Updated from TB 1.0 to 1.5 - Google ads conversion rate halved

[PayNTSC]

Hello.

I noticed late last year that my ThirtyBees installation was quite outdated, but waited until after Christmas to do an update in fear of breaking anything. I spend a fair amount on google ads which has been working quite well, but instantly after the update my conversion rate halved (from about 8% to around 4%). Nothing seems broken about the site and no other changes to UI or the template have taken place.

I noticed a few issues had come up, like the site was slower due a cache settings change but fixed that pretty quickly. I found some php errors including some warnings about blockcart module and php encryption not having a key, but I've fixed those tonight. They were all just warnings and didn't seem to have an effect on using the site.

I'm still getting roughly the same amount of impressions and clicks, but the conversions have really taken a hit so there seems to be something that is putting buyers off. I'm getting sales spread across all the payment and carrier options as before so doesn't seem like any of those aren't working and killing sales.

It could be a coincidental blip in sales, but the shop has been performing very consistently with ads for about 5 months and it's been a week since the update and the difference in sales is very significant.

Any suggestions on where to look next?

Thanks

[30knees]

I can only imagine something in the checkout. Did you go through a test buy yourself?

[the.rampage.rado]

Did you consider that overall customers spend far less in January compared to December?

For me the sales and conversions are probably less than 30% of December numbers.

[PayNTSC]

8 hours ago, 30knees said:

I can only imagine something in the checkout. Did you go through a test buy yourself?

I did but not every combination of payment / shipping. I'll set aside some time to do that. I'm thinking something has changed about the checkout process as well but I can't really go back and compare. I do have a backup which I might be able to hose elsewhere to check. Thanks.

[PayNTSC]

2 hours ago, the.rampage.rado said:

Did you consider that overall customers spend far less in January compared to December?

For me the sales and conversions are probably less than 30% of December numbers.

January was very good, it was from the 3rd of February the drop happened - pretty sure it's not seasonal.

[the.rampage.rado]

Many things happened since February 1st... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events/February_2024 😄 but I doubt some of those is affecting your site.

So January your site was updated and you had normal business and this is only now since February? Or you updated the website end of January?

[PayNTSC]

Updated night of the 2nd of February, immediate drop from 3rd of Feb.

[30knees]

You had a lower rate of conversions around mid January. It could be a normal fluctuation. Your conversions started sinking before the update. Then they rose and then sank.

[the.rampage.rado]

For me also it could be normal. I would give it longer time to gather more data.

[PayNTSC]

4 hours ago, 30knees said:

You had a lower rate of conversions around mid January. It could be a normal fluctuation. Your conversions started sinking before the update. Then they rose and then sank.

Thanks for the observation. Taking averages from pre-update and pre-christmas compared to post update make it seem like an obvious change. As the.rampage.rado suggest more data will be useful but I thought I'd ask in case anyone had similar experiences. I'll try to report back later when more time has passed or if I fix any issues that make a difference. Glad the freakout has made me spend time fixing up the issues at the least. Thanks again.

[PayNTSC]

Quick update to say that everything seems fine - while there might be a bit of a longterm dip for market reasons, nothing seems to be broken and I can stop freaking out, though that was useful to fix some issues. "more data required" was the winner and thanks for all the help.