Rethink your winery website and start measuring conversions

Have you ever run a marketing campaign and been underwhelmed by its success? Maybe you sent an email blast or paid for an advertisement in a magazine or online. Your team put together a really compelling pitch and even had a designer jazz it up. That fateful launch day arrived and you were sorely disappointed as only a few online orders streamed in. It would be easy to blame yourself, the publication, or the design, but so rarely have I seen wineries uncover the true culprit: their website.

Over the last 12 months, my thinking has evolved about how we should approach winery websites. At our agency Highway 29 Creative, we used to think of a website design project as just that, “a project.” The problem is, a project has a clear start and end. I’ll be the first to admit, we were doing it wrong.

Measure Success

When someone interviews our agency for their web design project they always ask for our design portfolio. I oblige and send them to the previous sites we launched. The prospective client most likely asked a few other agencies for the same and compares the portfolios to decide which design style they like best. This is the equivalent of going to a car dealership and buying a car simply because of the color and design. It fails to address the most critical part of a car: its performance. 

It’s time to stop hiring agencies based on design. Sure, design is important, but it’s not the most important part of your website. Your website’s performance is its most important aspect and that is measured by its conversion rate, which is the percentage of people that take a specific action.

For a winery website there are four key conversions you most likely want to measure: online purchases, reservations for tastings, wine club sign ups, and mailing list sign ups. 

When you hire an agency to design your website and then the project ends, how do you measure success? Most likely by how “pretty” it is, but I have news for you, pretty doesn’t always convert and sometimes fancy design can get in the way of conversions. 

Pivot and Test

The biggest problem I am seeing in regards to winery ecommerce is that a winery makes a large investment into a website and then assumes they don’t have to work on their site again for at least three to five years. They assume that by paying a designer with a pretty portfolio it will, of course, work and increase sales. My challenge to this type of thinking is, “What does that designer know about ecommerce conversions?”

At our agency Highway 29 Creative, we live by the mantra from author and podcast super-host Brene Brown, “We are not here to be right, we are here to get it right.” When we design and launch a new website, we are doing so based on our experience of what design elements might help you sell more wine online. But, the problem is, if we don’t actually measure that, how do we really know? Also, if we treat this as a “project” and simply take our payment and leave, how can we improve the site if we were wrong?

We are very fortunate to have developed a long term relationship with famed Napa Valley winery Trefethen Family Vineyards. We worked with them to launch their new website last summer and instead of calling the project done, we have maintained the relationship to assist them with their marketing and ecommerce. 

There have been times we launched a new digital ad, but it didn't take off as much as we would have wished. Instead of blaming the ad, we started digging into the website itself. We made a lot of educated guesses about what would increase their conversion rate, but we needed to make sure we were correct.

Behind the scenes, we have been running multiple tests on their site to hone in and optimize their conversion rate. We utilize a tool called Google Optimize which allows us to test different landing pages and compare results. In a recent test, we compared two different shop page designs to see if simple tweaks would impact conversion rates. The results have been outstanding. While the conversation rate itself, defined as the percent of people that purchased who visited the website, did not change more than 0.01%, we did find that the average order value was 2.5x higher on one of the pages than the other. 

This new way of thinking has radically changed our approach to web design. In order to “get it right,” we need to maintain the relationship with our clients, measure success, constantly test new designs, and be humble enough to pivot should we find a better solution.

Now You Can Measure Conversions Too

As we started to rethink our approach to websites, we realized the key would be data and analytics. We asked around to our friends in the industry and could not find anyone that decisively knew how to set up these types of advanced analytics tracking systems and most importantly integrate them with the two major e-commerce platforms in the wine industry: Commerce7 and WineDirect.

We took it upon ourselves to dive in and learn. After months of testing and trials we are excited to launch our new ecommerce analytics service so wineries of all sizes have access to the critical data they need to grow their businesses.

With our ecommerce analytics service you will be able to track the four main conversions of online purchases, reservations for tastings, wine club sign ups, and mailing list sign ups. All of the data will be fed into your Google Analytics account in a simple to read dashboard so you can easily understand your ecommerce conversions without needing a Master’s degree in computer science. 

We heard from too many wineries that it was impossible to track the effectiveness of digital ads with a system such as WineDirect or Commerce7, but we are happy to say that is no longer the case. With this new service we will also be able to track these conversions (and more!) and easily attribute them to either Facebook, Instagram, or Google Ads. 

Let’s Define Benchmarks Together

The wine industry is full of outstanding data thanks to annual reports from Silicon Valley Bank, Sovos, Wines & Vines, Commerce7, WineDirect, and more. However, none of these reports have established benchmarks for ecommerce conversions. 

As an industry we spend millions of dollars a year in advertising and marketing, but for too long we have ignored the simple fact that no matter how good our marketing is, a poorly designed website can negate all these efforts. 

Our goal at Highway 29 Creative is to roll out our analytics service to the industry and start creating benchmarks for online conversion rates. Our team will study the industry’s most and least effective websites to determine which design and user experience elements are critical to your ecommerce success. Do bottle shots or lifestyle shots lead to more sales? What about user reviews or critic’s scores? We have just begun to dive into these findings and our hope is that with more data and a larger sample size, we will be able to provide definitive answers so we can all grow and sell more wine together.

Get Analytics For Your Winery’s Website

We believe that every winery deserves to have advanced analytics and insights no matter the size of your business.

Our analytics service is only $550 per year and those that sign up will be given exclusive access to the full annual benchmark report so they can work with their web designer to improve their website and increase conversions. 

For the average winery, $540 is the cost of a case or two of wine. The insights you gain from better data analytics will surely help you sell more than that and deliver a quick return on investment.

Learn More About Our Analytics Service

Simon Solis-Cohen is the founder of Highway 29 Creative, a leading digital and creative agency serving the wine industry. He challenges clients to think about the future and constantly innovate. The agency chases data, not fads, and provides one-stop shopping for wineries looking to enter or jolt their direct to consumer sales. Their approach starts by designing and building a website focused on conversion (wine sales, club sign ups & tasting room reservations) and then dives into each digital channel with consistent and effective content and messaging. What to learn more or looking for advice? Shoot Simon a message at simon@hwy29creative.com.