How cosnova increased conversion rates by 30% thanks to user-generated content and Contentsquare insights

The Company

cosnova Beauty is the parent company behind the well-known color cosmetics brands essence and CATRICE. The company is an established player in the drugstore market and has seen rapid growth in the eCommerce sector in recent years.

The Challenge

cosnova was looking for a better way to reach its digitally-savvy target audience who are active on social media. They hypothesized that a realistic representation of products in their Color Cosmetics category would work better than staged photos. Users want to see what the products look like when used, whereas looks created by make-up artists are less relatable.

The team suspected that user-generated content could have a positive effect on branding, customer loyalty, and ultimately conversions.

The Solution

cosnova decided to work with AI-powered visual content brand Social Native to include more user-generated content online. If users add certain hashtags to their Instagram posts, the images are automatically loaded into a widget on cosnova’s website.

Initially, the Social Native widget was implemented on the homepage and below the fold, serving as a “lookbook” to make the brand more accessible. However, the widget was hardly seen by website visitors—only a few users even reached the homepage and even fewer scrolled down to the element.

"
In the beginning, I worked more qualitatively—carrying out usability tests and revising our personas, for example. Recently my focus has changed to more quantitative research, especially now working with Contentsquare."

Katharina Stock

UX researcher at cosnova

Contentsquare Insights

With the help of Contentsquare's Customer Journey Analysis, cosnova was able to find out which pages customers visited the most. The team found the majority of users access product detail pages directly, as they often already have a specific product they want to view when they get to the page. The homepage, on the other hand, is often not visited at all during the customer journey.

It quickly became clear that more points of contact with user-generated content were necessary. Therefore, the team added the widget to various product detail pages, below the main image gallery, and alongside product information.

The team suspected that user-generated content could have a positive effect on branding, customer loyalty, and ultimately conversions.

The Results:

An increase in the conversion rate by 30%

Analysis in Contentsquare’s Zoning Analysis and Page Comparison tools confirmed the team's hypothesis—visitors show more interest in real photos of users than professionally-taken photos. The attractiveness rate of the Instagram photos was much higher than the main photos, so they were clicked more often. 

For products with the social native widget on the page, a 30% higher conversion rate was measured than for products where the widget was not displayed. In addition, the conversion rate per click for users who had interacted with the widget was over 19%.