Conversion rate optimization (CRO for short) is an essential part of any digital marketing strategy. By intentionally developing the optimal user experience on your site, you'll do more than increase your website's conversion rate.
You'll decrease customer acquisition costs, drive more traffic to key pages, get more conversions from existing traffic and gain valuable insight into your target audience.
Below, we've answered common questions our customers have asked about conversion rate optimization. Along the way, we'll offer insight into or data-driven method and provide practical tips proven to succeed.
Before we get ahead of ourselves, let's make sure you have a clear understanding of what conversion rate optimization is, and why it's so important.
What is conversion rate optimization (CRO)?
Conversion rate optimization— CRO for short— is the optimization of a landing page or website based on user behavior with the intent of increasing conversions.
The aim is to increase the percentage of site visitors who complete the desired task. This may be completing a purchase, sharing their contact details, or signing up for a membership.
What is the aim of CRO?
The goal of CRO is to increase conversions, ideally while decreasing your cost per conversion. While CRO can be done on any web page, it's particularly important for landing pages linked to paid ads. You'll want the most efficient page possible when spending money for every click.
What is a CRO agency?
A CRO agency is a digital marketing agency that offers conversion rate optimization services. At PPC Masterminds, we take a data-driven approach to conversion optimization. We'll work closely with your in-house marketing team to develop conversion rate optimization strategies that are tailor-made for your business's marketing goals.
What does a CRO company do?
The best way to explain what a CRO company does is to highlight a few of the digital marketing services PPC Masterminds offers. Here are a few results-driven strategies we'll employ while working with your business:
Improve Messaging & Copy
Copywriting can be a time-consuming and challenging task for any marketing professional. Our team of experienced copywriters and paid advertising experts can help craft compelling headlines, copy, and CTA buttons. Additionally, we can help add testimonials, reviews, and other conversion-driving additions to your landing pages.
Employ Data-Driven CRO Testing Tools
Page optimization tools can get pretty pricey. Partnering with PPC Masterminds gives you access to a range of CRO testing tools.
We'll work closely with your in-house marketing team to develop a test strategy that's right for your conversion goals and overall budget. By employing split testing, multivariate testing, and other data-driven strategies, we'll find the best combination of page elements.
Our aim as a CRO company is to feel like an extension of your in-house team. Unlike other digital marketing agencies, we offer unrivaled transparency and real-time results. Just see our glowing customer testimonials for proof.
Create Retargeting Strategies
Retargeting is an important part of any online marketing strategy. The popular strategy involves targeting paid ads towards audiences who have previously interacted with your website or social media pages.
This bounced web traffic is often more likely to convert than new users, making them a lucrative source of potential paying customers.
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Optimize Well-Performing Blog Posts
Improving organic site content, such as high-ranking blog posts and product pages, can help boost conversions without paying more for paid ads. We'll help optimize these pages by adding more CTAs and directing website visitors to take a desired action.
Develop a Sign-Up Flow
Your sign-up flow is incredibly important. It's one of the first interactions website visitors have with your site and one of the most important parts of th user experience journey.
First, we'll identify drop-off points along your customer journey. Then, we'll develop strategies to improve these weak spots to boost your conversion rate.
Perform a CRO Audit
A CRO audit can be incredibly helpful to your marketing team. After taking a deep-dive into your existing CRO efforts, we'll create a comprehensive report to act as your guide. We'll highlight the strengths of your current strategy highlight areas that need improvement.
Analyze & Improve Your Conversion Funnel
Sometimes, the most effective strategy is to take a step back and analyze your overall conversion funnel. Working closely with your in-house team, we'll find holes in your customer journey and improve each stage, from social media advertisements to engaging site content to persuasive product pages.
How do you optimize conversion rates?
Conversion rate optimization is an ongoing process requiring a multi-faceted approach driven by quantitative data and an in-depth understanding of your target customer. Here are just a few of the CRO services our 5-star rated digital marketing agency can assist you with:
Landing pages are one of the most important elements of your website. A single page can earn you countless conversions. Our experienced copywriters, designers, and digital marketers can help develop effective ones and test them to perfection. Everything from choosing a call to action to social proof.
Writing engaging website copy is no easy task. Our skilled copywriters can help craft persuasive content that hooks site visitors and coverts them into paying customers. By working closely with your in-house team, we'll stay true to your brand voice when writing headlines, PPC ads, landing page copy, CTA buttons, and more. Your value proposition will be clearly presented to help
Page loading speeds have a huge impact on your overall site performance. A 2016 marketing study found that a one second delay in load time can lead to a 7% reduction in conversions. That same single-second delay will cause around 11% of visitors to return to the search engine results page before even viewing your site. Our developers will help optimize load times to keep customers happy and conversion rates high.
The research and testing required for a successful CRO strategy can be incredibly time-consuming. Acting as an extension of your in-house team, we'll use analytics and CRO testing tools to develop the best strategy for your business' unique goals. You'll gain new insight into customer behavior and real-time data on website traffic.
Make sure you are using statistically significant data, meaning that you need to make sure you have enough data to make informed decisions. Here's a few of the strategies we'll employ:
Tracking real-time data through Google Analytics and providing qualitative feedback on your current strategy
Conduct user research using heat maps, session recording, and customer surveys to gain new insight into key pages.
Monitor your site's conversion rate, bounce rate, and other key metrics and develop reports that are easy to understand
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Every internet marketing professional should know how to accurately measure performance— regardless of whether you're working with a CRO agency or working independently. The conversion process is also different for each business. Here's a simple breakdown of how to calculate conversion rate optimization.
Conversion rates are calculated by dividing the number of conversions by the number of total interactions with the large during the same period. For example, if your PPC landing page received 25 conversions from 1000 total interactions, your conversion rate would be 2.5%.
To calculate conversion rate optimization, you'll need to compare the rates of different variations of the web page. Over half of digital marketers use A/B testing to understand and improve their strategy. User feedback can also be incredibly helpful in understanding what isn't represented by quantitative data.
What is a good conversion rate?
What's considered a "good" conversion rate varies based on different factors. In general, marketers consider rates in the range of 2-5% to be successful. The rate is even lower on mobile devices. A recent Statista study found the average conversion rates of US online shoppers dropped from 3.7% on a desktop computer to 2.2% on a mobile device.
A good way to understand your website or online store's average conversion rate is by looking at the organic traffic's conversion rate as a baseline. How organic traffic users interact with your web form, online store or ecommerce site is useful to understand before implementing an optimization strategy.
Remember, even a small increase in your conversion rate can make a huge difference. Conversion rate optimization is a continuous marketing effort, not a one-time task. Don't expect miraculous results overnight. A good CRO strategy offers steady, reliable results of a sustained period of time.
Is it worth investing in CRO?
Yes! There's no ands, ifs, or buts about it. Investing in conversion rate optimization tools or hiring a CRO agency can help your e-commerce site make more money in the long run. In fact, CRO tools have an average ROI of 223%. That's plenty of bang for your buck!
Investing in conversion rate optimization is one of the smartest marketing decisions your team can make. But how much you spend varies widely based on your company size, budget, and the complexity of your CRO efforts. Be prepared to spend at least 30% of your marketing budget on your optimization efforts.
Consulting a trusted CRO agency like PPC Masterminds assures you get the results you're looking for— and fast. Larger companies may benefit from working with an agency before transitioning in-house when you're ready to tackle CRO on your own.
Prioritize key pages if you're working with a smaller budget. Start with your most frequently-used landing pages, as they're they'll make the biggest difference in your bottom line.
