How One Company Instantly Got a 21% Sales Increase By Doing This One Simple Thing

What if there was one stupidly easy little thing you could do to get a lot more sales?

Conversion rate optimization can take on a number of different forms.

There are all kinds of things you can do to make each visitor to your site more likely to make a purchase — or even more than one.

One of the big ones is upselling.

That's where you offer someone an upgrade, an extra feature, an accessory, or a better version of the product they wanted to buy — all for just a few dollars more.

It's surprisingly effective.

In fact, you've probably had tons of salespeople try to upsell you in a ton of different situations.

From the waitress asking if you want to add extra guacamole for $0.99 more, to the car salesman trying to talk you into splurging on leather seats instead of regular fabric, this simple little sales technique can work wonders.

One of the best ways to massage your customers into that juicy upsell is to make it as easy as possible for them to say yes.

In a recent blog post, Moz explains how adding one-click upsell options can boost sales by 21%.

One-click upsells: A 21% sales boost

When we do engagements, the first order of business to uncover low-hanging fruit growth opportunities.

This accomplishes two things:

1. It helps the client get an immediate ROI on the engagement
2. It earns us goodwill and credibility within the company. We then have wide latitude to run the big, bold experiments that produce huge conversion lifts

In Protalus’ case, we determined they were not doing post-purchase one-click upsells.

Adding these immediately boosted sales by 21%.

Here’s how we did it:

• On their main sales landing page, Protalus has an offer where you get $30 off on the second pair of insoles, as well as free expedited shipping for both. About 30% of customers were taking this offer.
• For those who didn’t, right after they purchased but BEFORE they got to the “Thank You” page, we presented the offer again, which led to the 21% sales increase.

Done correctly, one-click upsells easily boost sales, as customers do not have to re-enter credit card details.

Here’s the best way to do them: The Little Secret that Made McDonalds a $106 Billion Behemoth.

Below is the final upsell page that got the 21% sales increase:

[image source: Moz]

We tested our way to it. The key effective elements are:

1. Including “free upgrade to expedited shipping” in the headline: 145% lift

The original page had it lower in the body copy:

[image source: Moz]

Google Experiments screenshot showing 145% lift

2. Adding celebrity testimonials: 60% lift

[image source: Moz]

[image source: Moz]

Google Experiments screenshot showing a 60% lift

Elisabeth Howard’s (Ms. Senior America) unsolicited endorsement is especially effective because about 60% of Protalus’ customers are female and almost one-third are retired.

We uncovered these gems by reviewing all 11,000 (at the time) customers' testimonials.

3. Explaining the reasons why other customers bought additional insoles.

See the three bulleted reasons on the first screenshot (convenience, different models, purchasing for loved ones).

These are just a few of the ways you can start making more sales with a few simple changes.

You can find more great ways to boost your conversion rates over at Moz.