SESSION NOTES #009. Your product page is a portal - is it acting like one?

In my last issue, we spoke about how advertisers often send their Meta Ads to the wrong page instead of just giving the people what they want - STTPP (straight to the product page, it's going to catch on trust me).

Meta & Google have figured this out which is likely one of the drivers behind their obsession with automated, feed-driven ads. In the e-commerce accounts I’m looking at, more than 50% of paid traffic is landing straight on the product page - skipping past the homepage and the category page entirely.

Product pages have the potential to be strong portals into discovery, but without treating them like one shoppers can bounce out as quickly as they bounced in.

So let's get on our phones, click on some shopping ads, and judge some brands on three things that keep people shopping.

Once just a line item on the SEO checklist, breadcrumbs are arguably even more important for UX. Entering on a product page and being able to see all products in that category in one click? Pure delight.

Dead End - I usually commend brands on trying something different, but Venroy’s “Go Back” feature is a fail in this context. You can’t go back when you just arrived - and when you tap it, it goes nowhere. Sad.

Detour - The classic “Home / Product” breadcrumb isn’t helping anyone. Savvy shoppers know they can tap the Kivari logo to hit the homepage - so if people want to see more playsuits the only way is to detour via the nav. “All Products / Product" is the bare minimum if you're fighting your site theme - but "Category / Product" is better.

Shortcut - Ksubi’s two-tier breadcrumb - with category and subcategory, both linked - is chef’s kiss. Bonus points for the oversized search bar with a suggested search already sitting in it. Some brands just get it. (not sponsored.)

There's more than one way to skin a nav, but the goal should always be the same - even your most technophobic relative should be able to find what they’re looking for.

Detour - Venroy’s mobile nav is more complex than it needs to be. Women's new arrivals exists in two places - one somewhat buoyant, one buried. Duplicate paths are a tell. If you can't decide where something should live, your shopper probably won’t be able to either.

Shortcut - Ksubi’s nav is more streamlined by comparison. New Arrivals lands high under "Apparel" - not hidden under a vague heading. Men and Women are tabs rather than extra levels, which keeps the whole structure neat. Bonus points for default opening the "By Category" section, which is exactly how most people want to shop. (still not sponsored.)

At this point, pretty much every site has some version of "style it with," "you may also like," or "recently viewed." Most are fine. These two are doing it better than fine:

We can't think linearly about the customer journey.

Homepage > category > product > cart > checkout > sale is satisfying to draw on a whiteboard but it's just not reflective of what's actually happening - particularly for paid traffic.

Product pages are portals. The best ones pull people deeper - exploring categories, browsing more products and building up carts. The worst ones send people straight back to where they came from. Yours shouldn’t be one of them.

So when you finish this article, open up a product page on your phone:

If you stumble across dead ends or detours then it's time you lodge a ticket in Jira and make some changes.

Next issue: Meta Creative FAQs. Got a question? Hit reply and send it through.

Cheers,

Sarah Arvela Webb

_{Brought to you by Eucalyptus oil and some tough love from Mr. Wormwood.}