3 Things to Fix on Your Site Right Now
Your site might have a great UX design and the right tech stack but may still fall short because of blind spots. If your data isn’t tracking properly, your checkout is clunky, or you’re not building ways to stay connected with visitors after they leave, you’re quietly losing ground no matter how good everything else seems.
The fixes in this blog aren’t glamorous, but they’re the ones that separate stores that grow from those that stall out.
1. Fix Your Tracking Before You Fix Anything Else
If your data’s dirty, your decisions are too.
Most merchants assume their analytics are accurate because GA4 is set up and the dashboard looks busy. But a closer look often uncovers issues with the setup: broken, duplicate, or missing events, haphazardly used UTM parameters, and channels reporting attribution they don’t deserve.
Without clean data, you can’t trust your ROAS, your conversion rate, or even which campaigns are actually driving sales. And when you’re optimizing based on bad information, every investment becomes a gamble.
Even when ecommerce events are accurately tracked, many merchants are still missing a big piece of the puzzle: connecting online engagement to offline revenue. If you’re not accounting for how digital touchpoints influence offline orders, you’re only seeing a fraction of your digital ROI.
The goal is to make every sale traceable back to its source whether that customer clicked an ad, filled out a form, or spoke to a sales rep after browsing your site. That starts with consistent UTM parameters, synced CRM and ERP data, and consistent naming conventions between your ecommerce, analytics, and sales systems. When those pieces line up, you stop guessing where revenue comes from and start seeing how digital initiatives support the entire business.
Fix it now:
- Standardize your UTM structure. Document how every campaign, channel, and medium should be tagged and enforce it across all teams.
- Audit your key events. Verify that your ecommerce and lead events fire once (and only once) using Tag Assistant.
- Integrate data across systems. Define a source of truth and feed relevant data from your ecommerce platform, CRM, and ERP into a single platform for a holistic view.
- Map the full customer path. Track how online engagement leads to offline sales through call tracking, form sources, or CRM attribution.
- Schedule regular QA. Tracking can break with website updates. Build testing and verification into your monthly workflow.
2. Run a 5-Minute Checkout Test
If you can’t buy something from your site in less than 5 minutes, your customers can’t either.
The most common points of friction or frustration we see are slow load times, surprise shipping costs or fees, unnecessarily long forms, and no options to edit the cart contents without starting over.
Be sure to test your checkout experience on both mobile and desktop and try to see it with fresh eyes, looking for anything that could be even a slight hindrance to purchase for a first time customer. It can be really challenging to see it as a first time customer so get creative. One of our clients made the 5-minute checkout test part of the onboarding process for every new hire which is a great way to get a fresh look and regular feedback on the checkout experience.
Remember that every unnecessary click or moment of confusion dramatically increases the chance a shopper will abandon their cart.
The good news though? Checkout improvements are one of the fastest paths to ROI. Small optimizations like showing total costs earlier, simplifying forms, or reducing steps, can pay off immediately.
Fix it now:
- Test checkout on multiple devices and browsers at least once a quarter.
- Show shipping and tax costs early to avoid surprises.
- Keep forms short, only asking for what you need to complete the order.
- Allow guest checkout and easy cart edits.
- Use session recordings or funnel reports to identify where users drop off.
- A/B test quick pay options.
3. Don’t Let New Visitors Be a One-Time Expense
If you’re not actively focusing on building your email list, you’re leaving money on the table.
Every click that brings someone to your site whether it’s from paid ads, social, or organic search costs you something. If that visitor leaves without buying and you have no way to reach them again, you’re out of luck.
Email marketing is still the highest-ROI channel for both B2C and B2B brands, but so many merchants treat it like an afterthought. A sign-up form in the footer or generic pop-ups isn’t enough to convince visitors to turn over their contact details.
Email capture should be tested and optimized for incremental gains. Every form, pop-up, and checkout page should give people a clear reason to subscribe and once you have their contact, segment it and automate a welcome series that educates, nurtures, and converts. Collecting email addresses without a good plan for what happens next is a sure way to run into deliverability and spam complaint issues.
A good email program doesn’t just drive higher customer lifetime sales, it makes every other marketing channel more efficient by turning one-time visitors into additional chances to become customers.
(Want to learn more about standing up an email marketing program that gets results? We recently contributed to Dotdigital’s Hitting The Mark Email Marketing Report and it’s full of smart, actionable tips.)
Fix it now:
- Audit every touchpoint where a user could subscribe (pop-ups, footer, checkout).
- Offer a compelling reason to sign up. Something beyond “join our list.”
- Segment new subscribers based on how they joined and what they viewed.
- Automate a welcome flow that introduces your brand and drives a first or repeat purchase.
- Review email capture performance monthly and test content regularly.
Take It One Step at a Time
Getting these three fundamentals right doesn’t mean your site is “done.” Clean data, a frictionless checkout, and a plan to keep customers coming back are the essential foundation for everything else.
If you’re not sure where to start, start small. Run a checkout test. Audit your tracking. Look at how you’re capturing leads. Every piece you chip away at improvement in these areas will pay back in spades.
Want a hand with implementation? Let’s chat.
