Featured and Popular Products: Definition + Examples

Ever heard the saying "eye level is buy level"?

When you're shopping, your eyes naturally gravitate to items at eye level, making them the most likely to catch your attention.

That’s why stores strategically place their most profitable products right in front of you... And the less expensive items are often tucked away on the lower shelves, where reaching for them gives you the good old back pain. 😅

The same principle can be applied to websites - customers are prone to impulse buying.

By choosing where you place your popular and featured products, you can greatly increase your sales.

Today, I'll show you how featured & popular products work and how you can use them to get more revenue. 👇

What are featured and popular products?

Featured products are those products you want to promote for some reason. For example, a product you just launched, one that you are running a special sale for, a category that you want to promote in a specific time frame, etc.

Popular products are those products that are selling well. For example, a popular software that sells well throughout the year. Or a bikini that is trending in the summer (i.e. seasonal products). It can also be a product that is getting a lot of attention and positive reviews from your customers.

The main difference is that typically, you choose the featured products, while popular products have some type of track record that makes them worthy of being highlighted as product listings.

It's a concept often used in e-commerce, but it's just as relevant for SaaS and software products.

Benefits of featured & popular products

Marketing is all about making things as simple as possible for customers to avoid pushing them into analytical thinking.

When used correctly, featured and popular products can make the buyers' journey much easier, resulting in:

• Increased sales: when you highlight popular and featured products on your home page or relevant landing pages, they get more impressions. If the page is already getting traffic, this leads to more sales.
• Improved user experience: if someone is coming to your website and they know your brand from before, they may already have an idea of what they want to purchase. When they see these products featured in the right place, they don’t have to dig through your website to find the right product page.
• Improved credibility: promoting a product with hundreds of five-star customer reviews on your home page is good social proof. The first products they see are those with plenty of positive reviews, great ratings, and many previous purchases, which boosts your brand image.
• Inventory management: if you want to move some stock and sell out a product fast to get a new batch, simply feature it so you can move the needle and get it to sell.
• Insights into customer preferences: to quickly gauge what your website visitors think about a certain product or a category, put the products in question right in front of them. You can very quickly split test and determine which products have a positive effect.

You can understand all of this much better once we get to the examples.

How to choose featured and popular products?

"That all sounds good, but how do I know which products I should promote?"

Good question! If you’re not sure which products to place in front of customers, just... ask them. 👇

1. Analyze customer reviews & ratings

Instead of random selections, feature the products your customers love. If you're an e-commerce, go over the reviews and ratings of different products on your site.

If you're in SaaS, check the review sites (G2, Capterra, etc) and testimonials to understand customer favorites.

2. Look at your website analytics

Fire up Google Analytics and look at your page visits and CTR to find the most popular products.

Additionally, see which pages receive a lot of views but don’t get any conversions and then promote those and hopefully drive more purchases for these as well.

3. Tap into customer feedback

Customer feedback is a goldmine for determining what to feature. Analyze comments, feature requests, and general feedback to understand what your customers value most.

If a product is consistently praised, it’s a strong candidate for promotion. On the other hand, if a product has received repeating feature requests, consider addressing those concerns before featuring it.

Where to highlight featured and popular products + examples

Now that you know which products to feature, the next step is deciding where to promote them. Here are some popular examples for both e-commerce and SaaS:

1. Homepage

Your homepage is the first thing your customers visit. It's also prime real estate. From the hero section to the footer, you can strategically place your featured products to grab visitors' attention right from the start.

Notice how the first thing Amazon shows you when logging in are all the products they think you might like.

If you're a SaaS, you can (and should) instead highlight the main features there.

2. Email marketing campaigns

Leverage your email list to promote featured products. Whether through dedicated emails or by featuring them somewhere in your regular newsletters. Email is a direct line to your customers that can drive significant engagement and sales.

Amazon literally recommends you recently viewed products even on the dispatch confirmation email. 😆

3. Product pages

When customers are browsing a specific product, there's a high chance that they'd be interested in related items.

Consider adding a “Customers Also Bought” or “You Might Also Like” section to highlight popular products that complement what they’re viewing.

At this point, if you're in e-commerce, just copy everything that Amazon is doing.

And if you're in SaaS, you can simply promote specific features or add-ons on your dedicated product page(s).

4. Category pages

If you have many product categories, feature popular items within these specific categories.

For example, in a clothing store, highlight the top-selling items in each category (e.g., tops, pants, dresses) on their respective pages. This makes it easy for customers to find the best options in every category.

5. Testimonials & case studies

In B2B, testimonials and case studies are powerful tools for moving customers through the sales funnel. They're perfect as customers usually highlight specific product features in your ICP's own words.

Even better if you could collect some lengthier video testimonials. Video testimonials are the most effective way to convey emotion, but they're hard to get as most customers don't like recording themselves.

If a big client raves about a specific feature or benefit, put their testimonial in a noticeable spot on the homepage—it adds credibility and influence.

6. In-app recommendations

For SaaS products, in-app recommendations are gold. It is much better to reach users where they already are.

Here's an example of Surfer's opening dashboard, where they promote news, webinars, and upsell different advanced features.

Upsell features, add-ons, or plan upgrades directly within your app. This approach makes it easy for users to discover additional products without leaving your platform.

7. Checkout pages

The checkout page is a final touchpoint where you can suggest relevant products for an upsell or cross-sell. By featuring these items at checkout, you give customers one last chance to add something extra to their cart.

By strategically placing your featured and popular products in these key locations, you'll maximize their visibility, boost sales, and enhance the overall customer experience.

Fun fact: That's how McDonald's adds 15-40% of their annual profits. They used to ask: "Would you like fries with that?’" But now, the self-order machine automatically recommends snacks before the checkout.

8. Social media

Use your top social media channels to spotlight your featured products. Pin posts, create Instagram highlights, or use stories to ensure your most important products stay visible and accessible.

For SaaS, you can now create separate product pages on LinkedIn to highlight your company's key products or services.

Wrapping up

Adding featured and popular products to your website and online platforms can be a superb way to skyrocket the sales of a single product, a list of products you want to sell more quickly, or just to get more conversions for a final sales push for the quarter.

The best way to determine what to feature and how is to simply listen to what your customers are saying instead of guiding yourself by your gut feeling.

Featurebase helps you collect feedback from your users and understand exactly what works well and what your customers feel is missing.

The onboarding is incredibly quick, and it comes with a Free Plan that allows for unlimited feedback, so there's no downside to trying it. 👇

Start collecting feedback from customers with Featurebase today!