Shopify Conversion Funnel: How To Build Your eCommerce Cashflow Machine?

The key point to achieving sustainable growth in your Shopify business is understanding your shoppers' journey from the moment of brand awareness to becoming loyal customers. Then analyzing it, and creating effective marketing strategies by using data.

In other words, you should understand your customer's motivations to continue their journey, identify the obstacles to carry on, remove them by creating powerful strategies and boost your conversion rate!

The best way to make that happen is analyzing your Shopify conversion funnel and optimizing its stages. To help you with that, in this article we explained the most effective ways to optimize your eCommerce conversion funnel step by step. Let's dig in!

What is a Shopify Conversion Funnel?

The Shopify conversion funnel is the visual representation of the shoppers’ journey from the beginning of their interaction with your Shopify store to becoming your brand advocator.

In other words, conversion funnels visualize ‘becoming a customer process’ of the shoppers step by step.

The widest part of the funnel is awareness since it includes all the people who get exposed to your brand in various ways such as reading a blog post. And the funnel is getting narrower in each stage since only a part of the shoppers in each stage are moving down to the next stage.

Some of the folks are dropping off and some of them are continuing their journey of becoming a customer of that brand. You can increase the conversion through the funnel with the right marketing strategies and effective communication with the folks.

The significant point here is analyzing this funnel by using the data, specifying the stage where your customers are dropping off most, and creating strategies to fix the problem to increase your Shopify conversion.

What are the Key Stages of Shopify eCommerce Funnel?

A Shopify conversion funnel contains stages that represent different points along the journey and these stages are awareness, consideration, conversion, loyalty & advocacy.

The key point to building a successful Shopify conversion funnel is creating effective strategies to attract people at the awareness stage of the funnel. Then bring them to the purchasing stage, and the last step is finding effective ways to keep them coming back & shopping repeatedly.  

The most crucial point for a Shopify store owner is keeping customer success as the priority of the brand through all these steps. Happy customers are the key point to being successful and achieving sustainable growth in the business world.

So, in all these steps you should check whether all customers are happy with your product, or with the value you offer them, and increase the likelihood of the customer reaching their expectations.

1. Awareness Stage

Awareness is the initial and the widest stage of the Shopify conversion funnel. It is the first place that people become aware of your brand by reading your blog post, clicking your ad, reading a social media post, or a friends’ referral, etc. They may need your products or may not.

How to Optimize the Awareness Stage of the Shopify Funnel?

The key point to optimizing the awareness stage is providing value to your potential customers instead of trying to hard-selling your product to achieve customer success in the best way.

You can provide that by offering free resources to your potential customers and helping them to solve their problems & utilizing social media.

The common trap of the awareness stage of the Shopify conversion funnel is expecting great results just by advertising.

Top Tips

1. Offer free resources to your potential customers such as valuable blog posts for them & help them to solve their problems.
2. Use the power of social media to make your potential customers aware of your brand.
3. Collaborate with influencers to create awareness in your potential customers.

Common Traps

1. Expecting great results just by advertising without any SEO improvement.
2. Trying to hard-selling your product instead of providing value to your potential customers.
3. Not keeping customer success as the priority of your brand.

A- Create a Blog Page for SEO
With a blog page where you answer your potential customer's questions regarding the product they are looking to purchase, you can get organic traffic and appear in front of them by answering the questions they are looking for.

In addition, you can prove that you are the authority about this product and build trust with shoppers. The crucial point here is creating useful content for potential customers and publishing blog posts regularly.

Blogging strategy requires time and effort but it is one of the most useful strategies to optimize the awareness stage of the Shopify conversion funnel by improving SEO.

Top Tips

1. Answer your potential customer's questions regarding the product they are looking to purchase. So, they can see your website when they research these questions.
2. Choose clear and attractive titles. Titles are the first things readers check and decide whether they will read the article.
3. Write like you are talking with the readers. People like to read sincere writings more than formal ones.

Common Traps

1. Writing about the wrong blog topics that don’t attract potential customers.
2. Creating not user-friendly content. For instance, making it  not easy-scannable, not adding images, etc.
3. Not promoting the content and making people aware of your brand.

B- Leverage the Social Media

The social media content you produce can get in front of your potential customers. Your current customers can share them easily with their friends and refer to your brand in this way. Also, your prospects can get in touch with your brand through social media by asking questions under your posts, sending DMs, or liking the posts.

Top Tips

1. Post your content consistently to attract new customers.
2. Create a social media strategy that meets your business objectives. So, you can move forward with the right steps.
3. Create interesting content to keep your customers engaged.

Common Traps

1. Not answering customer DMs in a short time. You may lose touch with customers.
2. Not considering the analytics of your brands’ accounts. You may not create the right strategies.
3. Not responding to the comments. It may decrease the motivation of customers to comment again.

2. Consideration Stage

This is the stage that includes the people who are aware of your Shopify brand and interested in your product. In other words, at this stage your potential customers who need your product and considering shopping from your brand. At the same time, they are checking alternative brands which sell the products they need.

That means they check everything about your brand including customer reviews, pricing, etc.

How to Optimize the Consideration Stage of the Shopify Funnel?

During the consideration stage, the most crucial point is to get shoppers to move on to the next step and convince them that they are the best option in the market. In other words, you should improve the relationship between your brand and shoppers that you have built in the awareness stage.

Remember that it is highly possible that you convert these shoppers with little effort. Here are the most useful ways to optimize the consideration phase of the Shopify funnel.

Top Tips

1. Develop your relationships with the shoppers you acquired during the awareness phase.
2. Prove that your brand is a better option than other stores in terms of pricing, product quality, etc.
3. Utilize social proof and email marketing to convince shoppers to shop from your store.

Common Traps

1. Not providing high-quality customer support to answer shoppers’  questions and remove their confusion.
2. Not leveraging social proof to convince them that they are the best option in the market.
3. Not utilizing email marketing that includes incentives to motivate shoppers to purchase from your brand instead of others.

A- Utilize Social Proof
Shoppers are influenced by other shoppers’ opinions & act and copy them. So, they need to see that your products are already liked by other shoppers before they try them.

That means you need to prove that your brand is popular and your products are liked by many shoppers. To achieve this, you can display positive reviews on your homepage & product pages. And you can kindly ask your customers who purchased from you but don't write a comment to leave a review.

Also, since your negative reviews could create drop-offs from the Shopify consideration stage, you should have high-quality customer support and help them when they need it.

Top Tips

1. Prove that your brand is popular and that many shoppers like your products.
2. Display positive reviews on your homepage & product pages to attract potential customers.
3. Get testimonials from experts in your area to build trust with your customers.

Common Traps

1. Displaying testimonials not believable and compelling such as: ‘We love the product, it’s amazing’ etc. without any details.
2. Displaying social proof that doesn't picture your prospects. This may create the image that your brand is not suitable for your leads.
3. Not asking for reviews from your clients. It is not hard for them but they may not write until you ask for it.

B- Leverage eMail Marketing
Email marketing is one of the greatest ways to optimize the consideration stage of the Shopify conversion funnel. To create your email marketing list, you can offer a discount code or some other incentives to customers.

The best way to utilize email marketing for this stage is sending welcome emails which include effective messages to the shoppers. A well-written welcome email has the power to motivate shoppers and make them feel ready to purchase from the brand.

An effective welcoming email should include:

• A thank you message since they joined your email list
• The incentive if you promised during the subscription
• Information regarding what you will send them in the future
• A call to action which will lead them to your Shopify store

Top Tips

1. Offer a discount code or some other incentives to customers.
2. Send welcome emails which include effective messages to the shoppers to motivate them.
3. Use a call to action which will lead them to your Shopify store.

Common Traps

1. Not optimizing the emails for mobile.
2. Trying to hard-sell instead of providing value.
3. Not writing attractive subject lines.

3. Conversion Stage

Conversion is the phase that includes shoppers who are thinking about purchasing your products actively. In other words, the shoppers in this phase like your brand and trust it enough to shop.

How to Optimize the Conversion Stage of the Shopify Funnel?

In the conversion stage, even though shoppers are ready to purchase from your Shopify store, there could be hesitations to purchase because of some distractions. That means it is crucial to remove all the distractions as much as you can and make the shopping and checkout process as easy as possible for the customers. The best ways to remove distractions are optimizing your product pages and offering high-quality customer support:

Top Tips

1. Remove all the distractions as much as you can during the shopping journey.
2. Make the shopping and checkout process as easy as possible for the customers.
3. Optimize your product pages and offer high-quality customer support to remove distractions during the shopping journey.

Common Traps

1. Having a low-quality web design that won’t attract shoppers.
2. Having low website speed which will increase bounce rate.
3. Not implementing A/B testing to understand what works and what doesn’t.

A. Optimize Your Product Page
Your product page should be easy to navigate instead of cluttered & be spammy-looking to not distract the customers. In addition, your product images & description should be clear and detailed since shoppers do not have the option to try the products physically in the online store.  

A well-optimized product page should include:

• Appealing product images: Even if you have amazing products, you can’t get shoppers’ attention if you don’t present them impressively. So, you should have remarkable product images that show all the details of the products.
• Call to action: It is better to use clear and short call to action such as ‘Buy Now’ instead of using long and confusing sentences. Make things clear and easy to understand for the shoppers to move them in the direction you want.
• Social proof: Customer reviews have the power to encourage the shoppers to purchase by showing them other shoppers also purchased and liked the product.
• Return the product policy: Customers generally want to guarantee that they can return the product easily in case they don’t like the product, or it doesn’t fit, etc. So, if you show them it is easy to return the product after the purchase, you can increase their motivation to purchase.

Top Tips

1. Include appealing product images to get shoppers’ attention.
2. Display social proof which includes ratings, reviews, and testimonials to prove to shoppers that your store is popular.
3. Use short call to actions such as ‘Buy Now’ instead of using long and confusing sentences. Make things clear and easy to understand for the shoppers to move them in the direction you want.

Common Traps

1. Not having a clear return-the-product policy. It may create worries for shoppers.
2. Not having detailed product descriptions since shoppers do not have the option to try the products physically in the online store.
3. Forgetting to optimize the product pages for SEO keywords. This could decrease your visibility on Google.

B. Offer High-Quality Customer Service
The key point to converting customers is providing high-quality customer support since shoppers understand whether they can trust your brand there. With ongoing customer service, you can answer customers’ questions and help them whenever they need, build trust & convert them in real-time.

• High-quality customer support should offer easy contact with the shoppers. For instance, it should be reachable on the channels that customers prefer to use.
• Also, the waiting time should be at a minimum. Even though the support team couldn’t answer shoppers’ questions at the moment, they should learn the answer and return them as soon as possible.
• After the support team answers the customers’ questions, it is better if they go an extra step and give suggestions regarding the product.

Shoppers who get in touch with the customer support team are generally thinking of purchasing a product. So, you can remove the distraction & concerns on their way by answering their questions and building trust.

Top Tips

1. Offer easy contact with the shoppers. For instance, it should be reachable on the channels that customers prefer to use.
2. The waiting time of the customers should be at a minimum.
3. Go an extra step and give suggestions regarding the product.

Common Traps

1. Relying too heavily on scripts instead of using personal skills. This may bother the customers when they have a more specific problem.
2. Not delivering the promises in a short time.
3. Not following up on the customers’ problems.

4. Loyalty & Advocacy Stage

Loyalty is the phase that brings repeat sales to your Shopify store. The customers in this stage are the ones who are attached to your brand emotionally and purchase from your store repeatedly.

And, advocacy is the last and most narrow phase of the Shopify conversion funnel which includes customers who love your brand and refer other people by leaving positive reviews or with word-to-mouth.

It is a much more effective marketing strategy for your brand than other promotion ways since other shoppers’ opinions are more believable than what brands say about themselves.  

How to Optimize the Loyalty & Advocacy Stage of the Shopify Funnel?

Optimizing this stage is so crucial for your Shopify store since 80% of brands’ sales come from loyal customers. They tend to purchase repeatedly and spend more money than normal customers.  Besides, acquiring new customers is so much more expensive than retaining the current ones. That means to have sustainable growth, you should have a loyal customer base.

The most significant obstacle to building a successful loyalty & advocacy stage is providing a high-quality product to customers. If your product has a low quality, even though shoppers were converted in the previous stage, they wouldn’t move down to the loyalty stage. Even worse, they probably wouldn’t even shop from your store ever again.

So, if you want to retain customers and grow your business, you should have a high-quality product.

The best way to turn your customers into loyal ones by turning your Shopify store into a mobile app & creating a loyalty program.

Top Tips

1. Provide a high-quality product to customers to make them shop from your store again.
2. Know your customer and their needs better, implement strategies based on that.
3. Leverage a customer loyalty program & turn your Shopify store into a mobile app to boost loyalty.

Common Traps

1. Not reminding your customers of your brand after they purchase. You can utilize mobile app push notifications, or email marketing, etc.
2. Not utilizing the customer data & analytics to understand them more and improve your store in this way.
3. Not providing ongoing customer service. You should be able to help your customers 24/7.

A. Create a Loyalty & Referral Program
Leveraging a loyalty program is a great way to optimize the loyalty stage of the Shopify conversion funnel and similarly referral programs are the ultimate ways to optimize the advocacy stage.

Both programs work in similar ways; brands give rewards & loyalty points & discounts, etc. to the customers to encourage loyal behaviors such as repeat shopping, following a social media channel or referring the brand to friends, etc. So, you can motivate them to visit your Shopify store again and shop repeatedly in this way. Besides, you can build an emotional attachment with customers and engage them.

Top Tips

1. Make the enrollment process easy and clear for the customers.
2. Give valuable rewards to the customers for their loyal behavior. So, you can encourage them more.
3. If you have a mobile app for your Shopify brand, you should implement your loyalty program there.

Common Traps

1. Making the loyalty program progress confusing for the customers. Shoppers might abandon the program if it is complicated for them.
2. Not offering loyalty points for writing a product review, writing comments on social media, filling out surveys, or doing any other activities related to your brand. That means you are losing a huge potential to grow your business.
3. Offering meaningless offers to customers. No one would want to make an effort for your brand if the result won't be worth it.

B. Turn your Shopify Store Into a Mobile App
By building your mobile app, you can turn your loyal customers into even more loyal ones. With a mobile app, you can provide a personalized & easiest shopping experience with your customers and that is why mobile apps convert between 2x-22x higher than mobile websites.

Also, you can utilize the power of push notifications to remind your customers of your brand and retain them more. Let’s check with what features a mobile app achieves that:

• Push notifications: Push notifications are one of the strongest features of a mobile app in terms of increasing loyalty. With push notifications you have the power to reach the users even when they are not online in your mobile app and remind them of your Shopify store.
  
  Push notifications can include messages & promotions & product updates, etc. to attract customers. One of the best sides is since they are free to send, you can bring your customers back to your mobile app and retain them without paying for expensive paid ads.
• App-Exclusive Discounts: Discounts are the greatest motivations of customers to visit a mobile app again to shop. That means they are very effective ways to increase customer loyalty. Some users might forget your brand after shopping once, so you can give a great incentive to them to use the mobile app again with app-exclusive discounts and increase customer loyalty.
• Mobile app Loyalty programs: By implementing loyalty programs in your mobile app, you can turn your loyal customers (who like your brand enough to download your app) into more loyal ones.
  
  More loyal customers spend more time in your mobile app and spend more money than normal customers. By implementing these loyalty marketing apps, you can encourage your customers for their loyal behavior with rewards & points etc. in your mobile app and boost the customer loyalty.  
• Customer profile section: Customer profile section(my account element) is one of the most crucial elements to boost customer loyalty since it makes the shopping experience so much easier for the customers and increases their engagement.
  
  It provides that by combining all the history of shoppers including their favorites, recently viewed items, orders, addresses, and account info. That is why customers prefer to use the mobile app which already has their address, payment info, etc. to shop repeatedly to avoid filling this information again.

Top Tips

1. Have an impressive mobile app design by adding high-quality and proper images. Use mobile-friendly images and include a call to action to lead users to take the actions you want them to take.
2. Send effective push notifications with high conversion rates. To make that happen, check out that article.
3. Optimize your App Store & Google Play Store listing since they are the places where customers decide whether to download your mobile app or not.

Common Traps

1. Stop developing your mobile app after launching it. You should always update it and add new features to provide a better customer experience with your customers.
2. Filling the homepage with products. It may create a confusing and crowded homepage and your mobile app should be simple, easy to use & clear. For more details, check out that article.
3. Designing mobile app opening screen in an unclear and confusing way. To not confuse the customers, you should make this image which they see for a second, clear and understandable.

What’s a Good Funnel Conversion Rate?

After optimizing all the stages of your Shopify conversion funnel, you might be worried about whether you will have a good conversion rate or not.

The answer to that question might change depending on your business type, however, you can still check the general answers of business owners. According to the research of databox, around 30% of business owners say that 3.1% – 5% is a good funnel conversion rate as the most popular answer. 

How to Track Shopify Funnel Conversion Rates?

You need to track the Shopify funnel conversion rate to identify problems, fix them and improve your shoppers’ journeys. This is the ultimate way to achieve sustainable growth in your Shopify business.

However, tracking an eCommerce conversion funnel could be confusing and tricky to calculate the conversion rate of your Shopify funnel because of the different funnel paths and shopper journeys.

The best way to calculate the Shopify funnel conversion is utilizing Google Analytics. You can differentiate users who completed or did not complete a particular stage of the funnel with Google Analytics.

Also, you can use this data to understand the points that make a stage more successful or create problems. Then you can create marketing strategies to re-engage users who dropped off from a stage by creating a Remarketing Audience targeted to that Segment of users.

To learn the details of how to use Google Analytics to track Shopify funnel conversion rate, you can check this article.  

To Sum Up

The ultimate way to boost your conversion rate is by analyzing your customers' shopping journey by using the Shopify conversion funnel.

So, you can understand the reasons to drop off from different stages of the funnel including awareness, consideration, conversion, loyalty & advocacy. Then you can optimize these stages in the most proper way for your Shopify brand and increase your conversion rate!

In addition to that, one of the most effective ways to optimize the loyalty & advocacy stage of the Shopify conversion funnel and increase your conversion rate is by turning your Shopify store into a mobile app.

So, if you don't have a mobile app yet, turn your Shopify store into a mobile app today, optimize the loyalty stage of your Shopify funnel and boost customer retention!

Click here and start your 30 days free trial without requiring any credit card information!