The bigger – the better. Conversion in online editors for photo products

Are you looking for new ideas to improve the revenue your e-commerce with personalized photo products gets every month? You might think that more traffic on the website means more sales, but no. This is not all about the traffic itself, but about the conversion. The right strategy in optimizing this KPI in the online editor for photobooks or calendars can provide incredible results. Check this out and let us amaze you with our data-driven approach we will present in this article.

Before answering how the conversion works, let’s clarify what it is. In simple meaning, the conversion rate describes your performance, no matter how you will interpret this. In general, this is the percentage of visitors to your website or landing page that did what you wanted them to do. Yes, that’s still not clear. Depending on your business goals, it could be in your case making a purchase.

The simplest example of a shopping path of an uncomplicated product (not related to the personalized photo products industry) is the purchase of a book.

The process goes like this:

1. user looks for a title in the search engine
2. clicks on the link in search results
3. enters the shop directly on the product card with the price
4. clicks “Add to Cart” and pays.

Conversion in this situation is measured in steps 3 and 4. The situation is perfect, but not possible in the niche industry, where the product needs to be designed personally, such as in the case of photobooks. Here the path is completely different, and the sales process is significantly lengthened.

If you want to learn more about the definition of conversion, take a look at this article.

Learn how to improve your e-commerce conversion rate. Read the article here.

How do we do this?

Measuring conversion rate in Printbox editors and along the way in user journeys can be compared to measuring a sales funnel, where several levels are visible until the final sales.

We focused on checking what we have a real influence on. We, as a software provider, have no control over how many people will get to the main page of the store. This issue is on the business owners’ marketing and sales departments. What remains in our authority is the system, the software. There are some elements besides the editor that we can help to improve, like the e-commerce side, however, the factors mentioned (mostly marketing) play the main role in the final sales.

The fun for us as a software provider begins when a user opens the editor – and this is where the journey starts, as we start to measure the conversion.

We are calculating the number of unique users. 100% of people are those who have reached the first step. Depending on the user journey, the first step can be a landing page for a particular product category – such as a photobook, or a list of products – such as greeting cards. The whole process is perfectly matched to the needs of the business owner, that is our client.

All the measurements are focused on how many people go through specific paths to the very end: the cart and the successful purchase process. Depending on the product the end user wants to order, the path may be longer or shorter.

4 parameters of increased engagement

Starting to calculate the conversion – 100%, in the beginning, is the number of unique users in the editor starting their user journey, and then we measure further by looking at the level of user engagement. We check how many people ended their adventure with the entire shopping path: opened an editor, how many of them made a manual save (saved the project by clicking on the button in the editor), how many people added the project to the cart, and how many people placed the order. Based on our experience, these are the 4 parameters of increased engagement.

Such statistics can be available to each of our clients. Business owner, with a preview of the details of such a defined conversion, can customize the methods of marketing and informing and educating the user about the process, show that the whole process can be not only the hard work making a photobook from scratch but fun.

Where the math ends and AI starts

Thanks to advanced algorithms available in the Advanced editor, it is possible to create a whole book in a few moments, using Smart Autocreation.

Printbox created a deterministic algorithm that analyzes images based on selected parameters, such as the date of creation of the image, the place of creation, and what is the content of the image. When talking about what the image represents, the algorithm considers the color scheme of the image. This is an algorithm, which analyzes pictures, arranges them into a list and then tries to “cluster” them in such a way that connected or similar photos are grouped and the design can be arranged automatically. So, this is mathematics, not artificial intelligence, but the difference is only slight – where the math ends, and AI starts.

In the end, the effect is the same – the user can design the book or the calendar in a fast and efficient way.

Check the Printbox editor – see the live demo.

Action, no-action

An interesting issue in the way of measuring conversions is the matter of time spent by users in the editor. Looking at this, you should not only look at people who, during one afternoon, create a photo calendar, but also on people who have turned on the computer and it stays open for 24 hours, began the process of designing a photobook, after which didn’t close a browser and computer, but temporarily abandoned the process and do not perform any actions. It is important for us, when measuring, to determine the time that someone actually spent designing a particular photoproduct.

We make sure that there are some actions that indicate that the user is active. Action can be virtually anything, starting with adding photos, by arranging them in layouts, clicking “Save” or “Order”.

When a user is making a design in the system, the automatic versions of the project are also saved with the “autosave”. The automatic saving of the project happens every five minutes when an action is taken in the editor. When the user goes to the kitchen to make a coffee, the project is not saved because there is no change in the design (unless the cat enters the keyboard and changes something).

What is it for?

It is interesting to compare the dependencies of user journeys paths along with the applied technologies from the conversion level, counted as % of the people who reached the cart. When using Smart Autocreation, the conversion has raised a significant number of percentage points. In other words, a larger number of end-users arrived in the cart, which ultimately translated into higher sales.

The way the user passes through the purchasing process allows us to improve the conversion by using advanced technologies that will facilitate the creation of personalized products. The measurement process itself is interesting because it depends on many factors, but this way is extremely difficult. It is one of the most important issues in business related to photoproducts. It is necessary to wonder and adapt to the behavior of the end users so that they enjoy the creation of beautiful products such as photobooks, albums, and calendars, but on the other hand, that business owners have the corresponding revenue.

As you can see, the issue at first glance seems to be simple, but when you enter the details, the measurement is not so easy.

Conversion is one of the most valuable indicators that we should measure in the editor. Everyone, not even having advanced knowledge of the analysis of e-commerce or marketing data, feels that the bigger the better. If you have a business with personalized products, you should be aware of how the user’s path works and where and how the conversion is measured.

Check how Printbox is handling the conversion – see the live demo.