5 Customer Identity Strategies You Can Use to Increase Conversions

The average website conversion rate is only 2.35%. Even the top 25% of websites only convert around 5.31%. 

Customers today have high expectations—we all want what we want, whenever we want it, wherever in the world we are, on whichever device we happen to be closest to. So complex sites with long loading times, complicated registration, and any additional time-consuming steps are being abandoned earlier. 

The implications are real, 24% of customers abandon their cart at checkout when they’re required to create an account and even just a 1-second delay in page load time can result in a 7% reduction in conversions.

So how can you use identity to help increase your conversions while also delivering a secure, seamless experience? 

Nudge users to enroll in multi-factor authentication 

It’s easy to overlook the importance of security and building trust with customers. However, since 78% of customers stop engaging with a brand online following a security breach, providing an extra layer of security can go a long way in protecting your customers and building that trust.

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is one way to add this extra layer of security on top of the traditional username and password. MFA helps verify that a person is who they say they are. Factors generally fall into three categories—knowledge (something you know), possession (something you have), and inherence (something you are). 

If you’ve ever had to enter your phone number and verify the code that was texted to you to complete a login or registration process, you’ve used MFA. It’s an easy way to build and maintain trust with your customers while protecting them from an account takeover.

What’s more, MFA can be implemented easily and you can let your users choose which MFA factors work best for them. You can also implement specific MFA policies so that your customers are only prompted for MFA when there’s a high-risk login attempt such as one from a suspicious IP address or a new device.

Implement biometrics as an option for authentication

Biometrics take authentication a step further and use a person's physical or behavioral characteristics to verify that they are who they say they are. While there are a lot of different biometrics options (read more about them here), the ones you might be most familiar with are fingerprints, facial recognition, or voice recognition. 

In a study conducted by Visa, 70% of consumers believe that using biometrics is easier than using passwords or PINs. And, since biometrics are harder for hackers to hack, it’s a great way to balance a frictionless customer experience with scalable security. 

Some of the benefits of using biometrics include:

• Ease of use: Almost anyone who has a smartphone can quickly and easily authenticate on their device in just a few seconds using biometrics.
• Enhanced security: As mentioned before, biometrics are harder to hack than a traditional password which provides additional security for your customers. 
• Privacy protection: Like other forms of personal data, biometric information is subject to data privacy laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)—both of which require organizations to gain consent before processing data and allow individuals to have their biometric data deleted, among other rights.

Go passwordless

Is a world without passwords possible? It’s certainly no longer a pipedream for the distant future, and chances are you can implement a passwordless experience with your customers. 

At a basic level, passwordless authentication is any method of verifying a user without requiring the user to provide a password. This can be done using an alternative factor like a proof of possession factor (mobile authenticator app, hardware token, one-time OTP), biometrics, or—in less than ideal cases—a knowledge factor (PIN, passphrase, etc.)

Passwordless frees your users from the burden of having to create and remember yet another password just to make a purchase or engage with your brand online. In Okta’s password survey, 34% of those surveyed say they use the same passwords across multiple accounts, so eliminating the need for a password can also reduce the risk of account takeover for your end users.

In addition, using a passwordless factor that already exists with customers such as email or TouchID means easier scalability for you. In fact, Next Move Strategy Consulting published a report predicting that the global passwordless authentication market will grow by 29.1% by 2030.

Give users more options with social login

From this list, social login might be the method of authentication you’re most familiar with. It uses information from social networking sites to facilitate logins on third-party applications and platforms. 

If you’ve ever clicked “Sign-In with Google” or “Sign-in with Facebook”, you’ve used social login. A study done by Auth0 found that 37% of consumers noted that they were more likely to sign-up with social login. Why? Social login,

• Decreases customer friction: Social login is usually pretty simple for customers. They click a button and authenticate through the selected third-party application in a matter of seconds.
• Allows users to avoid a registration flow: Reducing the number of fields your end-users need to fill out to register for an account is an easy way to remove barriers to conversion. Using social login means that they don’t need to go through an entirely new registration flow. This saves your customers time and can help increase conversions.
• Avoids users' need to memorize another password: Since the end user is using a login that they’ve already created, there’s no need to worry about lost passwords and password resets.

With Okta, you can easily integrate the most common social login methods, right out of the box. 

Decrease sign-up time with progressive profiling

Have you ever given up on a registration or sign-up form because it was too long, took too much time, and/or asked for information you didn’t want to give up? Well, so have your customers.

Enter progressive profiling. Progressive profiling is a process used to collect additional information about your users over time as they engage with your website or application. You can gather detailed user information only when it’s relevant to that customer's activities. Progressive profiling enhances your users' experience by not asking them too many questions at sign-up.

Progressive profiling can result in up to a 20% increase in conversion rates because it enables you to remove unnecessary fields from the initial sign-up flow, which means less friction upfront for customers and ultimately a decreased sign-up time. 

You can also use progressive profiling to engage customers throughout the process since you can ask them for more specific information, like preferences, at specific points in the journey.

Customer identity should be a key part of your strategy to provide a secure, seamless customer experience and increase conversion rates. By offloading identity to Okta, you can easily implement all the tools we’ve mentioned above. 

Ready to dig deeper into customer identity options? Start the journey here.