CRO Ideas to Double Your Christmas Conversions

Christmas CRO is more than changing the look and feel of your site. You can successfully harness human psychology principles to get more conversions.

Here are some ideas that we’re applying on our customers’ stores this year:

#1 Highlight product-themed authoritative reviews

This is the time of the year when press mentions or expert snippets that say “<product name> is such a treat for the skin” are better for conversions than generic brand-specific appreciation.

#2 Shopper reviews = Highlight gifting experiences only!

Be it the review snippets you accompany homepage recommendations with or the first page of product page reviews.

Pro Tip: If you don’t have as many gifting themed reviews, highlight a radio button named “gifting” right above the product page reviews section that can be clicked.

#3 Introduce a “daily deals” section on the homepage

What’s that one thing that shoppers will experience more anticipation around than a “Get 30% off this Christmas on all our bestsellers”?

The daily deals section that keeps changing on the homepage everyday—use AI personalization to prioritize behavior-based recommendations, you’ll have an even bigger winner!

#4 Incorporate “Last Day for Free Shipping” hooks

Announce these especially on bestsellers and trending gifts, and you’ll see the conversions rolling in.

Pro Tip: Target existing email subscribers separately with the same theme.

#5 Feature Christmas-special filters on landing pages

“Ready to Ship,” “Expedited Shipping,” “Same Day Delivery” and “Store Pickup” work especially well to capture the attention of high-intent shoppers.

Just don’t forget the use of 🎁 ⚡🚚.

#6 Highlight additional shipping options for procrastinators

And the best thing is that you can position them all as “urgent” through countdown timers:

“Get expedited next-day shipping when you order by xx:yy minutes”

“Get free 2-day shipping when you order by <enter date>”

#7 Position a “Biggest Sale of the Year” & run ads

It’s easy for Christmas shoppers to gloss over generic sitewide discounts. Which is why turn your hero banner into a “Biggest Sale of the Year” hook and match your ad copy & meta description to cut out competitor ads.

#8 Tie up “New Arrivals” with “Christmas”

Even if the products aren’t directly connected to the occasion, you can always highlight images with relatable labels like “Trending #1 Gift,"300 pieces sold already” etc. to drive shopper confidence.

#9 Switch to Christmas-themed pop-up imagery

Yes, offer that “20% off on your first order” but make sure you’re tapping into the Christmas buying mindset.

Pro Tip: Make your pop-ups dynamic to show people imagery as per the demographic you’re targeting.

#10 Place countdown timers on category pages

The ideal way to do this is not to run them on all listed products but on some based on whether they’re bestsellers, highly reviewed ones or similar to the ones the shopper has been browsing.

#11 Use the notification bar for gifting nudges

Avoid auto-sliding them if you happen to choose multiple of them—our advice is to stick to a single targeted nudge like “Free Shipping on all Gift Orders over $80 + Free Santa Hat” or “20% off on Bestsellers + Free Mini Christmas Tree”.

#12 Introduce a Christmas gifting quiz

Remember this is a great way to collect seasonal zero party data, so stick to super targeted questions like:

“Who are you gifting?” “What type of gift are you looking for?” and “Do you want to pick from gift cards?”

Pro Tip: Trigger that sign-up pop-up when they’re going through the quiz—just increases the chances of both i) finishing the quiz and ii) availing the discount!

#13 Secondary CTA? Feature an express payment option

Since many shoppers are in a tearing hurry to whizz through gift options, a chunk of them prefer buying on mobile.

And this makes it important for you to leverage quick pay options like Shop Pay & Apple Pay as secondary CTAs not just on product pages but also on category pages.

#14 Highlight “only for today price” CTAs

This can especially work well with limited edition products and new arrivals that are quick selling (don’t forget that urgency callout though!)

Color code these CTAs differently so that in a spread of recommendations, these stand out.

#15 Prioritize showing guest checkout

And don’t even wait for the actual checkout page to show this feature—feature this as a secondary CTA within the mini cart itself.

#16 Feature a discount code uniquely for Christmas shoppers

And highlight this in key places like the hero header, the category page banner and even within the mini cart.

It’s a great way to target the Christmas mindset while also amassing analytics that will help you prep for next Christmas!