To start, let’s go over the obvious –
Why conversion optimization is crucial?
Well, let’s run the numbers to paint a picture.
In our example, we have a 5000$ ad budget, which brings about 10,000 leads to our landing, and 1% (100) of them convert to paying customers. If CLV is 75$, you will end up with 7500$ in revenue and a 2500$ margin.
How to go from there? If we raise the ad budget 2x, our new 10 000$ budget will bring us 20,000 leads and 1% (200) of them will convert, which leads to 5000$ margin. That makes sense, right?
But what if we manage to improve our landings instead, so it will convert 2% instead of the original 1%? Let’s say to make those improvements, we invest 5000$ for optimization-related development. It should look something like that:
| Ads Cost | Leads | Conversion | Optimization Cost | CLV ($) | 1 Month | 12 Months | |
| A | 5000 | 10000 | 1% | 0 | 75 | 2500 | 30000 |
| B | 5000 | 10000 | 2% | 5000 | 75 | 5000 | 120000 |
| C | 10000 | 20000 | 1% | 0 | 75 | 5000 | 60000 |
| D | 10000 | 20000 | 2% | 5000 | 75 | 15000 | 240000 |
If You run the math, it’s quite clear why improving Your conversion rate will make a huge difference. It’s crucial to understand the main difference between raising ad budget with current conversion or investing to optimization – first, it is like a jukebox; you put coins in, and it plays, but stops immediately after you are out of coins. With website conversion optimization, it’s like having a tattoo – it hurts a bit once, but that butterfly on your lower back will stay.
Start conversion optimization with obvious errors.
You can google up the most common conversion killers, but our usual suspects are:
| Problem | Solution |
| Site is slow | Use lightweight pictures and videos or remove unnecessary fillers. |
| The page does not rank | Keyword analysis and optimizing top pages for top keywords. That also includes pictures (many times not optimized at all). |
| Mobile version sucks | Today, about 80% of online traffic is done by phone, so you need to develop mobile-first funnels as well. |
| Checkout converts poorly | Start with it. Remove all distractions from it and lead customers to make preferred decisions. That may include even navigation buttons. |
| The contact form converts poorly | Maybe You ask too much or things that potential customers are not ready to give. Ask less and get the lead, then go from there. |
| The bounce rate is high | Prospects do not understand your value proposition, or your ads generate the wrong traffic. |
Usually, we can get our first conversion improvements just by fixing obvious stuff. Beyond that it starts getting interesting.
Data – Hypothesis – Tests- Repeat
So, the method to improve Your site conversions is following:
So, the method to improve Your site conversions is the following:
- Mark down the prospect’s ideal route from the first ad to the paying customer. You will end up with some sort of steps leading to a sale. If you measure traffic in each of those steps, you get a visual of which steps lose the most traffic. At the same time, you need to understand that later in the funnel, the more valuable prospects are. You should focus on the later end first, even though you lose most of the traffic in earlier steps.
- Now, you try to come up with possible reasons why prospects leave the funnel at a certain step and figure out what changes may lead to a bigger conversion to the next step.
- You test and measure the best of those hypotheses, and if the needle moves up, great; if not, you just keep experimenting until it does.
- Sure, after you have a couple of rodeos under your belt, it’s easier to come up with ideas that might work, but still, every case is different.
Yep, this is pretty much how it’s done.
Until the next time,
Ninjas with L
