Gallery thumbnails plus a higher sticky CTA: +7.17% conversion
Test run byBlend CommerceCRO agency
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsShowing image thumbnails in the product gallery, together with a sticky add-to-cart button placed higher on the page, lifted conversion rate by 7.17% for a sports nutrition brand's Ireland site.
Blend Commerce ran this two-week A/B test. Both changes shipped together, so the result can't be credited to either one alone.
- Conversion rate: +7.17%.
- Revenue per visitor: +6.26%.
- Add-to-cart clicks: +9.61%.
- Sticky CTA clicks: +35.07%, which suggests the sticky button did much of the work.
The change
Thumbnails are shown and the sticky add-to-cart appears sooner.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The product gallery had no thumbnails. The sticky add-to-cart button only appeared after shoppers scrolled down.
Variant
Thumbnails were shown under the gallery, and the sticky add-to-cart button was placed higher so it showed sooner.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- An earlier test on the same Ireland site added thumbnails alone and lost. The team's reading was that thumbnails took up space and pushed the buy options down.
- Moving the sticky button up kept the add-to-cart action in reach while thumbnails used more room.
- The big jump in sticky CTA clicks points to easier access to the button as a key driver.
Caveats: This was a bundled test of two changes, so neither can be credited alone. It ran for two weeks on the Ireland site only, and significance and sample size were not shared.
Who ran it
Blend Commerce ran this test for a sports nutrition brand and published the results (Blend Commerce A/B test). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Blend Commerce →
How to run this test on your store
- Hypothesis
- If we show gallery thumbnails and keep a sticky add-to-cart button visible early, then conversion will rise because shoppers can browse images without losing sight of the buy button.
- Primary metric
- Conversion rate
- Guardrails
- Add-to-cart rate
- Revenue per visitor
- Mobile vs desktop conversion
- Who should test it
- Stores whose product pages have several images and buy options that sit low on the page. If your buy button is already high and visible, the sticky change may add little.
Questions
Do gallery thumbnails increase conversions?
It depends. On this brand's Ireland site, thumbnails alone lost, but paired with a better-placed sticky button they won.
Watch whether thumbnails push your buy button out of view.
When should a sticky add-to-cart appear?
Usually once the main button scrolls out of view.
In this test, showing it sooner helped, with sticky button clicks up 35.07%.
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