The Science-based Playbook of Ecommerce Optimization

🎓 Improve your Ecommerce sales with the latest science

In recent years, scientists from the world’s best universities have discovered hundreds of improvements for Ecommerce businesses.

For example, their scientific findings tell us how:

• Long to wait before asking for a customer review (Jung et al., 2022)
• To easily make products look more attractive (Sharma & Kumar, 2022)
• To frame promotions so that they convert better (e.g. Zane et al., 2021)

But only very few giant businesses (e.g. Amazon, Walmart) have the teams of PhDs, time, and money to analyze and apply these discoveries.

So everyone else is left to rely on biased opinions, sketchy “$ecr€t tips to +997% sales”, or has to reinvent the wheel themselves - wasting precious resources.

This is absurd. So we fixed it.

Presenting: the latest, most useful, scientific discoveries to optimize your Ecommerce store, in a simple, practical Playbook.

📙 What’s in the Playbook

1) 74 Ecommerce recommendations, based on the latest scientific research.

2) Practical instructions on what to optimize and why, with examples.

3) $2,200 and 1,200+ pages worth of research papers, summarized.

No fluff and straight to the point. Everything is condensed in just 48 pages.

Created in collaboration with Stefano Puntoni, Professor of Marketing at Wharton Business School (arguably the best marketing school in the world).

📈 How to use it

Use these recommendations to prioritize your optimization experiments, or as a guide when creating a new Ecommerce store.

Always try to test these changes on a small scale before implementing widely. Differences in the context of your business can make these effects unexpectedly weaker or stronger.

A (non-exhaustive) list of the areas the playbook helps you optimize:

1. Product images and videos
2. Stronger social proof
3. Messaging and descriptions
4. Loyalty and retention
5. Promotions pricing and framing
6. Collecting reviews
7. Driving customer referrals
8. Reducing product returns
9. Turning complaints into sales

❌ What you should not expect

• None of that ‘marketing guru’ sketchy advice. This is published, peer-reviewed science.
• No decades-old techniques that everyone is using. Only the latest discoveries.
• No vague, hard-to-apply principles. These are specific practical instructions.
• No filler content. Short and straight to the point. Bullet points, tables, and short examples.
• Not a beginner's guide. These are professional, high-performance optimizations.

FAQs

Q: Can I find this research elsewhere?

Yes, you can analyze the research papers yourself (and should, if there’s one you’re deep diving into) in scientific journals such as the Journal of Marketing or Marketing Science. All studies are referenced and linked.

But unless you are someone who reviews the 10,000+ marketing studies published each year, buys each research paper for $30+, and knows how to interpret academic research - you will have never heard of most of these techniques. 

The research papers in this playbook alone would cost you over $2,000. And my team and I have spent over 1,000 hours distilling this research into these practical recommendations.

Q: Is this for small or large Ecommerce businesses?

These recommendations are useful for Ecommerce stores, but you should prioritize them differently.

If you are just starting out, apply some of the most crucial recommendations (e.g. show your product’s views numbers, display the optimal reviews), but before moving on to more advanced ones make sure you get your basics right (e.g. A/B test your headings and key imagery).

If you are more advanced you can apply all insights right away, prioritized based on how optimized each part of your business already is.

Q: Is this just a collection of insights covered in the Science Says newsletter?

No. Most of the insights in the playbook (not all) have been covered in the newsletter. But in the playbook they are enriched with more examples, focused on Ecommerce, and explained so that you can rapidly apply them to your store.

Q: What kind of research is included in the playbook?

All the studies covered in the playbook have survived rigorous statistical analyses, peer-review (i.e. picked apart and challenged by other scientists), and been published in a reputable scientific journal (e.g. Journal of Marketing Research).

Research that has not been published in a journal may not have been peer-reviewed, so it is not included.

Q: What if I don’t see any results?

You get your money back. If you tested these techniques and didn’t see a statistically significant lift in conversions you will get a refund (within 90 days of purchase).

I’d appreciate it if you can share how you applied what didn’t work, so academic researchers can use the learning to advance our scientific understanding, but this is optional.

Q: Considering all the above, the price seems a bit low

The mission of Science Says is to close the gap between the latest science and practice. I try to keep the pricing accessible while generating enough margins.

The majority of revenue is spent on salaries (marketing PhDs who help summarize and verify the research, designers, and marketing writers). The rest is invested in growing Science Says' reach and developing new products to be a sustainable business.

Note: If you become an Science Says Platform member, you get an additional 10% off!

About Science Says

• Science Says turns the latest science in marketing into 3min practical recommendations. You can join thousands of evidence-based marketers getting new insights every week here - at no cost.
• And I am Thomas McKinlay, the founder of Science Says. Before starting Science Says in 2020, I was a product marketer at Google. I found it crazy how slowly we put to use the latest discoveries from the brightest scientists in the world, so I decided to do something about it.

Playbook bundle offers: Looking to buy one of the bundles of Playbooks? You can find info about each Playbook on their individual pages: Pricing & Promotions ⏺ Ad Creatives ⏺ SaaS Optimization