Executive summary

Many digital optimisation and AB testing programmes focus on encouraging behaviours that appear closely linked to conversion: clicks on add to basket, engagement with reviews, time spent on key pages etc. Whilst optimisation for these behaviours can improve surface-level metrics (“this test increased add to basket rate 20%”) they rarely translate into meaningful commercial growth. 

The reason for this is simple, but widely misunderstood: behaviours associated with conversion do not drive conversion. Rather, intent to purchase drives the behaviours. By optimising for the wrong signals and behaviours, teams create activity without impact; moving users around the funnel rather than progressing them through it - on the surface experimentation programmes appear to be effective, click through rates increase, bounce rates decrease, but the commercial impact never arrives. This results in the gradual loss of trust in experimentation, a reduced focus on understanding and responding to customer insight and, ironically, the loss of ground and market share to the competition.

Sustainable, measurable commercial growth cannot be achieved by encouraging a small number of behaviours or optimising for clicks. Rather, it comes from understanding why customers do not buy and aligning marketing, user experience, data, technology and product teams to the commercial opportunities revealed by those insights, organisation that pivot from optimising for behaviours to addressing the causes of failure see not only a greater number of commercial winners in their experimentation programmes but an overall increase in ROI of their entire investments in data, insight and experimentation.

The challenge

Throughout the digital ecosystem a common optimisation and growth strategy dominates: by encouraging behaviours strongly associated with revenue (adds to cart, reviews engagement, reduce bounce rates etc.) investments in experimentation can deliver commercial results through incremental improvements to user engagement and progress through the funnel

These tactics work, on paper, with investments in optimisation growing click-through rates, reducing bounce rate and pushing more people to the cart.

Funnel metrics look healthier, but the commercial impact rarely, if ever, arrives.

The result is a frustrating challenge for digital leads: investment in optimisation and experimentation programmes drive more people to click, more people to engage and fewer people to abandon… but no more people buy. In some cases, conversion rates from add-to-basket to purchase even decline, creating the illusion that performance has worsened.

Over time, not only does this limit the commercial impact of optimisation but also causes organisations to question the value of their investments, limit their activity and ultimately, forfeit the real commercial opportunities that remain there for the taking.

The behaviour paradox

At the heart of most struggling optimisation programmes sits a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between customer behaviour and intent.

Organisations assume that ‘commercial’ behaviours for example, adding an item to cart drives conversion. Therefore, increasing that behaviour should increase conversion and revenue. This is a logical assumption and seems impossible to dismiss (in order to grow conversion, you have to increase adds to cart, surely?).

This logic is often, and fairly, applied to other, less obvious, behaviours - for example viewing product reviews. In almost all cases users who view product reviews show higher conversion rates and, therefore, if we can get more users to view product reviews we can increase conversion rate?

But in reality, this relationship works the other way around…

Customers who buy are more likely to read reviews but encouraging customers to read reviews does not make customers buy, it is not the behaviour that drives conversion - but the intent to convert that drives the behaviour. 

Customers already in a purchasing mindset naturally engage with elements that support decision-making or enable purchase: engagement with reviews, images, delivery details and adding to cart (plus many more). When these users convert, it creates a misleading correlation between behaviour and outcome.

Encouraging users without purchase intent to click those same elements does not shift their mindset. You can generate engagement, but unless you can progress the customer mindset from consideration to conversion, commercial impact will not follow - this is why so many experimentation programmes can effectively move users around the funnel, without ever impacting the bottom line.

No amount of funnel manipulation can overcome a lack of intent.

The cost of failing to act

When organisations optimise for behaviours rather than intent, they generate activity without value; experimentation programmes show “wins”, lines on dashboards go up, engagement metrics improve. But revenue stubbornly refuses to move.

This is often explained away as marginal or incremental impacts, measurement challenges or insufficient scale. The promise is that value exists even if it cannot be seen. But experimentation is a scientific discipline and in science, if you can’t measure it - it doesn’t exist. Optimisation programmes that lean on ‘incrementality’ to justify absent commercial results are not data-driven or scientific, they are relying on belief.

Historically, this may not have been a huge problem, organisations could accept ‘incremental’ results and top-of-funnel optimisations without visible commercial results, but as technology costs rise, budgets fall and delivery capacity tightens, digital teams can no longer afford initiatives that merely look effective.

Effort must be directed toward activity that demonstrably changes outcomes.

What you can do about it

If the objective of experimentation s to deliver commercial results, organisations must start by asking a different question – not “how can we encourage more users to convert” but “what is stopping users from converting”.

This is a subtle but crucial nuance and goes to the heart of why many optimisation programmes deliver a lot of ‘wins’ but little commercial value.

In truth, funnel abandonment rarely happens because users cannot find the add-to-basket button, because reviews sit below the fold or because the user experience doesn’t follow best practice, but rather because:

• Delivery propositions are unclear 
• The user cannot find the right product 
• The customer is simply not ready to buy 

(This is by no means an exhaustive list)

These are not problems solved through minor interface or UX optimisations. They require strategic, cross-functional intervention.

Consider users who are not ready to purchase today. They may represent a substantial share of traffic (up to 50% in many cases) and a meaningful future revenue opportunity. But capturing that value requires coordination across teams:

• CRO and experience teams must focus on wishlist creation, account sign-up and marketing opt in; not just immediate conversion 
• Data teams must build audiences based on meaningful engagement signals, not single-page views, button clicks or scroll depth
• Paid media teams must focus remarketing on intent progression, not blunt PDP exposure 
• CRM teams must nurture browsing behaviour with relevance and timing, rather than urgency  

This approach is more complex than button-level optimisation, and therefore easy to overlook or write off as being “too expensive” or “too complex”, but it addresses the real commercial opportunity: progressing customer intent over time, rather than forcing premature conversion and sacrificing long-term value. The long term result is greater, more sustainable commercial impact than would ever be achieved through button-level optimisation.

Conclusion

Optimising for behaviours associated with conversion feels logical, measurable and controllable, it is a widely adopted experimentation strategy and allows for organisations to scale testing programmes to dozens or hundreds of tests per month. This approach justifies investments in expensive technology platforms and allows organisations to ‘constantly iterate’ their customer experience.

Unfortunately, this approach doesn’t impact the bottom line.

In reality, behaviours do not drive conversion – conversion drives the behaviour. Customers who are in a purchasing mindset are more likely to engage with reviews, imagery, product information, calls to action etc. which creates a false relationship between these elements and value. Optimising for these behaviours can increase their engagement rates, but by failing to address the underlying drives of customer intent and purchase abandonment, rarely delivers any measurable commercial impact.

To pivot experimentation programmes from ‘incremental’ results to true commercial impact organisations must shift their focus from behaviour to intent, and more importantly to customer failure. It is by understanding the barriers to conversion and causes of customer frustration that optimisation and experimentation programmes can deliver real commercial results.

The challenge is not driving customers through the funnel faster.

It is helping them become ready to buy by addressing the reasons they do not.