# Case Study: Five Retailers Measured Whether Content Readers Buy More. The Answer Depends on Which Kind of Content. | Crank Source: https://wearecrank.com/case-studies/content-engagement-five-retailers-cross-account Editorial content gave three different answers across four accounts. Functional content gave the same answer every time — and a far bigger one. --- ![Cross-account case study: Five Retailers Measured Whether Content Readers Buy More. The Answer Depends on Which Kind of Content.](/images/case-studies/retail-content-engagement.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax) Cross-Account Finding — 2017–2022 # Five Retailers Measured Whether Content Readers Buy More. The Answer Depends on Which Kind of Content. Editorial content gave three different answers across four accounts. Functional content gave the same answer every time — and a far bigger one. Challenge "Content drives conversion" is one of the most confidently repeated claims in retail, and it is almost never tested on the account making it. Five separate audits measured it directly, across five retailers and five years. Approach Compare visitors who engaged with content against those who did not, on the same site over the same period — and separate the content that teaches people about the category from the content that helps them find, save and choose a product. Outcome Editorial and expertise content pointed in different directions on different accounts. Functional content — site search, wishlists, offers and gift guides — beat the site average on every account that measured it, usually by several times over. 01 ## Expertise content: three answers from four accounts At a luxury department store, visitors who viewed editorial content converted at 5.2 per cent against 3.6 for those who did not — a 44 per cent lift, reaching 4.0 per cent of shoppers. At a children's footwear brand, blog readers engaged roughly twice as much on every available measure and converted better. At a prestige beauty retailer, content customers were three times more likely to purchase and spent £10 more when they did. At a swimwear brand, content viewers were less likely to purchase — but spent more when they did. Same behaviour, four accounts, no consistent direction. 02 ## And a fifth account that shows why A wine and spirits merchant separated its content into two kinds and measured them apart, which none of the other four did. Its expertise content — regions, producers, grapes, vintages, food pairing — ranged from 7.0 per cent conversion down to 0.7, against a 2.9 per cent site average. Its producer pages were the clearest case: seen in 13.5 per cent of all sessions but only 5.4 per cent of purchasing sessions. More viewed by people who did not buy than by people who did. Its functional content told an entirely different story. Gift guides converted at 13.4 per cent, wishlists at 12.9, offers at 8.4 and site search at 7.3 — every one of them multiples of the site average. Visitors who used offers, search or a wishlist went on to generate 67 per cent of all content-driven sales. 03 ## The pattern holds where it can be checked The luxury department store measured both kinds too, though it did not describe them that way. Its editorial content produced a 44 per cent conversion lift. Its site search — functional content — produced 7.9 per cent conversion against 2.5, more than three times better, and reached five times as many shoppers. On both accounts that measured both, the functional content produced the larger effect. And on both, it reached far more people. 04 ## Why the two behave differently Expertise content is doing a job further from the purchase. It builds authority, answers a question, and often serves someone at the start of a long consideration period — which is exactly why the swimwear result showed lower conversion and higher basket value rather than a failure. Functional content is the opposite. Someone opening a wishlist or a gift guide has already decided to buy something and is working out what. Measuring the two together averages a discovery behaviour with a purchase behaviour, and produces a number that describes neither. 05 ## What this means for you Split your content in two before you measure it. Content that teaches people about your category and content that helps them choose a product are doing different jobs, and averaging them tells you nothing. Then check the second kind first. Search, wishlists, offers and gift guides are usually already on your site, usually under-promoted, and on the accounts here they converted at three to five times the site average while reaching a fraction of visitors. That is the cheapest conversion work available to most retailers, and it needs no new content at all. One caution throughout: this is correlation. Someone who opens a wishlist was already more likely to buy. The numbers tell you where to look, not what caused what. ## What five retailers found when they split their content in two 13.4%/12.9% Gift guides and wishlists, against a 2.9% site average 67% Of content-driven sales came from offers, search and wishlist users 13.5%vs5.4% Producer pages — seen more by non-buyers than buyers +44% / 3x / 2x / lower Editorial content across four other accounts — no consistent direction Drawn from five separate Crank account audits conducted between 2017 and 2022\. Clients not named. ## Want to know what this looks like in your own account? These findings came from asking straightforward questions before any budget moved. We're happy to do the same for yours. 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