Marketing and design are often viewed as two vehicles driving in separate lanes, perpetuated by the fact that many agencies often focus on one or the other as the main service offering.

Marketing and design must work intrinsically together. We choose to view the two disciplines not as separate vehicles, but instead as different parts of the same vehicle. If one part breaks down, your car won’t run and therefore won’t make it to your intended destination.

The two are independent of each other, but when their corresponding processes intertwine, digital solutions become that much richer, and that much more effective.

Is Your Marketing Speaking to the Right Audience?

Although both design and marketing utilize a separate toolkit, they are working to achieve a common goal.

For an eCommerce business, conversions and sales are paramount. And by analyzing conversion rate, we can better understand the way design and marketing intersect.

Ultimately, marketers can spend all day refining their content and targeting, but if a website isn’t designed to optimize for conversion, or poorly reflects your brand story, your message will fall on deaf ears. On the flip side, your digital assets may be sound, but if your marketing is targeting the wrong demographic, you’re not getting in front of the right audience. Which means you aren’t targeting those who will actually click, buy, convert, etc. Furthermore, a business could be creating beautiful content, but if it’s not being optimized on the correct channels, the right users may not see said content.

And while key metrics like bounce rate and time spent on site are optimized during marketing efforts and usually correlate with converting behaviour, it’s the user experience that ensures that these numbers are healthy.

Ultimately, UX and UI design can play to your desired marketing analytics, creating a meaningful digital environment that will encourage users to do what is necessary to convert.

So when addressing the question of whether conversion rate is a design or marketing problem, we can conclude that it’s both.

In order to work optimally, both marketing and design need to be aligned throughout both strategy and execution.

If the two specialties are not intertwined, a business could inadvertently be creating major blind spots. But if both marketing and design teams sit together, and map out their singular objectives, the two can not only work more effectively, they can learn from one another.

From a strategy perspective, a digital product – without intelligent marketing efforts – may miss out on the opportunity to optimize particular components or features that could have serious marketing potential. An integrated practice between both design and marketing allows both teams to be exposed to leads and opportunities they otherwise would not have, inspiring their strategy.

Branding and marketing are hugely connected as well. Branding plays a vital role in the first impression a business makes on a user, and more importantly, the ongoing sentiment a user subconsciously attaches to a business; this could ultimately impact marketing efforts and how effective they are on a business’s intended audience.

How Can Marketing and Design Work Together?

Although many agencies offer both marketing and design as services, they may not necessarily be connecting the two. Observing the missed opportunities spurred us to think about how we can best integrate the two disciplines in a way that isn’t polarizing, but rather complementary.

There are a variety of ways a business can better integrate its process to marry marketing and design.

It is most important to create a process that allows for smooth and effective communication throughout every step of the process. This could entail brainstorming sessions, regular touchpoints and updates, and productive discussions to troubleshoot any issues along the way.

We incorporate marketing into our product strategy and product design stages; this allows our marketing team to give product feedback based on strategy. Furthermore, we believe it is necessary for the marketing team to have a baseline understanding of user experience so that they understand how their decisions impact product design – and vice versa. Our design team – UX and UI – holds a sound understanding of marketing and KPIs, which enables them to create design solutions that achieve strong metrics.

We believe big-picture thinking is key when it comes to creating digital solutions that matter. Every business we work with we approach on a case-by-case basis, which means that our strategy will look different from project to project. We are utilizing design and marketing to solve a unique problem – which means that we need to create a unique solution. Finding that alignment between our services is how we work together and how we ultimately deliver.

So to answer the question driving this article, your conversion rate is both marketing and design-centric. In order to improve your conversion rate, you need to create a balanced relationship between the two practices. If not, you’ll only end up solving one-half of the problem.

Is Your Conversion Rate a Marketing or Design Problem?


Understanding how your potential customers think will enable you to create an optimal online experience that seamlessly moves users from point A to point B.

Today, we will be analyzing practices around user registration, and how cognitive biases could come into play.

How might cognitive biases hinder the process of user registration?

More importantly, how can we turn the tables in order to use these biases to our advantage?


This post will delve into the specifics of the following five cognitive biases: analysis paralysis, fluency heuristic, foot-in-the-door technique, Von Restorff technique, and reciprocity effect.


Have you ever sat on your couch endlessly scrolling Netflix? Or spent an hour going through your Uber Eats app, conflicted by the many culinary offerings in your area? If so, you’re well-acquainted with the concept of analysis paralysis.

Analysis paralysis occurs when the road towards a decision is “paralyzed,” due to overthinking and overanalyzing. In short, no decision is made.

Analysis paralysis is especially prevalent in society today. We live in a world of endless possibilities and choices, particularly when it comes to the internet. Want to buy a yoga mat? The decision isn’t as simple as it may seem. There are probably thousands of yoga mats on the market, making it that much more difficult to make a decision.

At the heart of this bias is the inherent fear of making the wrong decision. Which can stunt an individual from making a clear choice or moving forward with an action. It makes them unsure. Naturally, analysis paralysis can be death for conversions, particularly for user registration.

Looking at user registration, this is the opposite reaction we want users to experience.

Overwhelming users with too many options or too much information all at once can hinder their ability to make a decision. As such, a great way to mitigate the issue of analysis paralysis is to break the registration process down into small, digestible steps. Users need to feel comfortable every step of the way, otherwise, they may second-guess their desire to go through with the process. Keep the information simple, and keep the overall flow – from the first step to the last step – simple.

A fluency heuristic is a mental heuristic that causes an individual to associate a higher value on an object they are able to process more fluently than another.

Before we dive into this one, let’s talk about heuristics. Essentially, it’s a fancy term for mental shortcuts. As human beings, we’re wired to take mental shortcuts whenever we can. We’re dealing with a lot of information every single day – to lessen this mental overload, we often make decisions without thinking – it’s easier and faster.

Thinking about eCommerce practices, this cognitive bias can directly inform the user experience design of a site, speaking to usability and ease of navigation.

When it comes to user registration flows, take the time to design the registration process in a way that makes it easy for users to navigate. Fluency impacts the decisions a user makes online – information that is easier to digest (and requires the least amount of thought) is more likely to spur action (in this case, conversion via user registration).

This can also impact the way you think about the development of your site, accounting for things like page speed and load time. If something takes too long, it’s very likely a user will abandon the entire process.

The foot-in-the-door technique (FITD) is a behavioural tactic that aims to get an individual to agree to a large request by getting them to agree to a more modest request initially.

As far as social tactics are concerned, the FITD technique is widely used. It’s reaching for that low-hanging fruit in order to later strive for more. It’s a compliance strategy at its core, best used for persuasive purposes. It creates a relationship between both parties, also creating trust.

Why does it work? Well, once an individual is already engaged in a particular action, it’s far easier to continue down the same path, and build upon it.

When creating an effective user registration flow, you can and should think about the FITD technique. If there are a variety of pieces of information that you require from a user in order for them to complete the registration process, lead with a smaller request. From there, you can request more information as the user continues along the flow.

This will gently draw the user in, enticing them to take action.

This next cognitive bias plays to our sense of memory.

If you’re presented with a bag of apples filled with a dozen red delicious apples and one granny smith apple, your eye will undeniably be drawn to that one granny smith apple. This is due to the Von Restorff effect, a cognitive bias known as the “isolation effect.”

When multiple objects are presented to an individual, the item with the most distinctive feature (the one that is unlike the others) will be perceived as the most memorable.

User registration flows often present a user with choices. And thinking about this particular cognitive bias will allow you to make specific online actions stand out (i.e. the ones you want your users to make).

If you wish to influence the decision-making process of your users, use design to spotlight the option or action you want your users to take. If, for example, you’re presenting your users with different tiers in a SaaS product, design each option accordingly. This is also an example of nudge theory at work, which was detailed in the last cognitive bias post.

I think we can all agree that positive affirmation feels pretty great. The reciprocity effect plays to this inherent human desire – it’s the social norm of responding to a positive action with another positive action. It’s rewarding kindness with even more kindness. We love it.

Understanding this social phenomenon can help us understand the way users seek to feel when they interact with an online site. Users feel good when we reward them for doing the things you ask of them; whether they complete a section of the registration, or complete the registration as a whole, find ways to reward your users.

This doesn’t have to be complex. Rewards can be as simple as a warm, personalized piece of copy delivered to their inbox. After all, who doesn’t love a good welcome email?

How to Use Cognitive Bias to Improve User Registration

While we as human beings have agency over every choice we make, the journey we take to land on each and every decision is often spurred by some form of cognitive bias.

You may or may not have heard the term “cognitive bias” in passing conversation. You’ve certainly heard of it if you majored in psychology or behavioural studies. Yet here we are, a digital agency, telling you that understanding cognitive biases is integral to the way you think about your eCommerce business.

We’re talking the power of psychology up a big game. Ultimately, we believe it pays to take the time to understand how your customers think and act on a high level.

First of all, you may be wondering: What exactly is a cognitive bias?

In a nutshell, a cognitive bias is why we think the way we do; it’s simultaneously the way we perceive the world around us and how these perceptions affect our judgments and decision-making process, whether it’s rational or not.

We’re all affected by multiple cognitive biases, often at the same time. By taking the time to understand the undeniably complex workings of the human brain, you can gain insight into the why behind every sale you’ve ever made and every sale you’ve ever lost.

At the end of the day, the goal of eCommerce is to drive sales. And understanding the way your potential customers think will enable you to better market your products to them, and better persuade them to make that leap, hit the “add to cart” button and place the order.

There are many cognitive biases out there, but let’s start with five that I believe to be the most relevant to eCommerce.

These are biases that influence the formation of beliefs, impact user decisions, buying decisions, and ultimately give us a look into human behaviour.

Social proof is a psychological and social phenomenon that involves a tendency to copy the actions of others in an attempt to seek validation from others. In short, people tend to view behaviour as more “correct” when others are engaging in the same behaviour.

What’s funny about this bias is how readily we’ve incorporated it into our daily language. “Show me the social proof, Johnny,” you may joke with your buddy.

Truth is, social proof is a powerful cognitive bias so deeply ingrained in our psyche. It deals with our trust in those around us, our trust in the masses. When those around us start raving about a new product, it sparks our interest.

“If all my friends love the new Netflix show, maybe I should check it out too.”

This bias is the tendency to rely on the behaviour of others and allow it to influence our own behaviour. It’s the precise reason why word-of-mouth marketing is as effective as it is.

It also inadvertently explains why the bandwagon effect – the tendency to follow a style, behaviour, or attitude simply because everyone else is doing it – is still so powerful.

As marketers, there are various ways to leverage social proof in the form of reviews, celebrity endorsements, influencer marketing, and friend discount codes.

Scarcity is the tendency to evaluate something as high value due to the belief that the object or service in question is rare or limited while subconsciously assigning a lower value on something that is available in abundance.

Remember when Kim Kardashian’s shapewear line 

 sold out during the first couple of minutes of going live back in 2019? Since every restock sees customers return with the same ferocity as they rush to get their hands on a new drop or finally restocked item before everyone else does. In this case, the knowledge that the items will likely sell out – and fast – drives customers to act. 

The anxiety associated with the fear of missing out is a driving force behind this tendency. FOMO – aka the fear of missing out – is characterized by the fear of regret or the fear of missing out on a worthwhile opportunity.

When we perceive an item as hard to obtain due to scarcity, we attach value to it. We want it more and are willing to either work harder to get it or pay more to own it. And when we do obtain the item, we feel powerful and important.

This bias can be utilized in marketing through time constraints and purchase countdowns (“get 75% off for the next 24 hours!”), online exclusives, seasonal offers, limited availability, and leveraging real-time activity on your eCommerce site.

Loss aversion is a cognitive bias that explains why – for most individuals – the pain of losing is psychologically twice as powerful as the pleasure from gaining.

The stock market can be addictive for many reasons, and one of those reasons is loss aversion bias.

Loss aversion will result in the tendency to avoid loss in comparison to acquiring equivalent gains. Essentially, the act of not losing $10 is more satisfying than gaining $10.

This tendency is why investors are more sensitive to losses than gains; in marketing, understanding the motivations behind loss aversion can have a huge impact on the tactics you choose to employ.

A few marketing methods that utilize loss aversion are discounts and coupons, free trials, pre-order options, and exclusive mailing lists. Furthermore, loss aversion frequently intersects with biases involving social proof and the fear of missing out, as we outlined above.

A nudge spurs an individual to make a particular choice, or behave in a particular way, by altering the environment so that automatic cognition processes are triggered to align with the desired result.

Nudge theory is aptly named; it refers to the actions we take to influence the choices an individual makes without actually taking away their agency to choose. In marketing, it suggests that consumer behaviour can be affected by positive reinforcement and indirect suggestions to sway the decision-making process.

The concept is subtle, with the potential to create a staggering impact.

We as human beings respond to the idea of choice. We value our freedom to make decisions. This is why adding a sneaky dash of incentive or motivation – with minimal intervention – helps your customers along their journey through the marketing funnel.

Choosing to highlight a specific product characteristic (“made with BPA-free plastic”) is an example of a “nudge.”

Seeing a book with the all-important “Oprah’s book club” label is another example of a “nudge” at work.

In eCommerce, nudge theory can be utilized in a variety of ways. Thinking about user experience, nudge theory can be seen at work through visual cues used to direct a consumer’s attention to particular elements or details on a page, like a discount. Product labels highlighting functional benefits or discounts is another way we can employ nudge theory effectively.

These small additional details help customers make decisions more efficiently and confidently. It “nudges” them in the right direction.

Anchoring is a cognitive bias that explains why an individual depends too heavily on an initial piece of information gleaned from the first interaction in the decision-making process.

Every great story has a great hook. Something that grabs you, sparks your curiosity and makes you crave more.

Anchoring as a cognitive bias is similar in concept. It involves a piece of information that instigates that first move towards a decision. This piece of information, or “anchor,” then becomes the driving force behind the entirety of the decision-making process. The other pieces of the puzzle may aid or deter in this process, but this initial anchor is the proverbial “hook.”

Frequently, price anchoring is used to draw customers and increase sales. When you click on a product and see that it’s on sale for $49.99 from its regular price of $79.99, our cognitive bias presents this as an amazing deal we can’t possibly miss out on.

And although $49.99 may actually be an accurate representation of the item’s market value, you as a consumer can’t help but attach a perceived value to the discount. The drop in price is the anchor.

Our brain often seeks mental shortcuts, referred to as heuristics. This is why price anchoring is an effective way to progress the decision-making process, and potentially even create the opportunity for impulse buys.

Price anchoring makes us feel good about making a snap purchase. A lower price is a more attractive price.

This strategy can be utilized by showing market list prices, raising the price of your previous product version, and sorting prices from highest to lowest.

How Cognitive Bias Drives eCommerce Sales

When it comes to eCommerce, design can immediately impact the way users perceive your brand.

Humans are visual creatures. What pleases the eye has a greater chance of pleasing the mind.

When it comes to eCommerce, design can immediately impact the way users perceive a brand. It’s that all-important first impression; design can influence the credibility or value we attach to a brand or company.

, 38% of people will leave a website if they deem the layout unattractive. Furthermore, 57% of online visitors won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed website on mobile.

As illustrated by these statistics, design can make or break your eCommerce website. Bad design can leave an online visitor confused or misled. In contrast, good design can build trust with your customers and community, fostering a strong relationship that eventually leads to conversions and even brand loyalty. A good relationship cannot exist without the foundation of trust.

Today, I'll be outlining a few ways you can utilize best practices in design to foster trust with your online users.

Brands that deliver consistent designs are typically successful because they have created an aesthetic that communicates who they are while also reflecting who their community is. When done effectively, good branding invites others to join in and become a part of this community because the branding has done the work to spark that immediate connection.

When you see a brand that connects with your interests and personality, you feel a sense of meaning. Recognition almost. This feeling makes you feel more connected to a brand off the bat.

While it’s important to make this initial connection, it’s even more important to maintain it.

If you make a friend who suddenly starts acting weird out of the blue, it will likely throw you off. This same logic applies to brand design. If a customer understands you to have a specific design language and aesthetic, they’ll want to see that representation across multiple pages and platforms, without deviation.

Building trust means that you need to show your customers that they can know what to expect from you and therefore rely on you.

Your customers interact with design; it’s the veneer of your company. When this experience is consistent and predictable (and pleasing) it becomes trustworthy. Delivering that same high-quality experience that they love and desire builds the foundation for both brand loyalty and advocacy.

Design Intentionally – For Every Device

Having a beautiful website is important. But it’s also important to have a website experience that optimizes for the device that your customers are viewing.

Through buttons, drop-downs, breadcrumbs, hover states, search bars, and more, you can craft a pleasurable shopping experience that users will want to revisit again and again.

If you can’t find an important CTA button (such as “add to cart”) because the colour blends in a little too strongly with the rest of the design, you make it that much more difficult for users to navigate your site. It complicates their experience and leaves them confused.

Understand what’s important and what’s not; use design to spotlight the key features your users should be able to easily access.

, creating structure, meaning, and consistency.

Design is a beautiful thing. With colour, typography, photography, clever layout, and more, we can create a visual language that communicates the overarching theme of a brand. We can communicate their values, their practices, and what they stand for. The possibilities are endless.

Building trust with users entails showing them the full scope of your brand and all that you have to offer.

Design is your opportunity to think about the story behind your brand and incorporate that messaging into the design of your eCommerce store.

What makes your brand unique? Furthermore, what are the unique personality/value pairings that separate you from other brands in your industry?

With design, you can play to the nuances of your brand with delicacy. Or you can scream them loud and clear if that’s the personality of your brand. The interface of your website is your playground – have fun and stay true to who your brand is. In doing so, you can create a design language that speaks to your brand authentically, and builds trust with your users.

How a Well-Designed Website Builds Trust with Your Customers

Have you ever navigated through an app or a website and found yourself directed to a blank screen, leaving you unsure of what to do next?

This could be the result of a poorly designed empty state.
Users spend time with a digital product to interact with its content. As such, it is understandable that when designing a digital product, a lot of emphasis is placed on allowing the user to enjoy and engage with the content as much as possible.

But how about those “empty state moments” in the user journey where there is no content yet available?

Today let’s take a look at empty states and why they are critical to the user experience, be it in captivating new users, or maintaining existing ones.

Empty states (also known as “zero state”) in UX/UI design is a page or a component of a product that has not yet been filled with content. These areas are meant to display content eventually. However, it is contingent on the completion of a certain task(s) or action(s) on the user’s end.


Many of the pages in these examples can simply be left as, well, 

 However, these moments possess a design opportunity to create an engaging user experience.

We can be honest; most (if not all) users do not actively seek out an empty state page.

Oh boy, let me pull up my empty shopping cart. I would love to have a look at that!

Empty states aren’t as frequented as your ever-updating news feed or the hero page of the flagship product in an ecommerce store. As such, these areas are often overlooked.

However, these small “empty state moments” are important and are equally effective in encouraging user engagement, driving conversions, and communicating your brand values.
So how do we do that?

Let’s take a look at the example of a blank search results page, where a specific phrase or keyword yielded no results.

Rather than leaving your consumers gazing at a blank screen, there is a design opportunity to provide close matches to what they are looking for. This gives your users a chance to explore and engage with similar content, instead of letting them hit a brick wall.

Effective empty state design will inform the user of what’s happening, why it’s happening, and what they can do next.

Going off the previous point, an empty state should not lead the user to a dead-end, and should always have an action. For example, a CTA button can be used to relieve the user’s cognitive load by offering them an easy way to proceed.

This is especially important for new users of your digital product.

For first-time users, learning how to navigate an interface and figuring out how to proceed with certain actions can be difficult. This can be alleviated by implementing simple-to-follow actions to help users get started and understand the product’s functionalities.

Empty states are usually either devoid of content or are displaying information of an error due to some sort of technical difficulty. Both of these scenarios are generally perceived negatively by the user.
So how do we take a blank screen or error message and prevent it from being monotonous and uninteresting?

Some of you (I dare say) older readers might remember this from the early 2000’s:

Sure, there’s a bit of guidance and some CTA’s in there, but let’s compare it to this one:

Adding personality and charm is a clever technique to improve a negative experience such as a 404 error, into a memorable one. Crafting memorable copy and illustrations can go a long way in generating a positive user experience.

What Are the Results of Bad Empty State Design?

When considering the user experience of a digital product, it is usually the first interaction that feels the most daunting. New users of any digital product may feel dissuaded from learning and adopting a new platform if they aren’t provided with proper guidance during the onboarding process.

Think about the last several times that you downloaded a new app on your phone, or signed up for a new account on a website.

Did you feel comfortably guided through the onboarding process on every occasion?

Have you ever just given up on using an app because you couldn’t be bothered to figure out how to navigate its interface?

The negative effects of a “bad” empty state are accentuated on new users.

Consider empty states as a vast waiting room. Users in this area are seeking direction through your digital product. Failure to guide users will result in the aforementioned “dead end”, leaving them confused (and potentially frustrated).

These negative experiences can drive a user away outright.

Paul Crimi Product Design

Paul Crimi Product Design

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