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There are many forms of digital marketing being widely used today. As ecommerce grows further, traditional marketing budgets are being reduced in favor of digital forms of advertising and marketing.
Some digital marketing channels for businesses small and big include email lists, pay-per-click advertising, SEO, and social media. But not every digital marketing campaign works, and the desired conversion rates are not always met.
Conversion rate optimization is a vital part of digital marketing, and when performed correctly can lead to more leads and a higher ROI. Here is a brief look at CRO and the gains your business could realize from it.
What is the average conversion rate online?
The average conversion rate for an ecommerce site was 2.37% in 2019. The US has a slightly better CR with the latest reports putting ecommerce sites at 2.63%.
While the average conversion rate for websites is currently less than 3%, there is no cap on how high that could be taken. Facebook advertising has an average CR of 9.21% but some niches are much higher, and others lower.
For example, adverts relating to technology have a conversion rate of about 2.31% on Facebook. Yet, when it comes to the fitness sector, Facebook ads have a conversion rate of 14.29%.
What is conversion rate optimization?
While sales are essential to ecommerce, they aren’t the only type of conversion. A conversion can relate to any desirable action that takes place. This could be clicking on links, subscribing to mailing lists, or of course, making a purchase.
Conversion rate optimization is the process of improving different areas so that more people make purchases or fill out surveys or perform whatever the action is that a marketer wants.
Experts such as Vectis Marketing perform CRO through SEO, ad campaigns, and content marketing. CRO is aimed at improving conversions in whatever area is desired.
How does digital marketing go with CRO?
More money than ever is being invested in digital advertising and marketing. There was $378 billion spent on digital advertising in 2020, and it would seem that figure will grow in the coming years.
When it comes to marketing, it is said that the average marketer will allocate around 57% of their total budget to digital channels. By 2023, this allocation will have grown a further 16% as traditional marketing is replaced with digital channels according to the latest CMO Survey.
The goal of a digital marketing campaign is to acquire more leads, traffic, and ultimately more sales. CRO can help to achieve those goals. For instance, if your goal was to get more subscribers to your service then you may need to optimize certain areas to achieve a higher CR.
How can you initiate CRO?
There are plenty of tools that can be used to aid in CRO, and these are said to have an average ROI of over 220%. There are also many other approaches that can be used when performing CRO.
A/B testing or split testing
According to Harvard Business Review, A/B testing has been performed for 100 years plus and is a way to test the performance of two different but comparable versions of something. In this case, it could be a landing page, a marketing email, or a Facebook advert.
When A/B testing is performed properly it can be the most effective method of improving conversion rates. Barack Obama’s election campaign famously used A/B testing to increase sign-up conversions by 40.6%. This equated to nearly 3 million extra email addresses and $60 million in donations.
Increasing landing pages
Put simply, the more landing pages you have, the more probable it is that you will convert. Yet, many businesses don’t know how to optimize their landing pages.
Testing of landing pages needs to be done if CRs are to be improved upon. One statistic shows that over 40% of promotional images on landing pages contain no links. Content is also important with video on landing pages helping to increase conversion rates by over 80% according to some studies.
Headlines, content, and writing style
It has been proven that content marketing strategies can increase conversion rates. And what you put on your website will have a direct effect on visitor retention and conversions.
Bounce rates are high on many ecommerce sites, and concentration levels are low with many visitors. Having engaging content can be the key to keeping the attention of your visitor and making a conversion.
Including a call to action is crucial
Having a strong CTA can increase conversions dramatically. This is an area where A/B testing can prove very profitable also. Quite often, making simple changes such as the wording on a CTA button can increase CRs.
Summary
As a part of a successful digital marketing campaign, CRO can be performed to help reach the desired goals whether this be increased leads, traffic, or sales.
Improved SEO, fine-tuning landing pages, improved rankings on Google, and A/B testing for advertising, can all improve conversion rates. Good CRO can lead not only to short-term sales increases but to long-term value for your business.
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