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Why Your Test Only Lifted Conversions a small percentage
Sometimes the answer isn’t the variation. It’s who it resonated with.
Brian Schmitt
October 19, 2025
You ran the test.
It won.
2% lift in add-to-carts.
Not earth-shattering. But directionally right. Enough to call it a win.
So… why wasn’t it bigger?
Most teams stop there.
But here’s the question smart teams ask:
“Who did this actually work for?”
Not all customers buy the same way.
And you won’t find the answer in GA4, funnel reports, or your heatmap tool.
Because the biggest hidden variable in conversion isn’t traffic source.
It’s buying modality.
The 4 Buyer Modalities
This framework comes from Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg’s persuasive architecture playbook, “Waiting For Your Cat To Bark?”
They identified four distinct buying styles that show up in every audience:
Buyer Type | What They Want |
|---|---|
Competitive | The best option, quickly. Results-driven. |
Spontaneous | A quick win, a fun buy. Driven by emotion. |
Methodical | The full picture. Every detail. Logic first. |
Humanistic | Trust, meaning, connection. Values-led. |
Win of the Week:
Problem:
Customers struggled to intuitively navigate product categories. Card sort research revealed that many shoppers didn’t understand how products were grouped. Causing hesitation and drop-off in the browsing experience.
Discovery:
Session recordings and card sort analysis uncovered that users weren’t always sure which category to click. What made perfect sense to a merchandiser, felt confusing to real shoppers.
Hypothesis:
If we restructured the top nav to match how customers naturally grouped products, it would reduce hesitation, increase product discovery, and lead to more conversions.
Test:
Updated category names and reorganized the nav based on card sort insights.
The goal: reduce ambiguity and match the mental models of the customer.
Result:
+3.6% lift in add-to-carts
+5.3% lift in transactions
+21.3% lift in revenue per visitor
→ $149,592 annualized revenue impact
Lesson:
When your category structure matches how your customers actually think, you make it easier for them to say “yes.”
You can’t tag a visitor as “Methodical” or “Spontaneous” in your analytics.
But once you understand these lenses, you start to see them everywhere.
In survey data.
In session recordings.
In which sections convert—and which ones are skipped.
This is why your “small win” might actually make perfect sense.
If your test was emotional, visual, or urgency-driven…
It probably resonated with Spontaneous buyers.
They’re fast, intuitive, and responsive to surface-level changes.
But your Methodical buyers?
They might’ve been confused by the new layout.
Your Humanistic buyers?
Still waiting to feel something real.
So a 2% lift?
It’s not bad.
It’s just what happens when your test works for one group, but not all of them.
Quote of the week:
Predictable marketing requires an understanding of the circumstances in which customers buy or use things. Specifically, customers—people and companies—have “jobs” that arise regularly and need to get done. When customers become aware of a job that they need to get done in their lives, they look around for a product or service that they can “hire” to get the job done.
How this changes your testing strategy
You’re not trying to write copy that converts everyone at once.
You’re trying to understand which buyer type your test is really speaking to.
That subtle shift changes everything:
You write hypotheses with more context
You segment results more thoughtfully
You realize a flat result isn’t always a failed idea—it might be a narrow one
You build layered pages that serve more buying styles over time
The best PDPs aren’t cluttered. They’re intentional.
They let a Spontaneous shopper scroll and feel fast.
And give the Methodical shopper everything they need to slow down and decide.
Your test result is just the beginning.
The real insight?
Who said yes.
And who still isn’t ready.
Looking forward,
P.S. Wondering what type of buyer your next test might resonate with? Let’s talk.
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