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Archives for April 2012

What is Conversion Rate Optimization?

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So, you’ve hear of conversion optimization but you’re just not sure what it is. What is conversion rate optimization? To begin let’s look at some definitions:

  • con·ver·sion (noun): the act or process of changing from one form, state, etc., to another.
  • rate (noun): speed of movement or action
  • op·ti·mize (verb): to make (something) as good or as effective as possible.

Put these three together and you get:

The act of improving the speed or frequency at which visitors become customers.

Wikipedia provides the following definition for Conversion Rate Optimization:

In internet marketing, conversion optimization or conversion rate optimization is the science & art of creating an experience for a website visitor with the goal of converting the visitor into a customer.

In plain English Conversion Rate Optimization is the process of testing variations of variables in order to determine which most effectively drives the user to take the action you want them to take.

Conversion Rate Optimization takes a current resource (traffic) and recaptures additional profits at no additional cost.  The tools include online AB Testing, Multivariate testing, Usability Studies, and Heat Mapping.

Why Do Conversion Optimization

We’ve discussed before that taking the same aim at a target later might lead to completely missing the target? Marketers have discovered that consumer behavior is not consistent and online marketing response rates fluctuate widely from hour to hour, segment to segment, and offer to offer.

It seems that people have trouble separating chance events from real effects and at any given time marketers are limited to examining and drawing conclusions from small samples of data.

Psychologists have extensively documented tendencies which find false reasoning in small samples which explains why often poor decisions are made. Statistical methodologies need to be leveraged to study large samples and to make less severe the deduction of patterns where none exist.

Using these methodologies or conversion optimization techniques, you can then apply them to run real-time tests. The data collected can be used to increase the effectiveness of your online campaigns.

Do you continue to try and improve your conversion rate or are you happy with that you have?

For more information on how we increase conversion rates call us at 678-951-9506, email us at info at surgelabs.com or complete our FastForm.

Improving Conversion Rates Requires Hitting a Moving Target

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We recently sat down with a prospect to discuss their online marketing of a teeth whitening product. The company originally only sold directly through retail locations but had been trying to develop an online channel over the last 6 months. They know that improving conversion rates was their top priority.

Prior to the meeting I asked the marketing manager to have the following stats available:

  1. Traffic to their Product Landing Page
  2. Their Monthly Conversion Rates
  3. Their Average Sale Price

If you think about the important analytics of an online sale, these three are pretty much it in a nutshell. You have to get people to your site and convince them to buy your products, based on their perceived value in exchange.

If you know that your conversion rate is 10% then if you drive 100 more people to your site you should get 10 new sales. “Should” is not exactly a word that implies certainty, though. The only thing 100 more visitors guarantees you is that your traffic metric will increase by 100.

If you increase your conversions by 25% then you’ll increase your profit by 25%. Possibly yes. But was the increase in conversion generated by a great discount, a sale, or what?

Well then there’s only one thing left. Increasing your average sale price is the ticket to financial bliss. Maybe, but what if your average sale price increased not because people bought more, but because you raised prices? In fact because of the higher price sales decreased and reduced revenue.

Hitting a Moving Target

Here’s the problem. The target you are aiming to hit is constantly moving. Even though you might have just hit the bulls eye, relying on the same shot moving forward might lead to missing the entire target.

When engineers plan a rocket launch they first try to understand all the variables that will affect the rocket launch. How far are they from the target? Is the target moving or stationary? You get the point.

Many of these variables change for every launch and the engineers don’t launch until they have secured and processed all the information as there is no room for errors.

In online marketing the process of engaging a prospect through conversion requires various interactions. At each point you have the opportunity to hit the target or, to use a sports term, “Choke”.

The way to overcome “choke points” is by implementing a continuous testing program.

Are you testing your landing pages to see how different headlines, calls to action, form positioning, images etc. affect conversions? If not you may find that the target has moved. You might think you’re hitting the bulls eye when you’ve been leaving money on the table hitting the outer rings.

In our next article we’ll discuss the “Choke Points and see what Seth has to say about Landing Page Optimization.

For more information on how we increase conversion rates call us at 678-951-9506, email us at info at surgelabs.com or complete our FastForm.

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