Catalogs.com recently collaborated with WebShare, a Google authorized consultant, to design and run a series of performance analyses aimed at streamlining and improving the website. Using Google Website Optimizer and Google Analytics, the study showed how relatively small changes could dramatically improve performance and even lead to an increase in revenue and catalog orders.
During this test, while Website Optimizer as a standalone tool was able to show that overall conversions had increased by 6.8%, the integration with Google Analytics showed much more granular and relevant improvements:
* Specifically, catalog orders rose by almost 11%
* Total revenue from all conversion types was up 7.4%
“It’s great to know that the changes we tested gave us an increase in our overall conversions, but all of our different conversion actions are not equal in terms of the revenue they bring in,” explains Matt Craine of Catalogs.com. “It’s possible that the increase in overall conversion rate could actually lose us money because it was due to a design enticing visitors toward a low value conversion at the expense of our higher value actions.”
