The Summary
- Over 7 years of AB testing experience
- All we do is ecommerce AB testing. That’s our specialty.
- We’ve worked with top tier ecommerce brands like TOMS, Denon, Empire Today and more
- We invented the Purpose Framework for ecommerce CRO
- Clients work directly with our founder Devesh, not a project manager. Devesh is based in California.
The Full Story
Our boutique ecommerce CRO agency is 100% focused on conversion rate optimization and AB testing for ecommerce websites. We aren’t part of a larger digital marketing agency where conversion rate optimization (CRO) is just one of many services.
As a result of our obsession with ecommerce CRO, we’ve built frameworks to fix what’s broken, specifically:
Traditional A/B Testing Is Guesswork, We Developed The Purpose Framework
Most ecommerce A/B testing is a series of random guesses. Randomly guessing can work sometimes, but if this is your strategy, you’ll struggle to increase conversions in the long run. To fix this, we developed The Purpose Framework. It lets ecommerce brands holistically understand their customers, their store, and what moves the conversion rate needle. With it we turn your CRO program from guesswork to strategy. It also results in more winning tests and better overall increases in conversion rate. We set this up and execute start to finish for clients.
While Others Are Still Using Hypotheses, We Developed The Question Mentality
Everyone bases A/B tests on a “hypothesis”, but this leads to bias and limits learning: a complex set of site interactions from your customers get reduced to “So did the test win or not?” To fix this, we developed The Question Mentality, where we base every A/B test on a series of questions instead of a single, yes or no hypothesis. This dramatically expands learning and reduces bias as explained in the article.
We Share a Database of All Ecommerce A/B Tests We’ve Ever Run
We’re platform agnostic — we can run tests on Optimizely, VWO, Convert, and Adobe Target, and we’ve run hundreds of A/B tests over the years. To let ecommerce brands see our experience, we keep a live database of every test we’ve run labeled with purposes from our Purpose Framework and organized by section of ecommerce sites, updated monthly. Curious if we’ve tested something you want to test? See for yourself.
Benefits of Working With Our Ecommerce CRO Agency
- We’ll apply a strategic framework to understand your site, not just make guesses
Benefit: When everyone else is randomly testing things that “might” work, or mistaking eye-tracking studies or heatmaps as CRO strategy, you’ll have a quantitative, graphable, understanding of what themes (“purposes”) move the needle and which don’t. So you can focus your resources on what works (read the full article). - Get access to our extensive knowledge of ecommerce UI patterns (what works, what doesn’t)
Benefit: We’ve run hundreds of tests every year for ecommerce companies (see our database here) and can shortcut your learning process with our knowledge of what works and doesn’t. - We run the entire process start to finish, no development bottlenecks
Benefit: Many companies stall out on testing due to development bottlenecks. We handle the entire process, from ideation to design to development and analytics. - Build a testing culture in your company
Benefit: Most companies debate endlessly, implement changes, and hope for the best. You’ll begin changing your culture from “loudest voice wins” to “listen to the data”. - Work with the actual CRO experts, not project managers
Benefit: We are a boutique agency, meaning you won’t work with junior project managers. Every client works directly with Devesh who has overseen ever tests in our database and run Growth Rock for 7+ years. All variations are designed by Ravi, who has worked with Devesh and also overseen the majority of our historic tests.
How Our CRO Process Works
Our conversion optimization process follows a 4 step process. Here is exactly how we execute each step for your company.
- Customer Experience Research and Ideation – We base our AB tests on a deep understanding of your website visitors, the customer experience they report receiving, what analytics data tells us (Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics), and our experience of what works and what doesn’t in ecommerce. We implement user research techniques such as: live user testing sessions, analysis of reviews and testimonials, session recordings, and polls. We then create a spreadsheet of test ideas, organized by purpose and section of the online store and prioritize collaboratively with our clients.
- AB Test Design – We take the top ideas and design variations to the site that will test those hypotheses (e.g. changes to product pages, listing pages, cart, checkout, homepage, mobile, desktop, and more). We get consensus with your team then move to development.
- AB Test Development – Our own developers, well versed in AB test development of ecommerce sites, code the variations in the AB testing platform (we don’t need to touch your server side code). We do this in days, not weeks or months.
- AB Test Results Interpretation – We check and report on results weekly. We are also thorough in analyzing the statistical significance of tests so you don’t falsely declare winners.
Thought Leadership and Know How
In addition to the frameworks and A/B test database linked to above, we’ve published many case studies and written extensively on ecommerce conversion rate optimization, ab test results, and ecommerce UX. Here is a sample.
- Original Ecommerce User Experience Research – We analyzed, feature by feature, the mobile checkout flows of 40 of the top ecommerce sites in the U.S. We tabulated data, analyzed trends, and compared with our own AB tests.
- AB Test Case Studies – We continue to publish case study after case study of AB tests that teach the community about ecommerce UX that works and doesn’t work, such as about free shipping, mobile navigation, upsells, and more.
- Conversion Strategy – We write articles that answer a lot of the questions we get from ecommerce management and owners, such as how to test and de-risk large redesigns, when AB testing is worth it, and more.
Work Directly with Our Founder, Devesh Khanal
Devesh Khanal has been running Growth Rock for 7 years. He has run hundreds of AB tests across many different ecommerce sites, done countless user research studies, and read and written many articles about ecommerce user experience. All clients work directly with Devesh and get direct access to his years of experience, not junior account managers. Devesh is based in San Jose, California on Pacific Time.
Ravi Desai has designed nearly all AB test variations we’ve developed over our lifetime, and he continues to design every variation for every client.
Lisa Nguyen does all quality assurance testing of every variation we test for clients. She’s done this through nearly the entire life of Growth Rock.
AB test development is done by Brillmark, a development firm that specializes in AB test development. They’ve developed tens of thousands of tests on many testing platforms and Growth Rock has worked with them for many years.
Website Size and Pricing
An ongoing CRO program like the one we provide is best for ecommerce sites with at least 3,000 or more monthly transactions. Our ideal clients get over 20,000 transactions per month.
We charge a monthly retainer between $7,000 and $12,000 per month.
Clients Love Us
In two months we got conversion increases that will yield multiple 7-figures in extra annual revenue.
Amerisleep
Efficient process. Strong analytics. Consistent increases in revenue per visitor.
Kettle and Fire
Growth Rock has enabled us to speed up our check out experience, increase conversion and grow our business.
Swimsuits For All
Case Studies
We recently ran more than one pricing AB test on an ecommerce apparel client to gauge whether or not you should list the savings percentage next to the price of products. Although this might seem…
In our work with dozens of ecommerce companies over the last 5 years, we’ve noticed that the design and UX of the add to cart section (buy buttons, options, quantity controls) is debated a lot. Should…
Recent AB tests we’ve done suggest that many ecommerce sites could see an increase in mobile conversion rate by adding a “bar” of navigation links at the top of their mobile homepage, instead of relying…
Not presenting related items at the shopping cart step could be costing many ecommerce stores millions in potential revenue. In particular I’ve noticed while large, well known brands do this consistently (see examples below), mid-size…
We know free shipping is a massive needle mover for ecommerce customers. In this short case study we share results from two AB tests we’ve done that help answer: Where is the best place to…
We partnered with copywriter Brian Speronello of Accelerated Conversions on this project. This case study was written by Brian and edited by Devesh and Brian. Writing powerful eCommerce copy that improves conversion rates is one of…
Frequently Asked Questions
Does your agency have experience with our ecommerce platform (Shopify Plus, Magento, BigCommerce, Woocommerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, etc.)?
Chances are we do. We’ve worked with many ecommerce platforms, and in particular have lots of experience with Shopify Plus and Magento. But the larger concept is that, for our optimization service, it doesn’t matter which platform you are on. We use ab testing software which tests changes on the front end of your ecommerce site regardless of your backend software. When we have a winning variation we hand it over to your development team to implement through your backend.
For Shopify Plus in particular, we have developers that can directly implement winning changes in your backend.
Can you run AB tests in Optimizely, VWO, Google Optimize, or Adobe Target?
Yes! We are platform agnostic. We have run AB tests on all of the above platforms, are Optimizely developer certified, have a close relationship with VWO (and have published a case study on their blog), and have run many tests on both Google Optimize and Adobe Target. We’re happy to also advise on the pros and cons of each platform and help you make the best decision for your company.