In a keyword-driven Web world, brand manufacturers get more than their fair share of Web shopping traffic.  But because most manufacturers maintain a relatively small direct-to-consumer business, they largely rely on online retail partners to convert leads that originate on their websites.  Disintermediated from the final sale, manufacturers often know little about how to optimize the lead referral process that begins on their own websites.

To gain some valuable insight into how manufacturers can help optimize sales conversions downstream, Forrester teamed up with Channel Intelligence, a company that tracks the purchase path of leads from manufacturers’ websites to online retailers’ websites.  Forrester and Channel Intelligence analyzed over 44 million clicks across 150 manufacturer websites spanning two full years of closed-loop sales data (2010-2011).  In our new report, “Top Three Ways Manufacturers Can Drive Higher Conversion Rates Through the Online Retail Channel,” we identify clear best practices from the clickstream analysis.  A sample of key findings:     

• Be direct and aggressive with “Buy” button language and placement. For example, manufacturers that put the word “buy” first on a purchase button see 53% higher average conversion rates downstream at online retail websites than those that display the word “buy” as the second or third word (e.g. Where To Buy).
• Be maximally transparent on price.  Manufacturers that display both MSRP and actual retail prices experience a 111% higher conversion rate downstream on online retail websites than those manufacturers that show an MSRP but no actual online retail prices.
• Use knowledge of product inventory status to drive sales. Forrester found that when manufacturers display product stock status on behalf of online retailers (indicating whether those online retailers are in or out of stock of a product) they see average conversion rates that are more than 100% higher downstream than when they show no product stock status.

To see other key findings and read more about how manufacturers can drive higher conversion rates through the online retail channel, you can download the full report here.