Conversion Rate OptimisationSimon MelaniphyMD, Refreshed Media

Why Invest 30 Minutes Today?

“Improve your website’s sales or enquiries without attracting any more visitors”

1. 60 seconds on my credentials

2. What is a Conversion & Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)?

3. How to research and analyse website activity.

4. Testing ideas on your website.

5. Case studies (including one who increased enquiries 3 fold!)

6. Action points.

About Me & Refreshed Media

Founding Director in 2003

Hands on digital marketing consultancy, web design, SEO, PPC

Today Refreshed is a full service digital specialist

• Multi-award winning

• Part of the £25m Emerge Group

Focused on traffic generation and lead & sales conversion

• Google Adwords Certified Partner

• Test and measure to improve your website conversion rate

• Google Analytics qualified consultancy

We’ve worked with clients from…We’ve worked with clients from…

Website Conversion Definition

“A desired action taken by a website visitor”

Types of conversion?

•E-commerce sale

•Completed enquiry form

•Newsletter signup

•Software download

•Membership signup

•Free trial signup

What Is A Conversion Rate?

Goal achievements

________________________ x 100

Website visitors

e.g. 200 conversions

_______________ = 2% conversion rate

10,000 visitors

Return On Investment

Example, if a conversion = a sale @ £100 & PPC average CPC of 50p

Monthly Investment Visits Conversions Conv. Rate RevenueSearch Engine Marketing £15,000 30,000 450 1.50% £45,000

Option 1 = Increase SEM Investment (£2k):

Monthly Investment Visits Conversions Conv. Rate RevenueSearch Engine Marketing £17,000 34,000 510 1.50% £51,000

Option 2 = Invest in CRO

Monthly Investment Visits Conversions Conv. Rate RevenueSearch Engine Marketing £15,000 30000 750 2.50% £75,000Conversion Rate Optimisation £2,000

What Conversion Rate Should I Expect?

•Varies significantly

•E-commerce sales = 0.5% to 8%

•B2C typically 1% to 2%, best in class = 5%

•Retail financial services typically 1% to 2%

•Free subscriptions to paid subscribers = 1% to 7%Stats courtesy of Fireclick.com

•What do you NEED it to be to generate a positive ROI?

•Who is aware of their conversion rate?

•Who thinks it could improve?

Conversion Rate Optimisation

“39% of companies are

dissatisfied with their

website conversion rate”

Econsultancy, 2010

What is CRO?

The process of measuring, understanding and adapting your website in

order to better suit visitor needs and in order to achieve website objectives.

Visits

CRO: Analysis,

Measurement, Testing

More

conversions /

sales / leads

CRO Process

Research & Analysis

Google Analytics

Free, well featured, supported

Get the measurement culture!

• Where is your traffic coming from?

• What traffic is productive?

• What is happening on your website?

Google Analytics – Tracking Goals

•All forms

•E-commerce

•Track basket values and product names

•‘Soft’ goals

•Positive user experience but no £ or data capture

•Particularly if low converting site to get more data

•e.g. free brochure downloads & key button clicks

Google Analytics – Tracking Goals

•Funnels

•Monitor visitor activity from point A to point B

•E.g. Through the checkout process or even for 1-stage forms

•Useful for:

•Reducing redundant steps people take towards the goal

•Finding the exit points in the site

•Identifying if not enough info on a

page so user has to click elsewhere

•Testing alternate page versions

GA – Segmentation

“Almost all data in aggregate is useless” - Avinash Kaushik

•GA much more valuable analysing in segments

•E.g. find most popular pages for a particular group, e.g.

converting visitors

•Easy to implement – top right on GA reports

•Create your own segments

•e.g. visits with an average order value of greater than £80

GA – Custom Variables

Define additional segments to apply to visitors

•E.g. Taylor Wimpey Introduced new incentive pages & drove traffic

•Would these affect the conversion rate?

•Custom Variables put these visitors into their own segment

•YES

•30% more likely to enquire

•40% more likely to download

a brochure

GA – Other Analysis

Every time you

implement something

new on your site, ask

how the effectiveness

can be measured

Tracking the Whole Click Journey

Click Date / Time Source

1 06/04/2010 – 18:32 Email Campaign

2 07/04/2010 – 18:48 Google Adwords – “new homes Winchester”

3 08/04/2010 – 19:20 Banner advertisement

4 10/04/2010 – 12:02 Google.co.uk (organic) – “Taylor Wimpey”

5 11/04/2010 – 13:31 Direct

Enquiry submitted on the 5th visit – 5 days and 5 clicks after the original visit

But which traffic source is responsible for generating the conversion?

• First Click?

• Last Click?

Average clicks before conversion = 3.3

Example for house builder Taylor Wimpey

Multi-touch conversion attribution

Understand more about your visitors:

• How many clicks on average does it take for a visitor to convert?

• How long from first visit, does it take for a visitor to convert?

• What time of day / week / month / year are first click conversion journeys starting?

• When do I need to appear for research keywords (e.g. “new homes”)?

• When do I need to appear for transactional keywords?

• When really is the best time of day / week / month to send an email?

• How do first click visits differ from last click visits on the site?

Heatmaps

Scroll Analysis

Are visitors reaching the bottom of your pages?

Usability Testing – Your Site

• Understanding the WHY behind the WHAT

• Select users from your target market:

• Focus Groups

• 1-2-1 User Experience Test

• Set specific tasks – listen and interpret

Usability Testing – The Market

• Ask users to execute the same tasks on key competitor sites

• Ask users to perform searches for your products and services

• 5-6 users can uncover 85% of usability issues

Ideas & Solutions

Solutions Priorities

Create a list of conversion improvement ideas, and priorities in order of importance:

Issue Solution Priority How MeasuredVisitor dropping off from stage 4 of the conversion process.

Reduce the size of the form High % form abandonment / % stage completion

Low conversion rate for Product X Change the position of the call-to-action

Medium Goal conversion rate / % of visitors who click through to form

Home page top image taking up too much real estate

Reduce image depth and promote search function above the fold

Medium Bounce rate / pages per visit / time on site / conversion rate

Logo does not link to the home page

Insert link Low Bounce rate / exit rate

Prepare for testing

• Pages will typically need 5,000 unique visitors in order to have a large enough sample.

• Test one solution at a time!

• Ease of implementation may dictate which tests are conducted first

Testing

Conversion Rate Optimisation– Split Testing

• One of these designs gained 25% more conversions that the other – which was it??

Split A/B Testing

V

Serving up 2 or more different versions of a page live.

Multivariate Testing

Dividing the page into sections, and testing alternatives within those sections.

Different sized images

Different designs and wording for calls to action

Different designs and wording for calls to action

CRO: Multivariate Testing

• 9 different versions of this page section...

• A massive 300% difference in conversion results

3 different colour tab versions

3 different text versions

= 9 different page versions

Case Study: Natural Training

Version 2 = 60% more likely to click, 40% more likely to convert!

• Through GA & user tests identified page which converting visitors usually visited

•Struggled to find call to action

•Tested positioning, designs and language

Case Study: National Express

The winning version increase conversion rates by 14%!

Testing Principles

• A test is only as good as the analysis & research

• Don’t just test the design of calls-to-action if they are not going to make a big impact to site performance.

• Give the test a chance to reach a conclusion

• Don’t be disheartened if tests are inconclusive:

• Go back and find out why (more analysis, more user tests)

• Don’t be disheartened if the originals outperform the alternatives / solutions

• Better to analyse, test and measure than to not bother.

Content Strategy

Content Strategy

“In 2011, content strategy will cause a bigger buzz than social media.”

opening speaker at this year's Content Strategy Forum in Paris

Content Strategy• Think about how you engage your website visitor:

– Video • product reviews / demonstrations• Distribute via YouTube and other video sites

– Animations • Explain difficult concepts

– Client testimonials (text / video)– Personalise or segment content– User generated content

• Forums• Reviews

– Expert Content• Blog• Articles (distribution)

Content Strategy

– Social Media • Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook to:

– Drive content– Stimulate conversation

– Engagement can enhance conversion rate

Review & Implementation

Implementing winning variations

• Continue to monitor the success of the implementation

• Report back to other stakeholders

• Timestamp / Annotate the implementation

• Useful when reviewing in future or for other staff

It’s a cycle!

• Whilst implementing the first test, start thinking about the next test

• Continually add to the solutions list

Action Points

What Next? Objectives

• Set Objectives:

• Increase conversion rate from 1.5% to 2.5% within 1 year

• Implement at least 4 tests within the next year

What Next? Strategy

Conversion Checklist:

Research / Analysis Done? Testing Done?Setup / Configure Google Analytics Decide on split or mutlivariate test Implement Heatmaps / Scrollmaps Implement heatmaps on variations Usability Tests Ensure variations can be tracked in GA Brainstorm ideas with sales team Take screenshots of variations

Ideas & Solutions Done? Review Done?Create list of issues / problems Analyse the results Brainstorm how to overcome them Implement the winner Prioritise the actions / tests Annotate Google Analytics Agree how to monitor tests Start next test process

What Next? Accountability

Give someone in the organisation responsibility for managing the website’s conversion rate

Any Questions?

simon@refreshedmedia.com01202 414101www.refreshedmedia.comDownload a copy from slideshare.net/refreshedmedia