Overview
Project Marketing Audit and Conversion Optimization
Client Thai-based Ecommerce Jewelry Retailer
Results at a Glance
– Conversion rate increased from 0.83% to 1.7%
– Holiday sales approximately doubled
– U.S. ecommerce expansion
Summary of Client and Challenge They Faced
A Thai-based ecommerce jewelry retailer had made a name for itself by selling beaded bracelets made from lab-certified natural gemstones and handcrafted sterling silver charms. The brand had several retail stores in Thailand and had been featured in the country’s leading fashion magazines. They had set their sights on the US market, with the holiday season as the moment to break through.
Online, the US results weren’t keeping pace. US shoppers converted at 0.83% for the year to date, and heading into the holidays that rate had slipped to 0.38%. The brand was up against a crowded field of lookalike bracelets, and ad comments called its products too pricey despite their quality. Ads weren’t returning what the team expected, and they weren’t sure who to target: fashion buyers, or people drawn to the stones themselves.
The retailer brought in Upward Arrow at the end of October, with Black Friday about a month away.
Our Approach to the Solution
Upward Arrow conducted an audit of the entire marketing funnel including the homepage, About page, product pages, email capture, Facebook ads and Google Analytics.
The audit began with the website, before the ads and email follow-up were evaluated. Sending more paid traffic to a site that wasn’t converting would only raise the cost of every sale, so the first job was to make the most of the visitors the retailer already had.
The homepage suggestions were designed to keep focused attention of shoppers and build trust by moving press logos and testimonials into view. Naturally, the brand voice was evaluated from a linguistic perspective, encouraging US spellings over the existing British spellings that permeated the site. Some functional issues were also noted for correction.
The best-selling product pages got the most attention. Each one was restructured with a short overview up top and the full product story below, the way shoppers are used to reading listings on Amazon. Star ratings, secure checkout badges and the brand’s press logos moved up beside the Add to Cart button.
New photography guidance called for product-only shots on white plus one or two shots of the bracelet being worn, and Upward Arrow worked with the retailer’s in-house photographer on lighting the reflective stones without washing out their color.
The copy was rewritten for American shoppers, leading with style and giving each stone’s traditional meaning as a reason to choose one bracelet over another. This amplified the brand value propositions, speaking to fashion buyers and stone enthusiasts at once instead of choosing between them.
Google Analytics showed conversion rates varying sharply from state to state, so the Facebook ads were rebuilt around the best-converting states. A separate set of gift ads targeted women shopping for men and men shopping for women. Black Friday ran as a 25% sitewide sale, backed by a homepage banner and a four-email Klaviyo sequence split between past customers and subscribers who hadn’t bought yet.
Client Results and Benefits
The retailer’s conversion rate roughly doubled, from its 0.83% year-to-date average to about 1.7%, roughly doubling sales over the crucial holiday season.
The work also left the retailer with a playbook its own team could run. After the holidays, the in-house team took over day-to-day execution, with Upward Arrow’s longer-term strategy mapped out as the next step: a forward-looking approach that guided shoppers to choose the right stone, supported by an educational email series.