What could be a more powerful source of insight for cross-sells and upsells than your visitors’ shopping cart contents? PetFoodDirect.com, an online marketer of pet supplies that specializes in pet nutrition, wanted to leverage the value of this activity to increase sales.

To entice visitors to shop across categories—hopefully strengthening their connection to PetFoodDirect.com with each category they add—the marketer tested the inclusion of a row of suggested products in the right rail of the cart page and also along the bottom of the modal window that pops up when visitors place items in their carts.

The items suggested for cross-sell were based on categories that were not already represented in visitors’ carts, encouraging shoppers both to increase their order size as well as explore more of PetFoodDirect.com’s product catalog.

These well-placed promotions tested extremely well, producing a huge increase in average order value that helped drive an annualized revenue increase of more than $1 million. Even better, PetFoodDirect.com positioned itself to win similar-size sales in the future from satisfied customers who return to the site when it’s time to restock.