A Practical Guide to Thank You Page Optimization

The majority of eCommerce merchants would give their right arm to optimize their conversion rate.

But what’s strange is that while we pour hours into optimizing every part of our sales funnels, most of us completely overlook the power of our thank you page.

In this article, we’ll break down how to optimize your thank you page to grow your business.

We’ll share proven strategies that’ll help you achieve various goals, from boosting customer satisfaction to growing revenue via post-purchase upsells and more.

By the end, you’ll have everything you need to transform your thank you page into a conversion powerhouse.

Let’s not waste any time.

Why Your Thank You Page Matters

Your thank you page offers several leverageable benefits.

For example, you can use your thank you page to:

• Offer post-purchase upsells & cross-sells
• Collect customer feedback
• Gather additional customer data (e.g., birthdays, preferences)
• Add a thank you video
• Recommend personalized products based on customer behavior & more

But sadly, for most merchants, the thank you page simply lies dormant. That’s a shame when you consider that thank you pages provide:

• 100% ‘open rate’: Unlike post-purchase emails, pretty much everyone who shops in your store will land on the thank you page. That means if your post-purchase emails have an open rate of 30%, you could potentially 3X your conversions by moving your offer to the thank you page.

• An average of 2.2 views per customer: Customers don’t just see the thank you page once. They come back to get shipping updates. As a marketer, you know that more impressions generally equals more conversions.
• A distraction-free buyer’s journey: Asking too much from shoppers early on can cause them to bounce. But by moving your offers and requests to after checkout, you can achieve higher conversion rates and not risk losing the sale.

• Big returns for minimal effort: The beauty of optimizing your thank you page is that there’s no need to build complex email flows or spend buckets of cash on testing to get results. The page already exists on your site. You just need to put it to work.

In a nutshell, an optimized thank you page can enhance everything you can do with post-purchase emails (and then some).

Let’s keep going and discover the specific strategies that’ll help you reach your conversion goals with the above in mind.

5 Steps to a Highly Optimized Thank You Page

Optimizing your thank you page doesn’t have to be complicated. Sometimes the most straightforward strategies deliver the biggest results.

After studying the hundreds of thank you pages over the years, here are the tactics that deliver the most bang for your buck.

1. Add Post-purchase Offers & Recommendations

According to the psychological principle of consistency, customers who buy from you are much more likely to agree to any more requests you have.

In other words, when customers land on your thank you page, they’re in peak buying mode.

That makes it the perfect time to offer post-purchase upsells, cross-sells, and product recommendations.

For example, check out how Amazon suggests a heap of personalized product recommendations and offers based on purchase and browsing history:

If you’ve ever shopped on Amazon, then you know how such suggestions can pump up your spending.

But the key is to use data to offer relevant products that customers are interested in by using triggers or apps that analyze customer behaviour.

Once you’ve done that, try adding scarcity (via timers) and exclusivity to the transaction to send your revenue through the roof!

Data from the backend of ReConvert suggests that, on average, Shopify merchants can boost gross revenue by 10-15% by implementing thank you page upsells alone.

2. Drive Growth via Referrals

According to a Nielsen report, 92% of shoppers trust recommendations from friends and family more than advertising

So, why not use your thank you page to transform new customers into an army of word-of-mouth marketers?

Seriously, your thank you page is the perfect place to promote your referral program - especially if you offer new customers an incentive to invite their friends.

For example, check out how AliExpress gives customers $19 credit when they invite their friends.

Short of building a referral program, another way to generate referrals is to add social sharing buttons to your thank you page.

When shoppers buy something new, they may want to flaunt it to all of their friends via Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and so on.

Here’s how Warby Parker does this really well:

Warby Parker gets a ton of free social-proof-infused reach by making it easy (and fun) for customers to share their purchases on social media.

This tactic is like an order multiplier - for every customer who shares their order, you’re getting your brand in front of hundreds, if not thousands, of more like-minded people.

3. Deploy Customer Surveys

Without feedback, delivering a better customer experience is next to impossible.

But the problem is that getting accurate feedback from customers is notoriously tricky. 

Thank you page surveys remedy this problem because:

• They’re short and painless
• Shopping experiences are still fresh in the customer’s mind
• The principle of psychological consistency means customers are more likely to answer 

Remember the 100% open rate and average of 2.2 impressions per customer we talked about earlier? These two factors combine here to drive your survey conversion rates through the roof.

Surveys help your customers feel heard - but they also provide you with valuable information about how your customers feel about your business.

With enough feedback, you can make informed decisions about your business to serve your customers better.

4. Make a Killer First Impression

First impressions count for a lot.

When someone lands on your thank you page, that’s their first contact with your brand as a customer.

How you make them feel can impact how likely they are to buy from you again.

Four great ways to ensure customers come back and drive retention rates higher are:

• Add a welcome video from you (or your company’s CEO) thanking customers for becoming part of your brand’s community.

• Link to the best content on your Shopify blog where customers can get acquainted with your brand.

• Add reviews or social proof from happy customers to reduce buyer’s remorse.

• Collect customer birthdays and send them a personalized discount via email when their birthday rolls around.

You’ve only got a small window of opportunity to make a killer first impression and turn one-time shoppers into brand advocates.

Sure, your welcome email might be well, but don’t risk having 50%+ of your customers miss the email in their inboxes.

Instead, do everything you can to reinforce your brand personality and put a smile on customer’s faces immediately after they’ve purchased.

5. Add Support Options

New customers will inevitably have questions. They might be wondering how long shipping takes or if they can change their order before it ships.

Whatever queries are on their mind, providing answers eases concerns and reduces the risk of order cancellation.

So, link to your FAQ page and include any other support channels like email, phone, and live chat.

Remember, the easier you make it for customers to get the information they need, the better the shopping experience.

Build a Better Thank You Page Today

If you’ve made it this far, you understand how powerful your thank you page can be.

It’s time to end the era of unoptimized thank you pages and tap into their true conversion potential.

Instead of breaking your back split testing Facebook ads to get a 1% improvement or crafting elaborate email sequences that nobody opens, do the easy thing first.

Fix your thank you page today and watch your conversions go through the roof.