Turn More Users Into Customers 

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Conversion rate optimisation allows you to lower your customer acquisition costs by getting more value from the visitors and users you already have.

Your business may be trying to entice new customers to attend the latest webinar or turn more visitors to your eCommerce store into buyers. Whatever your endgame is – you must measure how well these visitors are being converted to the next stage. Every business hopes to convert visitors into leads, and eventually, sales. This is where Conversion Rate Optimisation or CRO comes into play.

According to a report by Unbounce, SaaS companies have had a median conversion rate of 3.0 per cent, while businesses across other sectors have had a median conversion rate of 4.6 per cent.

CRO is the method of lifting the percentage of conversions from a website or mobile app. It involves chalking out strategies for elements on your site or app that can be improvised and then validating those propositions through A/B testing and multivariate testing. In the long-term, CRO aims to increase revenue per visitor, acquire more customers and ultimately grow the business.

For instance, if a landing page has a conversion rate of 10 per cent and receives 2,000 visitors a month, then the page will generate 200 conversions per month. If the conversion rate can be improved to 15 per cent by optimising different elements on the page, the number of conversions generated jumps by 50 per cent to 300 per month.

Know your CRO metrics

Start by identifying what your primary goals are for any given web page or app screen. The metrics of your website or mobile app will depend on the type of business you’re in, and the maturity stage.

For example, if you sell products online, a conversion for you may be purchases, or the number of website visitors that add a product to their shopping cart. If you sell products or services to businesses, you might be measuring the number of leads your website gathers or the number of whitepaper downloads.

Macro conversions are the main objective of your CRO campaign but fixating solely on a single metric will not lead to success. There are a multitude of other actions a user may take on your website that may seem of less importance than the macro conversions but all lead towards that end goal. Most websites focus on optimising their macro conversions, which can be categorised as follows:

• Revenue-based conversions such as order completion or paid subscription sign up.
• Lead acquisition conversions such as application form completion (ex. for credit card) or member sign up (ex. for media streaming platforms).
• Enquiry conversions such as contact form completion or receiving a telephone enquiry.

Micro conversions can be categorised as follows:

• Navigation based conversions such as viewing a service or product page or entering the checkout process.
• Interaction-based conversions like  adding a product to the cart, watching a promotional video, social media interactions, email newsletter sign up or requesting call back.
• Engagement based conversions like time spent on the site over a certain amount, number of page views above target and frequency of visiting above target.

Conversion goals organised by industry type

• Media – pageviews, ad views, newsletter subscriptions, recommended content engagement
• eCommerce – product sales, add-to-carts, shopping cart completion rate, email newsletter sign-ups
• Travel – booking conversions, ancillary purchases, social shares
• B2B – leads generated, deals closed

A guide to testing

Step 1: Set clear goals and start recording sessions and observing heat maps to understand user behaviour. Other objectives include identification of obstacles, making the message crystal clear to the audience so that it is comprehensible and lucid.

Step 2: Test variations and compare the results.

• Create page variations
• Run a test long enough to gather actionable insights
• Analyse test results and implement changes accordingly

Gathering customer insights is a primary step. Collection of both qualitative and quantitative data for review and feedback. Use this information to answer questions such as:

• Why are people clicking away from a sign-up form?
• Why are a certain percentage of my buyers abandoning their carts?
• What do customers really want when they land on a page?

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