Any retailer uses upsells, whether they run an ecommerce site or a physical store. Upsells are an excellent way to boost your profits.
Learn how to track your average upsell conversion rates and how to improve them as well as your general email marketing conversion rate.
What Are Upsells? What Are Conversion Rates?
Upsells refer to the technique where you increase the purchase of a customer. A classic upsell will be at fast-food restaurants when they ask if you want to upgrade to a larger size.
In ecommerce, upsells could include :
- Upgrading to a higher-quality version
- Getting additional accessories
- Getting a warranty.
Your conversion rate is the success rate of something. In the case of an upsell ecommerce rate, it would be the rate at which you successfully convinced customers to increase their purchase.
Why Do They Matter?
At the most basic level, upsells are crucial because they raise your profit per customer. By increasing your average customer value, you do not have to make as many individual conversions to reach your sales goals.
Upselling and tracking your conversion rate is also crucial because it is one of the simplest ways to boost sales. Consider that you have a 60-70% chance of selling to an existing customer, but this is just 5-20% for new customers.
What Are Average Upsell Conversion Rates?
The average upsell conversion rates vary based on where you choose to upsell.
The largest chunk, 16% of retailers, has conversion rates of 1-4% for upsells in the shopping cart.
Meanwhile, 20% of retailers have conversion rates between those amounts for upsells on the product pages. Of those, 15% have rates of 1-2%, and 5% have rates of 3-4%.
How to Calculate Upsell Conversion Rates
To calculate your upsell conversion rates, you need to know how many customers you offered an upsell opportunity to and how many took it.
Divide the take rate of the upsell by the number of times it was offered. Multiply the result by 100 to get a percentage.
Insights for High or Low Rates
Looking at your upsell conversion rates and comparing those to the industry average upsell conversion rates and your past rates can give you some important insights.
For example, if your upsell rates are high, this shows that customers are very interested in your upsell. That indicates that you could likely increase the price without losing too many sales. This would be a simple way to boost your profits.
On the other hand, if your upsell conversion rate is low, this may mean that your upsell is overpriced or it may simply indicate a lack of interest in your upsell. You may want to :
- Reduce its price to make more sales.
- Offer a different upsell instead
- Conduct market research to see what improvements to the upsell customers would like.
How to Improve Upsell Conversion Rates
With the potential insights and higher profits in mind, how do you improve your average upsell conversion rate?
Email Marketing
Using email marketing can be a good way to boost your upsell conversion rates. Suppose your upsell can be added on after the initial purchase. In that case, you can send a follow-up email highlighting its benefits.
There is also the fact that the more you engage in email marketing, the stronger your brand’s reputation will be. That increased trust should make it more likely that people will take your upsells.
Upsell in the Right Spot
As you plan your upsell, take the time to figure out the best place to do it. Common options include :
- The product page
- The shopping cart
- After the initial purchase with email marketing.
For the best results, try a few different upsell locations and see which one gets the best results. Then focus your efforts on upselling at that stage of the buying process. You can use A/B testing for this.
Prioritize Relevance
You will typically get much better results if your upsell is related to the original product.
Otherwise, there may not even be a reason for customers to be interested in the product. If you aren’t sure what items are relevant, consider related accessories.
Add Urgency
As with any type of sale, you will notice better results from upselling if you add a sense of urgency. Simply displaying a countdown timer can frequently be enough to take advantage of this.
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