The bucket problem
Say your sock shop gets visitors and some of them buy. You want more sales, so you buy 500 more visitors with ads. Those 500 people are the same kind of people as the last lot. They hit the same pages, the same checkout, the same weird box. They leave in the same place at the same rate.
So ads multiply whatever your site already does. A leaky checkout plus ads is a more expensive leaky checkout.
The hole in the reel
The shop in the reel is made up, and the numbers on screen are an example. The box is very real though. "Company name", marked required, on a store that sells socks to people. Nobody buying socks has a company. Some of them type "none", some type a full stop, and some close the tab.
Baymard Institute found the average US checkout shows about 23 form elements when 12 to 14 would do. A required company field is one of the classic extras. Its advice for fields like this is to make them optional or hide them behind a small link.
How to find your hole
- Go through your own checkout on your phone, as a stranger, with a real card.
- Every time you hesitate, write down the box.
- Then look at which field people last touched before they left. That is the one data point that names the hole instead of guessing.
TRY THIS TODAYBefore you spend a dollar on ads this month, open your checkout and remove or unrequire one box that only some buyers need. Company name and phone are the usual first picks.
Moxel's Vibey depth records the last field each person touched before leaving a form, without recording what they typed. The longer guide on this is find your checkout drop-off.
What the reel said
MOXTwo ways to get ten more sales this month. One of them costs money.
TALLYWay one. Pay for five hundred more visitors.
TALLYMost of them leave through the same hole as last month's.
MOXWay two. Find the hole.
TALLYHere it's one box. Company name, required. Nobody buying socks has a company.
MOXSo make it optional. Same visitors. More of them stay.
MOXWay two's free. You just have to know where the hole is.
MOXSend this to someone about to pay for ads.
Asked a lot
- Should I fix my checkout before running ads?
- Yes, if you can find one clear leak. Ads bring more of the same visitors, and they leave in the same place. Fixing the leak helps every visitor, paid or not.
- Should company name be required at checkout?
- Not for a store selling to people. Make it optional or hide it behind an "Add company name" link.
Sources
- Cart abandonment rate statisticsBaymard Institute, updated September 2025.
- Checkout optimization: 5 ways to minimize form fields in checkoutBaymard Institute, Edward Scott, June 2024.
- Required and optional form fieldsBaymard Institute.