It's Worse Than Pointless to Continually Ask 'What's a Good Conversion Rate?' Settling for the norm keeps you from being your best.
By Aaron Agius Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Conversion rates are one of the most important metrics in PPC advertising. When you improve your conversion rate, the net profit of your business will also increase without you having to invest more money in ads.
Given the obvious financial importance of improving your conversion rate, it's no wonder that Google searches for "conversion rate optimization" are steadily increasing. New tools for conversion rate optimization (CRO) are appearing every day. In fact, the average company spends $2000 per month on CRO tools.
The average conversion rate varies from industry to industry, with rates of 1 to 3 percent being the most common. While it's worth knowing the average conversion rate for your niche, oftentimes marketers can become obsessed with industry benchmarks instead of striving to improve their own conversion rates. It doesn't matter whether or not you're achieving an arbitrary standard set by someone else. All that matters is that your business is profitable for the long-term.
Related: Want to Increase Your Traffic Conversion Rate in Just Minutes? Try These 3 Tools.
Additionally, if you're overly concerned with industry standards, you may become satisfied with a 4 percent conversion rate because you're beating the competition, despite the fact that some creative thinking could yield you an extraordinarily high conversion rate of 10 percent or more.
In order to improve your conversion rate, try implementing the following tips.
Change your offer.
If your conversion rate sucks, the most likely culprit is that your offer simply isn't attractive enough to your target audience.
In ecommerce, 56 percent of consumers leave without completing their purchase due to unexpected costs appearing at checkout. To combat this problem, many marketers offer free worldwide shipping and raise their product pricing to maintain profitability. For cheaper products, the "free plus shipping" offer is becoming increasingly popular.
If you're offering a lead magnet in exchange for an email opt-in, try delivering more value for free. For instance, a free ebook about a topic may encourage higher conversions than a 10-step checklist.
If you're looking to create a high value lead magnet, consult your buyer profile, determine his or her biggest pain points and then provide an actionable solution in the form of a free downloadable piece of content.
Related: 7 Hacks You Can Use to Improve Your Website's Conversion Rate
Use specific landing pages for each campaign.
Let's say a visual communications agency is running PPC ads to promote multiple services, such as infographic design, presentation design and animated explainer videos. It makes no sense to send all visitors to a generalized landing page about visual content since they'll be looking for different things.
The more you can personalize your landing page for the target audience, the higher it will convert. Please never send PPC traffic straight to your home page; this is a terrible strategy if you want your visitors to convert.
Include videos on your landing pages.
Four times as many customers would rather watch a video about a product than read sales copy about it. If you're not leveraging the power of video in 2017, your competitors will be.
Videos allow for an in-depth explanation of products which simply isn't possible with text. Videos are also more emotive. With a compelling script, energetic voiceover and eye-catching visuals, you can really convey the emotional benefits of your product, as opposed to the logical features.
As most marketers know, buying is an emotional process rather than a logical one.
Leverage social proof.
If you're sending cold traffic to your site directly from a Facebook ad, you'll learn it's nearly impossible to get people to purchase from an unfamiliar brand without leveraging social proof.
By including reviews, testimonials and case studies throughout your site -- especially on your landing pages -- you will build trust with potential customers. This is crucial because 92 percent of people trust recommendations from their peers and 70 percent trust recommendations from strangers.
Video testimonials from clients are arguably the best kind of social proof, since they're viewed with high credibility.
Related: 23 Sure-Fire Conversion Rate Optimization Tactics for Striking Online Gold
Make conversions easy.
It's your duty as a marketer to enable visitors to convert as quickly and easily as possible. Don't fill your email opt-in form with unnecessary questions or force visitors to complete CAPTCHA tests in order to subscribe to your mailing list. I recommend asking visitors for their name and email address only. You can find out more information later on.
In ecommerce, a lengthy or complicated checkout process will kill your conversion rate. Never force visitors to register for an account at your store in order to make a purchase. Aim to facilitate the checkout in as few steps as possible.
Likewise, offer a multitude of payment options so that customers can checkout using their credit card, Paypal account or even Bitcoin if they wish. Twenty-eight percent of online shoppers abandon their carts if their desired payment option is unavailable.
