McAfee Secured and other trust badges: +6% sales conversions
Test run byConversion FanaticsCRO agency
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsAdding security trust elements, including a McAfee Secured badge, raised sales conversions by 6% and revenue per visitor by 15%.
Conversion Fanatics ran this A/B test for an anonymized high-volume ecommerce store and shared it on its blog in 2018.
- Sales conversion rate: +6%. Conversion Fanatics notes that on a high-volume store, a small rise adds up to a lot of revenue.
- Revenue per visitor: +15%, a bigger lift than conversions alone, which suggests larger orders too.
- Sample size, test length and confidence level were not shared.
The change
Variant adds security trust badges; real placement was not stated.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The site showed no security trust elements.
Variant
Trust elements were added, including a McAfee Secured badge, to reassure shoppers that their payment details were safe.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Some shoppers still worry their card details could be stolen, and a known security brand eases that worry.
- A recognizable third-party name can carry more weight than a store's own claims about safety.
- Extra reassurance may have made shoppers more comfortable placing bigger orders, which would explain the revenue per visitor gain.
Caveats: The source is a short 2018 video transcript that does not say where the badges appeared, which other trust elements were added or how big the sample was. Shopper attitudes to security badges may have changed since then.
Who ran it
Conversion Fanatics ran this test for an anonymized high-volume ecommerce store and published the results (Conversion Fanatics blog case study). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Conversion Fanatics →
How to run this test on your store
- Hypothesis
- If we show a recognized security badge where shoppers enter or decide to share payment details, then more will complete purchases because they feel their information is safe.
- Primary metric
- Sales conversion rate
- Guardrails
- Revenue per visitor
- Checkout abandonment rate
- Page load speed
- Who should test it
- Lesser-known stores, or those selling higher-priced items, where buyers may not yet trust the site. Well-known brands may see little change, since shoppers already trust them.
Questions
Do security badges like McAfee Secured still work?
This 2018 test found a lift, but results vary by audience and brand awareness.
Test a badge on your own traffic rather than assuming it helps.
Where should a security badge go?
Common spots are near the add-to-cart button or in checkout, where payment worries peak.
This source did not say where the badges were placed.
Can trust badges hurt conversions?
They can if the page gets cluttered or the badge looks out of place.
Keep the number small and watch revenue per visitor as well as conversion rate.
Similar tests
@oliverkenyon@oliverkenyon
Blend Commerce
@Rubendgrf
Clean CommitClean Commit