Category story bubbles on mobile homepage: +10.9% revenue per visitor
Adding a row of Instagram-style category bubbles above the mobile homepage hero lifted revenue per visitor by 10.9%. Oliver Kenyon ran this test for a 7-figure leather goods brand. Average order value rose 7.7% and conversion rate rose 2.9%.
- Revenue per visitor: +10.9%, worth about $25,440 a month to the brand.
- Average order value: +7.7%. People who bought spent more, which may mean they found more of the range.
- Conversion rate: +2.9%. A smaller lift, so most of the gain came from larger orders.
The change
A row of round category bubbles sits above the unchanged hero.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The mobile homepage opened with the header, then a large hero image with the line "Full-grain leather, made to last".
Variant
A scrollable row of round category thumbnails was added between the header and the hero: Wallets, Phone Cases, Crossbody, Laptop Cases, Backpacks and Totes. The hero and products stayed the same.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- mobile shoppers already know the round-thumbnail pattern from social apps, so it needs no explaining.
- the bubbles show the whole range above the fold, so first-time visitors see what the store sells without opening the menu.
- seeing several categories at once may lead shoppers to browse and add more, which fits the AOV lift.
Caveats: Sample size, test length and statistical confidence were not shared. This was a single store and a mobile-only change.
Who ran it
Oliver Kenyon (@oliverkenyon) shared this test on X. The numbers and screenshots are theirs.
View the original post on X
How to run this test on your store
- Hypothesis
- If we add a row of tappable category bubbles above our mobile homepage hero, then more visitors will find and buy products because they can see the whole range without opening the menu.
- Primary metric
- Revenue per visitor
- Guardrails
- Conversion rate
- Homepage bounce rate
- Clicks on the hero call to action
- Who should test it
- Mobile-heavy stores with several distinct categories and a mood-led hero. It adds less if you sell one product or a very small range.
Questions
What are story bubbles on an ecommerce homepage?
They are a row of round, tappable thumbnails, styled like social media stories, each linking to a category. Here there were six, from Wallets to Totes.
Do category bubbles help on mobile homepages?
They did in this test. Revenue per visitor rose 10.9%, mostly through a 7.7% rise in average order value.
Should category links go above or below the hero?
This test put them above the hero, so they were visible right away. The hero was kept, just pushed down.
Similar tests
@oliverkenyon@oliverkenyon@oliverkenyon
@DaveDiederen@DaveDiederen@DaveDiederen