Driving Conversions in a World Where User Attention Is Really Low

Don’t know about you but for me, 2017 has been the year when I’ve had to admit I have a problem. A problem with fragmented attention.

Whether it’s email, instant messaging, or even reading research articles on conversion optimization I find it hard to focus for too long.

And this doesn’t only apply to my work and personal life. This also applies to potential buyers on your site.

Looking at Google Analytics data it’s hard to miss the general trend that session durations are down, Exit rates are high, abandons are high, and percentage of shoppers who scroll to the bottom of a page is low. And those who scroll, scroll fast.

We already know 83% of what’s on a page is invisible to shoppers. And the reason it’s invisible is because shoppers are distracted.

To overcome this marketers have applied a novel trick, amp up the marketing message. If people can only see 17% of what’s on a page let’s make each marketing message scream out to get the user’s attention.

This works in the short term (novelty effect) but it’s a bad idea in the long run because if EVERYTHING on your page is marked important then we’re kinda back to square one.

2018 will be the year when marketers will start thinking deeply about conversion optimization in a world where shoppers have fragmented attention. Our product pages have been designed for shoppers that are willing to spend 90 seconds, what do we do in a world where shoppers are willing to invest only 70 seconds? How do we pitch our story?

Things to things to think about in 2018 …