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CRO Testing Shows Power of Urgency Tactics in E-Commerce

By John E Lincoln

Conversion Rate Optimization Results for Urgency Tests – Infographic

When you create a sense of urgency, you give people an incentive to buy immediately.

CRO Testing Shows Power of Urgency Tactics in E-Commerce – An infographic by the team at Ignite Visibility

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There are two ways to create a sense of urgency in your CRO testing:

  • Fear of loss – limited time to buy
    • “But now and get free shipping!”
    • “This sale ends at midnight!”
  • Scarcity – limited quantity
    • “Hurry! Only 2 items left in stock!”
    • “Registration closes once we reach 100 attendees!”

Case Study: Creating a sense of urgency increased conversions by 332%

Marcus Taylor of Venture Harbour launched a type of Groupon deal for musicians. In the CRO testing, he gave away $1,250 worth of products for just $69 for 100 hours.

He tried two variations:

  • Variation A – no sense of urgency text
  • Variation B – fear of loss sense of urgency text (“Time left to download”)
  • The conversion rate of Variation B was 3x higher than Variation A.
  • After implementing the variation to all visitors, conversions increased from 3.5% to 10%.

“If you do your job right, customers have to feel guilty if they don’t buy right now.” – Joseph Sugarman, AdWeek Copywriting Handbook

“Opportunities seem more valuable to us when their availability is limited.” – Robert Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

A 1975 study showed that people value items more when they’re scarce. Researchers put a jar filled with 10 cookies in front of participants and another jar with 2 cookies in front of a separate group of participants. Even though the cookies and the jars were the same, the participants valued the nearly empty jar of cookies more.

5 Specific Types of Urgency to Use in E-commerce CRO Testing

  • Time-based urgency
    • Order now and get it by [Date]
    • Limited time offer (“10% off the entire site for the next 60 minutes!”)
    • Live auction or countdown – works best for webinars or events that will happen on a specific date
    • Limited Edition Items
  • Quantity Based Urgency
    • Limited quantities

Be Careful! Creating a Sense of Urgency Can Backfire!

  • If it’s a bad offer, it doesn’t matter how much urgency you add
  • If you make a statement that isn’t true (“we’ll sell out in the next few days”), the customer will know you’re lying and you’ll lose the sale
  • Don’t create artificial scarcity (holding low quantities in inventory just to keep up the appearance of scarcity)
  • Remember: urgency does not equal persuasion!

Sources

About John E Lincoln

John Lincoln (MBA) is CEO of Ignite Visibility (a 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 Inc. 5000 company) a highly sought-after digital marketing strategist, industry speaker and author of two books, "The Forecaster Method" and "Digital Influencer." Over the course of his career, Lincoln has worked with over 1,000 online businesses ranging from small startups to amazing clients such as Office Depot, Tony Robbins, Morgan Stanley, Fox, USA Today, COX and The Knot World Wide. John Lincoln is the editor of the Ignite Visibility blog. While he is a contributor, he does not write all of the articles and in many cases he is supported to ensure timely content.