With an award-winning website that attracts over 8 million visits annually, CarFinance 247 is on a mission to provide a better way for people to finance their cars. Around 75% of visits to the site are on mobile, so CarFinance 247 set out to improve page speed and design in order to create better user experience and ultimately increase conversions.
A faster, better user experience for CarFinance 247 customers produces a 31% jump in conversion rate.
About CarFinance 247
Founded in 2006
Headquarters in Manchester
www.carfinance247.co.uk
Goals
Better serve CarFinance 247 customers
Acquire more customers
Approach
Designed and built new homepage with speed optimisations
Conducted qualitative test of new designs
Compared speed and performance of old and new designs through A/B testing
Launching new pages iteratively
Results
4X faster homepage
31% better homepage conversion rate
The UK market leader in online vehicle finance, CarFinance 247 aims to remove the pain points that come with financing and buying a used car. Their user experience and design team is constantly pushing to make sure the website is a better place for CarFinance 247 customers.
How did they do this?
First up, they addressed their mobile site performance and created two separate workstreams. Their Google performance consultant helped with highlighting how tackling page speed could improve users' experience of the site, while their UX consultant highlighted some best practices to engage more mobile users.
CarFinance 247 also attended a Design Sprint hosted by Google; an event intended to help brands improve user journeys on mobile. This was the catalyst for them to go back to the business and drive focus on redesigning the website with a mobile-first lens. They ran qualitative online research where they asked 100 people to assess the new design against the old. The results proved a statistically significant proof point favouring the new design.
Creating a mobile-first destination for their users. Starting with the homepage
- In six months, CarFinance 247 redesigned and built a mobile-first homepage which was four times faster than its predecessor
- The team then ran an A/B test using Google Optimize to quantify performance and compare it to the old design
- The new homepage design produced a 31% conversion rate increase.
This then gave them a new benchmark – the homepage – to test against while they continue to optimise other pages for user experience and page speed.
As the team continues to make further improvements throughout the site, their emphasis remains on creating a mobile-first experience and clean, appealing user interface.
“Focusing on mobile web optimisations has significantly helped speed and performance, which can ultimately be tied to increased conversions. What this really means is: lots more happy people who are getting into their new car, thanks to us.”
– Paul Stevens, Head of User Experience and Design, CarFinance 247
