Conversion Rate Optimization: Consistency Pays
One way to optimize conversion from paid search, display, and email campaigns is to make sure your web pages echo the messages that bring traffic to your website.
One way to optimize conversion from paid search, display, and email campaigns is to make sure your web pages echo the messages that bring traffic to your website.
My first attempt to summarize this article went like this: If your web pages echo the scent that hooks traffic, then your conversion rate from paid search, display, and email campaigns will soar.
Talk about mixed metaphors! I count four right there and four creatures come to mind: a bat, a dog, a fish, and a bird. Bats use echo-location, dogs follow scent, fish get hooked, and birds soar.
So please bear with me as I blend all four metaphors into a four-part recipe for conversion rate optimization, using this visual aid.
A 4-Part Recipe for Conversion Consistency
ROIncentives
Yes, it’s easier to write this recipe down than it is to bake it into a website, so let me present some incentives.
How about a 267 percent lift in conversion rate? That was the result in one of the first tests of display ad consistency run by my company for an online retailer. In other words, visitors who were shown a banner on the site that matched the display ad which brought them to the site were about 3.7 times more likely to convert as visitors in a control group who saw the ad but not the banner.
Or how about a 15 percent increase in revenue? Not such a huge number maybe, but it’s a dependable number, and possibly enough to put the CMO in line for a bonus. That 15 percent is typically what we see when the look-and-feel of an email offer is echoed on the website. That consistency lowers bounce rate and increases relevance, it increases the comfort level of the shopper, and ultimately drives conversion and revenue.
How you go about creating this consistency depends on many factors, like your site design, your CMS, and your marketing workflow. That makes it hard to give specific instructions on implementing this conversion optimization strategy.
However, workflow and digital asset management play an important role. For example, when you have someone design a campaign, be it display, search, or email, get them to include a few extra creatives that can be used on the site when the campaign goes live. Matching that look-and-feel pays dividends when people catch the scent of what your website is offering them.