What happens when two brothers combine forces to take on conversion rate optimization (CRO) for some of the biggest names in ecommerce? In the case of Prismfly, really great things.
Yaseen and Yusuf Shurbaji, co-founders and managing partners of Prismfly, have made waves in the ecommerce industry with their unique approach to conversion rate optimization and ecommerce design and development strategies. By finding the proper pathways for ecommerce stores to convert more, they’ve helped brands increase their revenue even after long plateau periods of little growth.
“Prismfly is a performance marketing business that specializes in conversion rate optimization. And we also pair that with best-in-class strategy development and design.”
—Yaseen Shurbaji, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Prismfly
Working their CRO magic and helping brands scale in the process has become the status quo for Prismfly, which started after the Shurbaji brothers realized they had a knack for running ads and optimizing the customer experience. We talked to them about how they started their business, along with the best strategies for increasing CRO, on our Hit Subscribe podcast.
From streetwear to CRO
Yaseen and Yusuf shared with us their origins in ecommerce, from starting a streetwear company that quickly grew to six figures to deciding to help other store owners with optimization.
When Yaseen was still in college, his friend told him about Shopify. He quickly got into it, selling streetwear clothing and other fashion accessories—something he had always been a fan of—then asked Yusuf to join the project. The store blew up and the brothers decided to dig deeper into their newfound success.
“Within a matter of I think it was five or six months, we’d grown the store to multiple six figures. And we really just took a big step back. And we said, ‘This is really incredible. Something is happening here.’”
—Yaseen Shurbaji, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Prismfly
They continued working on their store together, running successful ad campaigns and optimizing the customer experience. The brothers soon realized that other people had a need for the competency they had developed, and the value of these services far outweighed the brand they had created.
Yaseen credits a lot of their success to Yusuf’s background. He had been working in conversion rate optimization for much longer and is an expert in terms of service delivery. During their time running the Shopify store, Yusuf took care of customer service, adjusting the onsite experience and running tests. He realized that a lot of the problems they were facing as a small store were the same ones the biggest names in the market were facing. This inspired him to help other brands get really good at CRO and make an impact.
What really is conversion rate optimization?
When speaking of conversion rates and conversion rate optimization strategies, it’s crucial to understand what it is and how it works. CRO, as defined in our ecommerce glossary, is “the process of improving your website and content in order to increase conversions, or the percentage of users who complete a desired action.” Conversion actions can include:
- Clicking a link on your landing page
- Downloading a file
- Filling out a form
- Purchasing a product
CRO isn’t always about increasing web page traffic. Instead, it’s about tweaking the website experience so that visitors behave in a specific way.
Conversion optimization strategies from the experts
Now that you’ve heard more about the origins of Prismfly and know how to calculate conversion rate, let’s dive into some easy optimization efforts and other strategies to increase your site’s conversion rate.
Increasing conversions doesn’t always have to be complicated. It’s an ongoing process, no matter how big or small your ecommerce site is. Following these tips and exploring conversion rate optimization tools will help your brand win big and gain more paying customers than ever before.
1. Advanced bundle building
The first strategy when looking to increase CRO is bundling products together for purchase with special discounts attached. Site visitors have to be explicitly directed to do this, especially if your existing traffic hasn’t experienced easy bundling before. The Shurbaji brothers discussed how important it is to direct customers to add items to their cart, specifically those that mix and match well with the products the customer has already chosen.
Yaseen gave an example of one brand they’ve worked with that has thousands of SKUs, with an average order value (AOV) of less than $50. The SKUs were interrelated, such as items that matched colors with other products. Prismfly got to work with advanced bundle building so that customers could add multiple items to their cart, while receiving discounts for the more they added.
The brothers also noted that bundling is not a simple thing to accomplish, because you have to involve logistics and shipping into these decisions. Plus, brands have to decide how much of a discount they can offer without losing revenue in the process. In the end, however, Prismfly has seen brands make huge increases after a few months of introducing bundling and discounts, increasing average order value by 65%.
2. Analyze entry paths to optimize the experience
Another crucial factor of CRO is finding the right entry paths to create high lifetime value (LTV) with your customers. Noticing what channels your customers are coming from, then tailoring the experience based on that information, is one of Prismfly’s best strategies for getting as many conversions as possible.
Website visitors typically arrive with some information about themselves. Did they come from an influencer link? Did they click on an ad? Using web analytics tools to identify where your website traffic is coming from and how you can optimize the experience based on that knowledge is critical.
“How do you listen to those signals and those data points they’ve given you, either from a quiz, an ad click, an email click, and now start to change the website experience based off of that? Maybe you have a really solid influencer program and that’s your primary driver of your business. Maybe now, [talk] about what those influencers’ favorite products are based off of the influencer that they came from.”
—Yusuf Shurbaji, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Prismfly
3. Make it easy to change or edit orders
When discussing subscriptions and CRO, the best way to ensure your customers are converting is to keep things flexible. Prismfly is a big proponent of encouraging ecommerce merchants to consider subscriptions because it’s one of the best ways to make buying easy for customers.
“One of the best ways possible is to enable that customer that loves your brand to do that easier. My biggest pitch is, ‘Hey, how do you get more people to be that customer?’ And the answer is a subscription offering. Because it simply allows people to do that far easier than having to come back, purchase on the site, and find the product again.”
—Yusuf Shurbaji, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Prismfly
The bottom line of conversion rate optimization is trying to be helpful to the customer. As a business and a brand, you have to keep that at the forefront of all your decisions. So, offering subscriptions and making them easy to manage is one of the best ways to make people happy and keep CRO high.
4. Deliver a top-notch customer experience and service
Conversion rates aside, all merchants should strive for the best customer experience possible for their shoppers. Luckily, a great user experience and high CRO go hand in hand. Listening to your customer’s concerns and utilizing testing tools can give you a better understanding of how your website is performing and what could change. Your website’s conversion rate will naturally increase when you make efforts to improve the whole customer journey of your online store.
5. Care about other things like LTV and AOV
Along with the customer experience, merchants should focus on LTV and AOV to make progress with their conversion rate optimization.
“There’s more that goes into conversion rate optimization than just trying to get more people to buy. What you’re really trying to do is be helpful to the customer. And the best metric of that is lifetime value.”
—Yaseen Shurbaji, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Prismfly
Subscriptions are a great example of this. Often brands give up some money upfront to get a customer to choose subscribe-and-save. But, this will increase their LTV down the line, making it totally worthwhile to give up a little revenue for that long term stability.
Hitting CRO out of the park with Prismfly strategies
Directing website visitors to increase their conversion rate is made easier with help from Prismfly and their top-notch CRO strategies. Conversion rate optimization tools give merchants the opportunity to increase their AOV and LTV by making changes to their website and shopping experience. As Yaseen and Yusuf shared with us, putting customers first and optimizing their experience will help you meet your conversion goals and leave you with happier customers.
Check out the full interview with Yaseen and Yusuf, as well as conversations with other industry experts, on our Hit Subscribe podcast.
