'Bath Linens & Robes' nav label: +101% bathrobe page visits
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsRenaming the top navigation item from 'Bath Linens' to 'Bath Linens & Robes' doubled visits to bathrobe pages (+101%) and lifted category clicks by 29%.
Frette, the luxury linens brand, ran this test, and it was published as a VWO case study.
The team made the change because bathrobes were the most searched item on the site.
- Clicks on the category: +29%.
- Visits to bathrobe pages: +101%. Many more shoppers found robes from the menu.
- Both are engagement metrics. No sales or revenue figure was shared for this change.
The change
The variant adds 'Robes' to the bath category label in the top navigation.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The top navigation showed a category labeled 'Bath Linens'.
Variant
The same category was labeled 'Bath Linens & Robes', naming the site's top search item in the menu.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Shoppers looking for robes didn't expect to find them under 'Bath Linens'. Naming them removed the guesswork.
- Site search showed what people wanted, so the label matched real demand.
- Clear labels let shoppers browse instead of searching, which can be faster on a luxury site.
Caveats: Only clicks and page visits were reported, not sales. No sample size, duration or confidence level was shared.
Who ran it
Frette ran this test for Frette and published the results (VWO case study). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Frette →
How to run this test on your store
- Hypothesis
- If we add our top-searched product type to the matching navigation label, then more shoppers will find it from the menu because they can see where it lives.
- Primary metric
- Visits to the named product pages from navigation
- Guardrails
- Conversion rate
- Revenue per visitor
- Site search usage
- Who should test it
- Stores where a popular product is hidden under a broader category name. Check site search data first; if your top searches already match your menu labels, this won't help much.
Questions
How do I choose navigation labels?
Use the words shoppers search for. Frette added 'Robes', its top site search, to a menu label and visits to robe pages doubled.
Can changing one word in the menu really matter?
Here it did: category clicks rose 29% and robe page visits 101%.
The source did not report a sales figure for this change, though.
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