Why did my conversion rate drop?
Short answer
Most drops come from a change in who visited, not from the site breaking. Ask the question, then split it four ways: traffic source, device, the funnel step that fell, and the landing page. If paid social grew, the rate falls on its own. If one step fell for every source, fix that step.
The question and the data it needs
Ask
“why did my conversion rate drop last week?”
| Data | What it adds |
|---|---|
| Your site analytics | Sessions and orders by day, traffic source and device |
| The funnel | Add to cart, checkout and purchase for each landing page |
| Your ad accounts | Spend by day, to see whether an ad push brought colder traffic |
Traffic mix moves the rate on its own
Visitors from different sources buy at very different rates. For the median store, paid social is the largest source, about 31% of visits, and among the slowest to buy.
Email visitors buy 3.5 times as often as paid social visitors
Email and SMS
4.6%
Organic search
3.2%
Paid search
2.4%
Direct
1.5%
Paid social
1.3%
Organic social
1.3%
What to ask, in order
Compare full weeks
Ask for last week against the four weeks before it. A partial day or a holiday week makes any rate look broken.
Split it by traffic source
If the share of paid social visits grew, the total falls even when each source holds steady. Paid social converts at 1.3% for the median store, email at 4.6%.
Split it by device
About 80% of the median store's visits are on phones. A drop on phones only points to a layout or speed problem on mobile.
Find the funnel step that fell
Fewer add-to-carts points at the product page or the offer. Fewer checkouts after add to cart points at shipping costs or the cart.
Find the page that changed
Ask which landing pages lost the most orders. A page that changed last week is the first suspect.
Check the answer before you act
Count the orders yourself
Match the order count to your store's own orders report for the same dates. A tracking gap can look like a drop.
Look for a change you made
A new theme, price, shipping rule or ad campaign in the same week usually explains more than any chart.
Test the fix
Change the step that fell, then split-test the new version against the old one before rolling it out.
Ask your own store
Connect your store, ads and Search Console once. Replo answers now, then emails the same answer every week.
“why did my conversion rate drop last week?”
Frequently asked questions
- What is a normal conversion rate for an online store?
- Among the thousands of stores built on Replo, the median store converts 1.8% of visits over the last 30 days, and the middle half sit between 0.9% and 3.0%. Your own last month is the better yardstick, because your traffic mix sets your rate.
- Why did my conversion rate drop when sales didn't?
- Because visits grew faster than orders. An ad push, a viral post or bot traffic adds visits that rarely buy, so the rate falls while sales hold. Split the week by traffic source before you change the site.
- Can ChatGPT tell me why my conversion rate dropped?
- Only from numbers you paste in, and only once. Replo reads your site, store and ad data directly, splits the drop by source, device, funnel step and page, and can build and test the fix on the page it finds.
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