Halden & Rowe · Digital · Conversion
Digital Checkout Recovery
Digital conversion drops below the trailing-four-week baseline by more than 40bps for three consecutive days, or a known checkout friction is reintroduced by a release. Applies primarily to iOS traffic where the current friction is measured.
Situation
What this Playbook is for.
The commercial pattern the Playbook exists to run against — stated plainly, so the reader knows within one paragraph whether they are in it.
Digital conversion drops below the trailing-four-week baseline by more than 40bps for three consecutive days, or a known checkout friction is reintroduced by a release. Applies primarily to iOS traffic where the current friction is measured.
Why this matters
What is at stake if we do not run it cleanly.
The business consequence of running late, of running incompletely, or of not running the Playbook at all.
iOS checkout friction is the single largest recoverable digital contribution in the current mix. The recoverable revenue is roughly £52,000 a week; the recovery mechanic is understood, and delaying past a fortnight means paid media has been asked to compensate for a build defect.
Which objects it uses
Canonical objects consulted.
Playbooks never redefine objects; they consult them. Every reference below is live in the rest of the platform.
Mission served
Opportunities pursued
Prompts decisioned
Sequence
What leadership should follow.
The order matters. Sequence is the substance of the Playbook — it is why the same objects, read in a different order, produce a different outcome.
- 01
Anchor to the digital checkout Mission.
The Mission carries the conversion plan and the current gap. This is the frame for every recovery conversation.
Owner · James Whitfield · Head of Digital
- 02
Read the click-and-collect basket Insight.
A checkout recovery that treats digital as a channel-shift story misses the store-basket lift the digital order creates. The Insight reframes the recovery as margin-accretive, not margin-neutral.
Owner · James Whitfield · Head of Digital
- 03
Take the Opportunity with a fortnight recovery window.
The Opportunity monetises the friction and sets the cost of doing nothing. Two weeks is the design window before paid media is asked to cover.
Owner · James Whitfield · Head of Digital
- 04
Decision the Prompt into engineering with a named release.
The Prompt is decisioned with an owner in engineering and a named release. Without the release name the fix drifts.
Owner · James Whitfield · Head of Digital
- 05
Read the reference outcome from the Easter paid-social decision.
Easter is the case study for what happens when paid media is asked to cover for a checkout defect. The Playbook exists in part to prevent that pattern recurring.
Owner · James Whitfield · Head of Digital
What has worked before
Lessons carried from prior runs.
Institutional memory. Each lesson is a specific correction the Playbook has already made once, so the next run does not have to.
- Easter proved the negative case — paid media covering for a checkout defect delivers revenue but not contribution.
- Naming the release inside the Decision is the single change that most reduced drift.
- The click-and-collect Insight reframes the recovery ROI — treating digital as pure channel understates the value by roughly a third.
What Ana should monitor
Signals kept under watch while the Playbook is live.
The metrics whose movement tells us the Playbook is holding — or that it has stopped working and needs to be re-examined.
- iOS conversion vs desktop, daily — the earliest signal.
- Time between friction detection and release — the fortnight gate.
- Paid-media contribution to the recovery — if it rises above 30%, the Playbook is being run late.
Expected outcome
What leadership should expect if this runs cleanly.
The outcome band the Playbook has delivered against in prior runs. Stated up front so the actual outcome can be judged, not narrated.
Digital conversion back inside 20bps of the trailing baseline within two weeks of Prompt decision, with recovered revenue delivered predominantly through the checkout fix rather than paid-media compensation.
Ana's commentary
How Ana would present this in the room.
This is the Playbook most likely to be short-circuited when paid media has budget to spend. The Easter decision is included in the sequence for that reason — it is the memory that keeps the Playbook honest.
Playbooks are institutional memory. Every run leaves a lesson behind, so the next opening of this pattern begins from a stronger position than the last.
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