Between leadership buy-in, copy and designer creativity, and custom development, revamping the digital face of your brand (aka your website) is a massive undertaking that can — and should — have leaders asking, “Is this going to be worth it?”
The tricky part is that a website redesign’s financial return on investment (ROI) is elusive, multifactored, and challenging to track. So asking, “How much additional revenue can we expect by launching a new website?” isn’t that helpful when deciding whether to greenlight the project.
Instead, business leaders should approach this type of venture by considering its potential impact on key performance and revenue indicators rather than simply revenue itself.
Below are the metrics and KPIs our team at DEPT® suggests tracking, plus how to redesign a website that positively impacts these KPIs. Finally, we have some examples of website redesigns that have achieved ROI using this approach.
Beyond the bottom line
Like any project, you should set reasonable expectations of what is possible to achieve by redesigning your website. Launching an updated website isn’t going to magically double your in-store sales in a week.
To understand your ROI, focus on the right growth and revenue KPIs relevant to your website and reflect on what is achievable through this project. These might include:
- Online revenue – Consider how adding new features, such as ApplePay, or reducing friction within the online or mobile buying process will impact average order value and overall revenue.
- Leads created – For B2B companies, professional services providers, or brands that sell high-priced items, an uptick in newly generated leads can be just as valuable as revenue from the website.
- Engagement rates – Are users staying on your site longer, engaging with more content, repeat visiting, and/or making it further in their buying journey? These can all be major indicators of success.
- Page views and/or site visits: The more people coming to your site, the more likely your marketing/sales funnel grows.
- Marketing conversions: Tracking activity such as event or webinar sign-ups, content downloads, or form submissions helps you understand what digital marketing efforts are most effective and how the website experience impacts them.
Quick cost-cutting wins
You won’t immediately see most of the positive impacts of redesigning your website. But depending on where and how your website is set up, you may be able to immediately reduce website costs and save money long-term during this process.
Hosting costs
Newer platforms built with cloud and SaaS at the forefront of their architecture tend to save you money due to their modern design. They are composable and scalable out of the box. Older platforms that lived on-premise before moving to cloud can sometimes be more expensive to host. They are not true Cloud SaaS products and require more overhead and resources to compete with the scale newer platforms can support.
Automation capabilities
Running your site on a legacy platform can cost unnecessary time and money.
Consider a brand that needs to publish content across 25 regions. On the company’s traditional setup, it takes a content manager two hours to post a new article as the process requires translating the piece for each region, going to every region’s local site, and publishing it 25 individual times. On a newer headless CMS platform, such as Contentstack or Sanity, this distribution could be automated along with a translation service — reducing the process from two hours to 20 minutes.
How to redesign a website that delivers on your KPIs
We’ve outlined some key metrics you should be tracking to understand the full picture of how your redesigned website produces ROI. Now, onto the million-dollar questions: What tactics or approaches should companies take to move the needle on these KPIs?
The answer, as always, is: it depends.
But based on years of experience, here are four areas that we have seen the most impact when it comes to redesigning and relaunching clients’ websites:
- Conversion rate optimization: Consider how your updated website architecture and UX design will impact the customer journey. Ideally, implement A/B testing to understand how you can optimize your site to drive users to take action, whether it’s a newsletter event sign-up or a purchase.
- SEO and content strategy: A well-designed website can improve your online presence by making it easier for search engines to locate and serve up your site on SERPs. Increased online visibility makes it easier for potential customers to find and learn about your products or services, leading to marketing qualified leads you can nurture.
- Go headless: Whether you need to improve the mobile experience or drive personalization via flexible website design, newer headless approaches allow for easy customization, improved website analytics, and unique content or product experiences. This can improve revenue driven by your website.
- Integrating new business models: Explore opportunities to expand revenue by integrating additional ways for customers to interact and buy from your company. For example, you can integrate your site with the shopping capabilities on social platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
Bicycle Playing Cards
Cartamundi approached DEPT®, intending to transition their marketing website into a direct-to-consumer (DTC) e-commerce platform. We implemented a scalable tech stack that could be shared across brands, countries, regions, and languages.
This new website accelerated revenue for the Bicycle brand, surpassing the previous website’s annual sales volume in the first five months.
Patagonia
Being no stranger to storytelling, Patagonia has always maintained a strong voice. DEPT® reimagined its e-commerce platform to serve as a brand hub for both activism and content through a cohesive digital style guide, UX principles, and a consistent narrative.
Since the launch of Patagonia, mobile revenues have grown by over 25%. Plus, the expanded brand presence meets consumers’ desires to shop consciously, driving brand loyalty.
Website redesign ROI that goes beyond revenue
In the ever-evolving landscape of digital brand representation, redesigning a website transcends the pursuit of financial returns. It’s a multidimensional endeavor that demands cross-functional collaboration within an organization and can potentially transform how users interact with your business.
This is why we encourage you to consider the various avenues of return from a website redesign — looking beyond the immediate financial return and placing value on the potential for sustainable growth and an improved user experience.
