Lead the homepage with visual category tiles, not just a hero banner
A row of circular, photographed category tiles sits directly below the hero, each one taking the shopper straight into a specific section in a single tap.
What it is
Below the hero banner, a horizontally scrollable row of circular photo tiles, one per top-level category, sits above the fold. Each tile carries a real product photo, not an icon, and a label, and clicking any of them lands the shopper on that category's grid directly, skipping the main navigation menu.
Why it works
A hero banner sells one story to everyone who lands on it, but a homepage visitor arriving from a broad ad or a bookmark often has a specific department in mind that has nothing to do with that story. Making them find the right nav menu item, or scroll and hope the right product for them shows up, adds a decision that has nothing to do with what they actually came to look at. Photo tiles let that shopper self-select their department by simply recognizing what they want in a picture, which is faster than reading menu labels.
How to test it
- Hypothesis
- Adding a visual category-tile row directly below the homepage hero will lift the rate at which homepage sessions reach a category or product page, because shoppers can self-select their department by picture instead of parsing the text navigation menu.
- Primary metric
- Homepage-to-category clickthrough rate
- Guardrail metric
- Clickthrough rate on the hero's own promotional link, which could fall if shoppers are drawn to the category tiles instead of the featured promotion
Related ideas
Want this tested on your store?
We run the experiment, call the result honestly, and get paid on what it adds.
See the performance program