Sales Funnel Improvement

Our teams analyzed a sales funnel to identify the biggest opportunities to boost revenue.

Context

Client operates an innovative transportation resale website with over $100M in transactions. In recent years, their sales plateaued while the market appeared to be growing.

Solution

Our team was brought in to analyze the client sales funnel and identify areas of improvement. Initial findings showed that client advertisements were converting at an above average rate for the industry, but resulted in fewer purchases than expected.

We were able to identify two specific improvements. First, we identified an issue at the first step of the funnel where roughly 30% of searches resulted in 0 results, and the client’s landing page did not offer any alternative suggestions – even if there were close matches.

Second, we found an issue with the fourth step of the funnel that would kick a potential customer out of the checkout flow if there was missing card information and impacted roughly 15% of checkouts.

Details

We sat with multiple client teams to review the sales funnel from multiple angles, including frontend teams, backend teams, and data teams.

During this analysis, we reviewed page flows, application logs, and created advanced SQL queries to dig into trends and client assumptions.

For the searches with 0 results, we determined that the impact was much larger on their customer base than previously assumed. Client had incorrectly classified a large number of misses, leading to a strategy that encouraged onboarding partners in saturated markets, as opposed to finding partners in underserved markets.

Additionally, we found that several searches with no results had several valid alternatives and would have likely resulted in customer satisfaction. However, the client’s website did not recommend alternatives, so we guided them through implementation.

For the missing card information issue, we were able to identify the interruption in checkout flow through review of application logs. It was determined that the order form was sent to the backend for processing prior to performing basic form validation, which resulted in an unexpected error response, and would kick customers out of the checkout flow.

Our team guided the client through the appropriate fixes, and also helped develop new tests to ensure better vetting of the checkout procedure.

Results

As a result of these adjustments, the client was able to realize a revenue increase of nearly 25% within 6 months. Furthermore, the client continues to onboard new partners in underserved markets and expects additional gains.

Though we were able to identify a 15% impact on the checkout error, it was difficult to determine what percentage of checkouts were the result of a retry. After additional review, we were able to confirm a 5% lift in revenue due to this error, with the other 20% of revenue coming from serving new markets.

Many projects involve similar technologies and processes, here are some other case studies you may find useful:

More on Sales Funnels

Sales funnels are one of the most important processes to understand as a business. Each stage of a sales funnel represents a different point of interaction with prospects during their journey through conversion.

Key metrics should be identified and tracked at each stage of the funnel, starting from marketing, all the way through payment. By doing this, teams are able to identify bottlenecks and issues with the customer experience, and allows the business to make targeted investments where they matter most.

Here are a couple resources with more information about the sales funnel:

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– Team Llama 🦙