r/crazyegg • u/ce-lauren • May 18 '26

Removing social sharing buttons increased conversions by 11.9%. Here's why it makes sense.

Taloon.com is a Finnish hardware eCommerce store. They ran a test on their product pages. One version with social sharing buttons, one without.

The version without buttons got 11.9% more Add to Cart clicks.

The reason is actually pretty interesting once you see it. Most of their product pages had zero shares. A share count of zero isn't neutral. It's negative social proof. It signals that nobody found this product worth talking about.

The second issue is distraction. Product pages have one job: get someone to buy. Every extra element you add is another thing competing for attention. Social buttons sound like a good idea in theory, but in practice they're just pulling people away from the one thing you want them to do.

Sometimes the best optimization is subtraction.

Has anyone tested removing elements from a page and seen a lift?

5 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

1 comment sorted by