Understanding What Goes into Conversion Rate Optimisation

Marketers and other industry experts often talk about conversion rate optimisation, but it’s easier said than done. Businesses regularly invest dozens of hours into this practice only to yield nothing in return. 

What’s Conversion Rate Optimisation? 

With any marketing technique, you need to check the metrics because this tells the story of how your investment is performing. Nobody wants to invest money into a marketing technique that doesn’t generate leads or customers. Conversion rates tell you the percentage of people converting on a particular marketing technique. 

As an example, you might be looking at an ad campaign. If conversion rates are low, this means that not many people are completing the conversion action you desire (this could be purchasing a product, signing up for a newsletter, or another action). Therefore, the optimisation process is designed to boost the conversion rate.

Tips for Conversion Rate Optimisation

You want to increase conversion rates, and agencies like King Kong UK are leaders in this space, but how do you make this happen without an agency? Well, if you have the time and attention to give, here are some valuable insights. 

Streamline the Checkout Process

Often, one of the biggest stumbling blocks for businesses is the checkout process. They look at the analytics and find that most people leave the process during checkout. If this is the case, it’s time to streamline. As well as the checkout process, this applies to online forms and any other acquisition material. 

Ultimately, you want to make it as easy as possible for people to convert. Remove the convoluted steps and encourage people to convert faster than ever before. 

Read the Analytics

Following on from the previous tip, don’t start the optimisation process until you’ve taken a deep dive into the analytics. Why? Because the metrics and analytics tell you everything you need to know. If people add products to the cart and then click away, for example, this suggests a problem with the checkout process. If people click on ads but don’t make it any further, this suggests an issue with the landing page. If people don’t click on ads at all, your creatives and messages aren’t working. 

Although universal conversion rate optimisation tips are useful, they aren’t as useful as learning what YOU need to improve specifically. 

Add Testimonials and Reviews

If you haven’t already, take advantage of the theory of social proof. Essentially, this is the idea that people follow others online. Have you ever ignored a video on YouTube with 14 views only to choose one with two million? If so, this is social proof in action. You can utilise this by adding genuine testimonials and reviews. Add credibility to your marketing materials and make your products/services less of a risk. 

Use a Strong CTA

Next, learn the most effective CTAs based on what you’re trying to achieve. For example, you’ll need a different CTA for generating sales compared to signups. As well as text, don’t forget that appearance and colour also play a role in conversion rates. Where possible, perform A/B testing to compare different CTAs. You might learn that one CTA is more effective than you realised; it’s about finding the CTAs that resonate with the audience rather than the ones that you like. 

Bonus Tips

To finish, here are some more tips to master conversion rate optimisation: 

• Don’t be afraid to ask customers and your audience what they want from your brand 
• Add live chat to your website to accommodate more customers (a simple two-minute conversation may encourage people to convert) 
• Have a FAQs page
• Try various special offers to attract attention 
• Use urgent phrasing and create a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out) for consumers