percent off that is applied to that item.

Convert Would-Be Customers on Their Way Out With Pop-Ups

Boost your website’s conversion rate on the year’s top shopping days with a pop-up strategy aimed at visitors who are about to leave your website without making a purchase. Research shows that while welcome pop-ups generate sign-ups at 1.9 percent, exit pop-ups receive over four times as much engagement, converting customers on their way out the door at a whopping eight percent.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday give prospective customers a plethora of offers from just about every brand they follow and beyond. That means they’ll likely leave a company’s website to compare prices and promotions with other competitors offering the same or similar products — that is, unless your promotion stands out enough to convert them on the spot.

Trigger a pop-up to launch from your website as a visitor attempts to leave your website with an offer that will make them think twice about going with your competitors.

Black Friday/Cyber Monday offers pop-up messages can include:

A sale countdown or limited supply alert that creates urgency
A special discount they can add to items in their cart if they buy now
An email opt-in opportunity to receive deals and updates

When possible, add an email capture to your pop-up so you can continue to engage these customers after their visit. You can encourage email sign-ups by offering a secret discount, giving access to exclusive sales, and touting holiday freebies to go along with their purchase.

Create a Dedicated Pre-Sell Landing Page for BFCM

Did you know that your winning BFCM web strategy doesn’t have to live on your website at all? While the above strategies are highly recommended, you can funnel your holiday campaign through a pre-sell landing page instead. Alternatively, you can launch a BFCM pre-sell landing page as part of your holistic BFCM campaign that includes your website.

There are many benefits to a BFCM pre-sell landing page, including:

Offering your shoppers a curated digital experience

The beauty of creating a BFCM pre-sell landing page is that it can exclusively promote BFCM deals. No navigation to other areas of your website and no breaks in BFCM merchandise for regular-priced items means no distractions for customers who click on your BFCM ad, social media post, or email and expect to shop BFCM-specific items.

The ability to test and optimize your page in real-time

A pre-sell landing page provides your D2C business with the opportunity to experiment without the risk of compromising your website. Once you’ve set it up, add a heat map to track where customers are clicking and what sections garner the most engagement. You can also note what aspects of the page are cold, or not getting much love, and replace them with more appealing content.

Many of the Most Successful Campaigns Start Small

Remember, the most complex D2C campaigns aren’t always the record-breakers. Oftentimes, it’s those iterative, strategic moves that make all the difference. By making light-lift website updates grounded in your BFCM strategy, you can reach your customers, create a compelling shopping experience, and boost conversions without straining your resources or risking the stability of your greatest marketing asset.