Getting your sales funnel to turn into revenue doesn’t have to be daunting. In this article, we will explain how you can take your Conversion Rate (CVR) to the next level. Don’t worry – you don’t need to be an IT expert to learn how to make it happen – we’ll show you how!
So, you have visitors coming to your website. That’s all good and well, but what are they doing once they get there? What are they clicking on? Is your traffic converting at the rate you have been expecting it to? Do you feel like some of these questions may have caught you by surprise? If they did, that’s OK – CRO takes time to learn and perfect, much like cooking the perfect steak.
Today we are going to be tackling the above questions to help you improve the rate at which your visitors make purchases (convert).
It starts at a macro level. How did they come to your website? Was it via a link they found on Google, or an ad they saw on Facebook, or through an affiliate website? The way they arrive at your site, will many of the times determine which landing or product page will be presented.
For example, we will start by assuming the visitors arrived via an ad on Facebook.
This method typically produces a 0.90% Click Through Rate (CTR) on average for targeted ads. So, they clicked an ad for a particularly enticing deal on a 55’’ 4K UHD TV, and should now find themselves on the product page. Since it’s Football season, many shoppers are probably thinking to themselves “Why not go all out on getting a new TV before the big game on Sunday?” So how do we use this train of thought to our advantage?
There are now three options we can take to convert this shopper, while they are still interested, and reachable.
- If they add the item to their cart, but then leave the site, we can easily send them a cart abandonment email as soon as 1 minute after the abandonment – regardless of whether or not they were logged in to the site, or simply shopping as a guest as most of us do.
- “Send my Cart” will allow shoppers to email themselves their cart. This method usually results in a direct conversion rate of 10% -12%. This allows shoppers to give themselves a simple reminder about the product via email with a direct link back to the cart. It also allows them time to consult with their better half before they risk getting into any trouble for making such a large purchase without their approval.
- If a purchase was completed, you can start off by sending your new customers an email welcome series, “Welcoming” them to your site, and thanking them for their business. In addition, this email should include items that would normally be purchased with their brand-new TV, such as wall mounts, HDMI cables, a cleaning kit or any other relevant product, in this case, a TV accessory.
All of the options listed above will help you convert more shoppers, and close more sales. Now let’s take a look at how this works in practice.
CRO In Practice
What follows is an example of how some of these methods helped increase the conversion rate of a Datacrushers customer in the home-theater industry. The client had been experiencing a high-cart abandonment rate, and it was having a severe impact on his bottom line.
- The merchant specializes in prosumer home-theater equipment. Their business was not hitting the conversion rates they had been aiming for, due to a high cart abandonment rate on their site. The initial solution was to start using a smart cart abandonment recovery campaign sent out to shoppers both logged in and guest shoppers, within 1 minute of an abandonment. Followed by a second email that would go out 24 hours later if they had not yet completed the purchase. This method contributed significantly to the company’s conversion rate over the course of a few short weeks.
Below are some basic analytics from their very first campaign.
- 40% of shoppers opened the email after they received it
- 7% of shoppers converted after clicking on a link resulting in direct attribution
To continue to push their CVR, they subsequently ran a “Welcome Series” campaign, which is incredibly easy to monetize on.
This is how you can maximize the success of your “Welcome Series” campaign. To ensure a successful CVR, emails should typically be sent anywhere between 30 minutes – 24 hours after a purchase has been completed by a new shopper. Included in these emails should be product recommendations based on items the shopper is likely interested in, as well as exclusive offers.
- A 2% CVR is typical for shoppers bought back by a good post-purchase offer included in a properly executed “Welcome” email series.
A well planned post-purchase campaign will provide fantastic returns for your business in the long run. Of course, one thing that typically gets overlooked when it comes to email blasts is; how easily will shoppers be able to view this email? If an email is not coded properly to display on all mobile device, this could frustrate most of your customers. It’s highly recommended to perform some internal testing on your email campaigns, to ensure they can be quickly opened and viewed across a variety of mobile devices.
Did you know?
- 86% of all emails are opened on a mobile device
- 67% of consumers check email from a smartphone (while commuting)
- 42% of consumers check email from a tablet (while at home)
By now you should be well versed in the “what to do and how to do it” part of boosting your conversion rate. However, CRO doesn’t end at sending out emails. So, what else should be done to increase conversions to your site?
There are additional steps that should be taken to further optimize your CVR. For example, if your website lacks clear, concise descriptions of the products, shoppers will take notice of that; revenue you might have otherwise made will go right out the window. Make sure to take the extra time to write better unique product descriptions that will keep your shoppers on your site. If the checkout process is overly complex and requires shoppers to waste their valuable time filling out page after page of personal information before they can fill in their payment details; this too can result in a poor CVR and very high abandonment rates. Did you know that each link a shopper needs to click on reduces the probability of a conversion by 5%~?
It still feels like we are missing something important here. Of course! We forgot to mention the importance of marketing customization!
Finally, to achieve the best CVR possible, you must customize your email blasts to match the segment you’re targeting. Whether it’s based on LTV / LTS (Lifetime Value / Lifetime Sales) segmentation, or the amount of time since a customer abandoned their cart, or even the value of the cart itself, customization and attention to detail regarding the messaging used is truly the “secret sauce” to the whole process. Always customize and personalize your emails. Nobody likes a “Hey you” message. You talking to me???