Conversion Copywriting: Tips to Grow Conversion Rates for E-commerce Brands

Copywriting is essential in any marketing strategy. It’s the art of convincing users to take action by crafting the right message to appeal to the right audience. Regardless of the nature of your brand, you likely write copy regularly for your website, social media, blog posts, ads, and many other channels to communicate with your audience. 

Different types of copywriting apply to different contexts and strategies. However, if your main goal is to increase conversion rates, the key is to understand and master conversion copywriting. Continue reading for a deep dive into conversion copywriting to learn about why it’s important for e-commerce brands to improve their metrics.

What is Conversion Copywriting?

Conversion copywriting is a persuasive writing technique that aims to push readers to take a specific action. Unlike most other types of copy, conversion copy focuses on a single goal – to get users to convert. It emphasizes the importance of using relevant data and choosing the right words to craft the most compelling message possible. 

While this type of copywriting is often designed to drive sales, it’s worth noting that conversion doesn’t only mean purchasing a product. It can be used in every stage of the customer journey, making it suitable for various actions.   

Several CTAs can be embedded into your copy, some of which include:

• Filling out an online form
• Adding a product to a cart
• Subscribing to a newsletter
• Learning more about an offer
• Downloading a free resource
• Share an offer on social media
• Starting a free trial

Conversion Copywriting vs. Other Types of Copywriting

Copywriting, in general, is designed to be a persuasive writing technique, which makes it easy to confuse different types. However, knowing how to distinguish conversion copywriting from other types is important because it makes a difference in results. Choosing the right strategy is essential to maximize your impact with readers.

To better understand conversion copywriting, here’s a deep dive into how it differs from direct response and sales copywriting. The differences are subtle, and most people will use these terms interchangeably – so it’s important to keep that in mind when talking with other marketers.

Conversion Copywriting vs. Direct Response Copywriting

Conversion and direct response copywriting are similar in that they’re both designed to get readers to take action. However, as the term ‘direct’ suggests, direct response copywriting is straight to the point, focusing mainly on the CTA. It doesn’t consider the reader’s level of awareness or willingness to buy and hammers down on the offer, making it suitable for ads and sales pages.

On the other hand, conversion copywriting takes into account the customer journey, moving readers through each stage until they make a purchasing decision. It’s more data-driven, using customer insights, frameworks, and formulas to build a persuasive argument. It’s best used in web pages, email sequences, and blogs.

Conversion Copywriting vs. Sales Copywriting

Conversion and sales copywriting are also easily mistaken for each other due to their similar goals. However, the main difference is that sales copywriting is focused on closing sales, while conversion copywriting covers a broader range of actions. Beyond sales, conversion copy can also be used for lead generation, form submissions, social media engagement, and many others. 

Sales copywriting is also more product-centric and has a transactional nature since it often occurs at the latter stages of the customer journey, when prospects are about to make a decision. In contrast, conversion copywriting can target users at any stage of the journey – even those who are still unaware.

Why Should E-commerce Brands Do Conversion Copywriting?

Conversion copywriting is important for e-commerce brands because it allows you to create copy that provides value to readers and drives them to take action. In addition, conversion copywriting plays a crucial role in conversion rate optimization (CRO) since it uses a very customer-centric approach and shares a similar goal of increasing the likelihood of conversions.

Boosts conversions

Naturally, as the term implies, conversion copywriting helps you boost your conversions by prompting increased actions from readers. For example, beauty brand Glossier grew into a $1.2 billion company by engaging in real conversations with women, starting with its blog “Into the Gloss” and later in its social media. By knowing their target audience, building strong relationships, and creating engaging content, the brand managed to generate 70% of online sales and traffic from peer-to-peer referrals, with 8% coming from Instagram brand ambassadors.

Improves credibility

Well-written conversion copy allows you to improve your credibility and show your expertise. This gives the audience more confidence to trust your brand and persuades them to choose your products over others. 

Bombas did this by enforcing transparent communication, including providing detailed product information and sharing their brand’s mission to help homeless communities in the US. As a form of market validation, they launched a campaign to donate socks to homeless people, and got $30,000 worth of investment within the first day and $150,000 after 30 days. By the end of 2013, Bombas had reached $400,000 in sales.

Targets specific audiences

Conversion copy places a large emphasis on tailoring your message based on who your audience is and what stage of the customer journey they’re in. This ensures that your copy resonates with the readers, making it easier to convince them to take action.

Builds brand awareness

When you’re profitable with your advertising, this gives you the ability to scale your ad account and spend more money. The more you spend, the more impressions you have, and more people become aware of your brand and products. Leveraging conversion copywriting helps you become more profitable, so you can scale and build your brand awareness.

Conversion Copywriting Tips to Get Good Results

Now that you understand the value of conversion copywriting for e-commerce brands, you might be wondering how you can improve the quality of your copy. Below are seven tips to help you achieve better results.

Know your target audience

Research is essential in conversion copywriting, given its data-driven nature. Knowing who your target audience is, what their pain points are, and how your product will help solve these is a must to create effective copy for your readers. Customers won’t engage or feel compelled to take action if your message and CTA aren’t convincing enough. 

Fortunately, there are many ways to do research, such as review mining, social listening, or general research to check trends and statistics. Alternatively, if you’re willing to invest more in this phase, you can also consider doing focus group discussions or in-depth interviews. These provide you with a deeper dive into your customers, allowing you to get more pointed insights.

Whatever method you decide to use, here are some questions to answer in your research:

• Who is your typical customer?
• What are your customers’ problems and challenges?
• What do customers need?
• What have customers said about your product (if applicable)?
• What specific language do customers use about your product?

Start with the end goal

Once you’ve done your research and painted a clearer picture of your audience, you can focus on the main task – writing. In conversion copywriting, it helps to use a top-down approach, where you start with your end goal and flesh out the details. This technique works because it allows you to focus on your main objective – that is, what action you want the reader to take.

The key to maximizing conversion rates is to stick to one message. For example, if your goal is to increase sales, focus on selling that one product. Or, if you want to encourage opt-in downloads, focus on explaining the benefits of your resource. Whatever your conversion goal is, make it clear from the beginning to ensure you can write focused copy.

The less distractions, the better. Otherwise, you risk confusing readers and moving their focus from the main CTA to something else.

Understand the customer journey

Depending on where they are in the customer journey, users may have different needs, priorities, or emotional states. Understanding the journey is essential in conversion copywriting as it allows you to send targeted messages.  The key is to align your copy to where readers are now, so you can guide and move them naturally towards conversion. 

Regardless of what your product is, customers typically go through the same journey:

• Awareness. In the first stage, customers become aware of a particular need and start researching more about it. At this point, they may not know everything about their problem yet, so it’s a good opportunity to educate them and provide them with valuable information related to their pain point. The goal is to lead users to another page that pushes them to the consideration stage. 
• Consideration. Once customers know more about their problem, they start seeking potential solutions and considering options. This is the stage where they research more to learn about their options and understand each of them thoroughly. Your copy should be a mix of educational and promotional, highlighting your product’s features and benefits to move them to conversion. 
• Conversion. Finally, after thorough research and consideration, customers are ready to make a decision. Once they reach this stage, they may need final reassurances about which brand to engage with, so you can offer them some incentives or provide social proof to convince them and close the deal.

Beyond these three stages, two other stages may occur after conversion – retention and advocacy. Retention encourages follow-up purchases to retain existing customers, while advocacy involves turning customers into active brand advocates.

Consider the audience’s level of awareness

Another concept that coincides with the customer journey is the audience’s level of awareness, which is equally important to consider in conversion copywriting. Awareness in general is the first step, but writers need to dig deeper to know how aware/unaware their readers actually are to get them to convert.

Knowing what level of awareness a prospect is in gives you more specific insights into how much they know or how close they are to taking action. With these insights, you can then tailor your copy depending on where the prospect is at the moment. 

To better understand how it works, here are the five levels of consumer awareness:

• Unaware. The prospect is unaware of the problem, which means there is a low chance that they take action. Prospects at this level are usually the most challenging to reach since they may not respond to your messaging. The key will be to educate them about the problem to ease them into the idea that they need to find a solution. 
• Problem Aware. The prospect recognizes they have a problem but may not know the solutions yet. Since this is the case, the goal is to relate to your readers – make them feel as though you know exactly what they’re feeling by expounding on the problem. This will help you build trust and convince the reader to engage more.
• Solution Aware. The prospect is now aware of their problem and knows there are potential solutions but has yet to decide on one. At this point, you should introduce your product and show how it will help address their need. Make sure you provide readers with solid proof that your product works to get their attention. 
• Product Aware. The prospect is aware of their options but isn’t fully sure what the best solution is yet. This is the time they compare different products and evaluate features, benefits, and selling points. Once they’ve reached this stage, it’ll be important to showcase your product and emphasize how it stands out from the competition.
• Most Aware. Finally, the prospect who was once unaware of their problem is now about to become a customer. They’re aware of who you are, what your product is, and how your product can solve their problem. All they need is the final push, which can be done by offering incentives, deals, or discounts. Alternatively, you can also focus on addressing objections to give them confidence that they’re making the right decision.

Establish credibility

Establishing credibility is essential in conversion copywriting. It helps you create a solid argument and build trust with readers, which increases the likelihood that they convert. There are many ways to boost your credibility, but the two key elements are social proof and specificity.

Social proof is highly powerful because it taps into people’s natural tendency to take action if other people have already done it. Whether through testimonials, reviews, ratings, or case studies, these all reassure readers since they have evidence that your product works and satisfies other customers.

Aside from this, specificity is another great way to build credibility. By providing specific details about your product and its results, customers have a better idea of what to expect. They feel more confident about what you’re offering since you have concrete evidence to back up your claims.

Make your copy skimmable

With tons of information available online, most users only skim content instead of reading every line word-by-word. Knowing this, it’s important to make your copy skimmable to ensure readers get the main point quickly. Otherwise, they may drop off too early and you risk missing conversion opportunities.

To prevent this from happening, here are the best practices to follow when writing and structuring your copy:

• Break your copy into smaller paragraphs that are easier to digest
• Use headings, subheadings, bullets, and lists 
• Highlight key points by using different formatting techniques
• Leave white space between paragraphs

Nail the call to action (CTA)

The CTA is undoubtedly one of the most important elements of conversion copy – after all, the main goal is conversion. Effective CTAs guide readers by telling them what to do next, allowing them to move from prospect to customer. To nail this part down, refer back to the end goal you identified initially and make sure the CTA aligns with it. 

Here are some additional tips to help you create the best CTAs for your copy:

• Use action words
• Use a different design for CTA buttons
• Create a sense of urgency
• Test your CTAs

Conversion Copywriting Examples

If you’re struggling to come up with effective conversion copy, you can look at what other brands are doing to get a better idea of how you can write yours. Check out these examples to serve as a guide in creating your brand’s copy.

AdvoCare

AdvoCare goes straight to the point, highlighting the value proposition and key benefits of their IntelliQ supplement – that is, support for healthy brain and cognitive function and memory strengthening. Aside from this, you’ll see a note at the bottom stating that the product is only available for a limited time while supplies last. This creates a sense of urgency and encourages users to purchase quickly to avoid the fear of missing out (FOMO).

Drinkmate

Right from the start, Drinkmate captures the audience’s attention with the first line, promoting their biggest sale of the year. It provides the main details, including the 25% discount and the last day of the sale. In the end, you’ll find a checkout code and a link to their website, which makes it easy to start shopping right away.

Caraway

Caraway’s Facebook ad highlights how their pans are “non-toxic for healthy eating”, with a “Shop Now” CTA and a landing page that matches the ad copy. It also shows product inclusions, features, and a comparison chart against competitors like PTFE Non-Stick (Teflon). This is effective because it maintains a consistent narrative that is relevant to a potential buyer who cares about non-toxic cookware.