Avatar photo Amanda Pell
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Feb 3, 2025

Landing that big-ticket sale feels great. Your revenue gets an immediate boost, your sales team is energized, and it feels like a sign of bigger things to come. And while that may often be the case, the reality is that one-off wins don’t fundamentally change your business's growth trajectory.

To create lasting revenue growth, you need to focus on consistently increasing your average order value (AOV) across all sales.

Many marketers track their AOV, but few use it strategically. Instead of relying on data to guide their decisions, they often resort to generic tactics like bulk discounts or product recommendations. There's a better way—one that lets you identify and double down on the marketing strategies that consistently drive bigger purchases.

Understanding Your Current AOV Baseline

The first step to increasing your average order value is understanding where you stand today. Like any optimization effort, you need accurate baseline measurements before you can identify opportunities for improvement.

Calculating and Interpreting Overall AOV

Your overall AOV provides the foundation for all your optimization efforts. The calculation for AOV is simple—total revenue divided by number of orders—but the insights you can draw from it are anything but basic.

A dropping AOV might signal increased competition in your market, while a rising AOV could indicate your premium positioning efforts are paying off. Even a stable AOV deserves attention, as it might mask underlying opportunities for growth that become visible only when you dig deeper into the data.

The key is tracking AOV changes over time. Monthly trends help you spot seasonal patterns, while year-over-year comparisons reveal longer-term shifts in customer purchasing behavior. These patterns become your roadmap for identifying when and where to focus your optimization efforts.

Breaking Down AOV by Customer Segments

The real power of AOV analysis comes from customer segmentation. When you break down your AOV across different customer groups, hidden opportunities start to emerge. Look for patterns across:

  1. Customer types (new vs. returning)
  2. Marketing channels (paid search, organic, direct)
  3. Product categories
  4. Geographic regions
  5. Seasonality

This segmentation often reveals surprising insights. For example, you might discover that customers who first interact through organic search tend to place larger initial orders than those who come through paid ads. Or you might find that certain product categories naturally lead to higher order values.

Rather than applying blanket strategies across your entire customer base, use these insights to target specific segments with approaches most likely to resonate with them. Focus your efforts where the data shows the highest potential for AOV growth.

Using lead tracking software can make this analysis process much more manageable. For instance, WhatConverts automatically captures over 70 data points for each lead, including their marketing source, geographic location, and complete interaction history. This wealth of data makes it easy to identify patterns in order values and spot which customer segments offer the highest potential for AOV growth.

Chart graphic demonstrating how AOV can vary between segments like geographic location, customer types, and marketing channels.

Understanding AOV by Marketing Channel

One of the most powerful ways to analyze AOV is by looking at how customers were originally acquired. Different marketing channels often attract different types of customers with varying purchasing behaviors and value potential.

For instance, organic search traffic might bring in customers who spend more time researching and ultimately make larger purchases. Meanwhile, social media ads could attract impulse buyers with smaller average order values but higher purchase frequency. Understanding these patterns lets you focus your marketing budget on channels that consistently bring in higher-value customers.

The challenge is that most businesses can't connect their AOV data back to their original marketing channels. While they might know their overall AOV or even AOV by product category, they're missing the crucial link between how a customer was acquired and how much they typically spend.

This is where lead tracking becomes essential. WhatConverts, for example, lets you analyze AOV across multiple marketing dimensions:

  1. Marketing source (paid search, organic, referral, etc.)
  2. Specific platforms (Google Ads vs. Facebook Ads)
  3. Ad groups and campaigns
  4. Individual keywords

By tracking both quote values and final sales values for each lead, you can see not just which channels bring in the most customers, but which ones consistently deliver higher-value purchases. This data helps you:

  • Identify which marketing channels have the highest AOV
  • Understand which keywords and messaging resonate with high-value customers
  • Spot opportunities to replicate successful high-AOV campaigns across other channels
  • Optimize ad spend toward channels that drive larger purchases

Beyond just channels, this granular data reveals which specific marketing messages and value propositions attract higher-spending customers. For example, you might discover that keywords focusing on premium features or professional-grade solutions consistently lead to larger purchases than keywords emphasizing cost savings.

6 Data-Driven Strategies for Increasing AOV

Now that you understand your baseline AOV and what drives higher-value purchases, let's explore specific strategies for increasing order values. Each of these approaches becomes more powerful when backed by concrete customer data and continuous measurement.

1. Optimize Your Marketing Channel Mix

Most AOV strategies focus on what happens after a customer arrives on your site. But one of the most effective ways to increase AOV is to acquire more customers who are naturally inclined to place larger orders. 

Start by analyzing the average sales value from each of your marketing channels. You might discover that customers from organic search spend 50% more per order than those from paid social, or that certain ad campaigns consistently bring in higher-value customers. With lead tracking tools like WhatConverts, you can drill down even further to see which specific keywords and ad groups attract the biggest spenders.

Screenshot of the "Source/Medium by Average Sales Value per Lead" report within WhatConverts

Once you identify your highest-AOV channels, you can:

  1. Reallocate marketing budget toward channels that deliver higher-value customers
  2. Study the messaging and targeting that works in high-AOV channels
  3. Apply those winning elements to improve performance in other channels
  4. Create lookalike audiences based on your highest-value customer profiles
  5. Develop channel-specific upsell strategies based on typical purchase patterns

You can also dig into the specific keywords that are attracting the largest orders, either within a specific channel or across all of your paid marketing:

Screenshot of the "Source/Medium/Keyword by Average Sales Value per Lead" report within WhatConverts

For example, if you notice that customers acquired through Google Ads campaigns targeting "premium" or "professional" keywords have a 40% higher AOV, you might shift budget toward those keywords while testing similar messaging in your other marketing channels.

With WhatConverts, you can track the impact of these changes in real-time by monitoring both quote values and final sales values across all your marketing channels. This allows you to continuously refine your channel mix for maximum AOV.

2. Implement Smart Product Bundling

Product bundling works best when it's based on actual customer purchase patterns rather than assumptions. Start by analyzing your order history to identify products and services that are frequently purchased together.

For example, if you notice that 65% of your customers who buy Product A also purchase Product B within 30 days, you can create a bundle that offers both products together at a slight discount. This approach not only increases immediate order values but also improves customer satisfaction by helping them get everything they need in one purchase.

3. Optimize Your Pricing Tiers

Strategic pricing tiers can naturally guide customers toward higher order values, but the key is finding the right price points based on your actual order value distribution.

Start by analyzing your current order value clusters. If you notice a significant number of orders clustering around $85-95, you might set a free shipping threshold at $100 to encourage customers to add one more item to their cart.

The goal is to create pricing tiers that feel both attainable and worthwhile to your customers. Rather than arbitrary thresholds, use your order value data to identify natural breakpoints where customers might be willing to spend a bit more for additional value.

4. Personalize Upsell Recommendations

Generic upsells rarely perform as well as personalized recommendations based on customer behavior data. By analyzing past purchase patterns and customer segments, you can make more relevant suggestions that customers are likely to actually want.

Consider factors like:

  • Previous purchase history
  • Products viewed but not purchased
  • Similar customer purchase patterns
  • Current cart contents
  • Marketing channel source

Using lead tracking tools, you can see exactly which marketing channels and customer journeys tend to result in successful upsells. This allows you to target your upsell efforts where they're most likely to succeed.

5. Create Value-Added Services

Sometimes the best way to increase order value isn't through additional products but through complementary services. Analysis of customer behavior often reveals opportunities for valuable add-on services that customers are willing to pay for.

For example, if you notice that customers who receive setup assistance have a 40% higher retention rate, you might offer premium installation services as an upsell option. The key is identifying services that genuinely enhance the customer's experience with your core products.

Track the performance of these service offerings across different customer segments and marketing channels to optimize their pricing and presentation.

6. Leverage Customer Lifetime Value Data

The relationship between average order value and customer lifetime value (CLV) is crucial but often overlooked. By analyzing this connection, you can identify opportunities to increase both metrics simultaneously.

For instance, you might discover that customers whose first order exceeds a certain value threshold have a 75% higher lifetime value. This insight could inform your new customer acquisition strategies and early-stage marketing messages.

With WhatConverts, you can track both initial order values and subsequent customer interactions, making it easier to understand and optimize this relationship. The platform's Lead Intelligence feature can automatically identify high-value customers and help you target similar prospects.

Measuring and Optimizing Your AOV Strategies

Implementation is just the beginning—the key to successfully increasing average order value lies in consistent measurement and optimization. Create a systematic approach to tracking the impact of your AOV initiatives:

  1. Set clear baseline measurements for each customer segment
  2. Track changes in AOV across different marketing channels
  3. Monitor the impact on other key metrics like conversion rate
  4. Test different variations of your strategies
  5. Document successful approaches for different customer segments

Remember that increasing AOV shouldn't come at the expense of other important metrics. Monitor customer satisfaction, return rates, and long-term retention to ensure your AOV strategies are creating sustainable growth.

Increasing AOV Through Strategy, Not Guesswork

Like anything else, the key to increasing AOV sustainably is to build your marketing strategies on a foundation of solid, comprehensive data. By keeping customer needs at the center of your AOV strategy while using data to inform your decisions, you can create sustainable growth in both order values and customer satisfaction.

Start improving your average order value today with a free 14-day trial of WhatConverts and see how better lead tracking can inform your AOV strategy.

Avatar photo
Amanda Pell

Amanda is a writer and content strategist who built her career writing on campaigns for brands like Nature Valley, Disney, and the NFL. When she's not knee-deep in research, you'll likely find her hiking with her dog or with her nose in a good book.

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