Of all the time and effort that is put into designing a website and using conversion rate optimisation to split test and improve it, not a lot of love goes into the thank you or success pages your visitors see after they have completed an action you want them to take and it’s a huge opportunity you should be taking advantage of.
If your thank you pages look like something like this:
Keep reading and i’ll outline 11 key ways you can improve the most under utilised part of your website, your thank you pages.
#1. Reinforce The Sale
After somebody has just completed a sale, an application or has become a lead they can become concerned and may experience buyers remorse. Your thank you page is the perfect place to reassure your visitor that they have made the right decision and to give them additional information about the company they are going to be dealing with so they don’t get cold feet.
The agency I work for, Web Profits do this with their own thank you pages to ensure prospects know what’s going to happen next and to reinforce they’ve made a good decision by showing them a video from our current clients detailing what it’s like to work with us.
#2. Increase Average Order Value
Most eCommerce websites push upsells and add-ons throughout their website including on product pages, shopping carts and some in the checkout process. Almost all of these eCommerce sites fail to utilise their thank you page however leaving a huge opportunity untapped. By the time someone has chosen a product, completed the checkout process and given you their payment details they are prime candidates for an upsell or add-on and most of the psychological barriers to becoming a customer have gone.
This example from Jigsaw Health utilises the thank you page to push a great one click offer that people will struggle to say no to. It also includes a countdown timer to further improve the conversion rate.
#3. Drive Repeat Purchases
Getting customers to come back and order off you in the future is key to eCommerce companies succeeding and whilst most are good at asking for repeat orders via email marketing – the thank you page is also a great place to incentivise your customers to return and place another order.
Shutterfly uses this technique well on their thank you page highlighting how easy it will be to order again (“you’ve already uploaded your photos”) and offering an incentive for the next purchase, along with an expiry date.
4. Generate Social Shares
Once someone has downloaded one of your free offers or purchased something they are more committed to your brand and if they enjoyed the experience, think it’s a great offer, or are just one of those people that shares everything there is a good chance you can push them to spread the word about your website to their friends and followers.
We use this technique on our Growth Manifesto blog encouraging people who have downloaded a free resource to then share it which works well.
#5. Grow Your Community
Once someone has completed an action you want them to take, why not invite them to join your community! If you have a Facebook group, a forum or any other community platform – invite people to join it on your thank you page.
The Washington Nationals do this well with a simple button on their thank you page pushing competition entrants into their Facebook group.
#6. Get Referrals
When it comes to getting your customers to refer their friends, family or business partners, the old saying ‘if you don’t ask, you don’t get’ rings true. Asking for referrals is hard as you need the person to be at their happiest which a thank you page after someone has just converted should be close to.
This thank you page that I set up for Australian Ethical simply asked people to help spread the word and get a $25 voucher in return for each referral. From a few hours work, this thank you page now generates over 20 new signups a month!
#7. Improve Your Database
Generally speaking the more complex you make a checkout process or lead generation form and the more questions and fields you have, the lower the conversion rate will be. Generating the sale or lead is almost always far more important than asking extra qualifying questions to a customer so many companies just don’t ask the question at all. Adding these to your thank you page however is a great way to get additional information for segmentation and personalisation without causing extra friction.
Harrys shaving products does this on their thank you page asking how often you shave after the sale which allows them to then segment their database and send reordering sales emails at just the right time.
8. Conduct Research
Conducting qualitative research is a key way to improve your business, website and marketing but placing a survey in the customer journey risks disrupting the conversion itself. A great place to put a survey? On your thank you page.
I did this using a HotJar survey on Australian Ethical’s thank you page and simply asked what it was that made the person signup – from this we uncovered green & sustainability as a major USP and changed all our marketing – not bad from an underutilised thank you page!
#9. Make Money
Recently it has become more and more common for brands to turn their thank you page into a revenue generator by placing third party advertising and sponsored promotions. If you have a thank you page that is getting a lot of traffic and you’re not concerned about subjecting your customers to advertising this could be a good option.
This Deals Direct thank you page is a good example of this where they popup advertising from ROKT and make advertising revenue from their partners.
#10. Make Money (For Charity)
If making money off your thank you pages isn’t your brand’s thing then you could also utilise your thank you pages to promote charities and social causes that your brand believes in. Not only are you helping out the cause but it aligns your brand further in your customers eyes.
Nita Suri does this with a plugin called Sparo which takes it a step further and allows their customers to donate part of the revenue from their order to a charity – nice!
#11. Keep People On Your Website
If none of the ideas mentioned appeal and you want to keep your thank you page simple, on brand and not push too hard to sell anything more, another way you can improve your thank you page is to keep people interested in your website and showcase what else you have to offer. Whether it is a white paper, infographic or simply a collection of popular blog articles, featuring these on your thank you page can help guide people back to your website and allow them to keep experiencing your brand (and hopefully convert again).
In this example from Tourism British Columbia they push someone who has just make an enquiry straight back into some very useful content on the region.
These are just 11 ideas but really you could do anything! As always it’s about testing to find out what will generate the best results for your own website + getting creative and building your brand.
You may be wondering, am I practising what I preach and optimising my own thank you pages? Well, you’ll have to find that out for yourself by registering for my newsletter here.
Great article, agree, and timely for me as I revamp my old web site to make it mobile friendly. Lots of good advice here.
WOW Duncan thank you so much for this!
I run a Shopify store and I never even thought about it 🙂