What is Conversion Optimisation and Why You Need It?

What is conversion optimisation?

Every website or digital activity should have a goal. These could vary from getting someone to subscribe to a newsletter to driving hard sales and everything in between. A conversion happens when you get a person who clicks on your link to fulfill your goal. If, say, you wanted people to sign up for an online course you are offering, every person who signs up after visiting your website counts as a conversion.

So, your conversion rate is the percentage of conversions per visitors you receive in a set amount of time. Depending on what it is, and how mission-critical it is, you should monitor your conversion rates regularly, maybe daily, weekly, or monthly (ask us about our Business Intelligence (BI) platform to help you do this effortlessly ;).

When considering conversions, we measure at different levels - micro and macro.
​​Micros-conversions (or micro-goals) are steps or correlated actions that a user takes that can lead to a macro conversion or goal. At the micro-conversion rate level, we measure small wins that can move your audience towards taking definitive action.  For example, how many visitors came to your page take the next step to complete the desired results. In the case of an e-commerce site, you would measure the number of visitors to a product page who would click the 'add to cart' link. For every 1000 visitors per day, if 200 click on the add to cart link, then your micro-conversion rate is 20% for that day.

Macro conversion rate: The macro conversion rate marks the percentage of people that complete an order per visitors of the page. Going back to the example of the e-commerce website, if, only 150 out of the 200 viewers who added a product to the cart go ahead and complete the order, then the macro conversion rate is 150/1000 or 15%.

Micro and macro conversion rates work the same for almost all websites that have a call to action (CTA). In some cases, a viewer of a site might click on a subscribe link but fail to fill in email and other details required to complete the subscription; that is a micro-conversion. When a viewer goes ahead and completes all the fields in a subscription form and finishes the process, that is a macro subscription. The same is the case with downloads, signing up for online courses and so on. However, in cases where you are just trying to drive web traffic or get someone to read a blog, a hit to the website is a conversion by itself.

How can we improve our conversion optimisation process?
Now that you have a better idea of what conversion rate is, you need to know how you can improve it. Conversion rate optimisation is the process of increasing the percentage of conversions per clicks on your website. Conversion rate optimisation is a marketing strategy that, when executed correctly, can vastly improve the sales, downloads, subscriptions, sign-ups, and so on.

There are certain practices when followed, to help increase conversion rate optimisation. These practices are tried and tested methods and are being used by the top companies around the world to increase conversion rates. We look at ways of conversion rate optimisation in more detail here:

Evaluating customer behaviour: With the help of micro-conversion rate and macro conversion rate, you can understand customer behaviour a little better. You can determine at which point customers are getting stuck. From this point, you can further investigate what is going on. If you have a high micro conversion rate but a low macro conversion rate, then you know that the problem is somewhere closer to check out. However, if you have a flat, micro conversion rate, to begin with, you need to asses your product/landing page.

Evaluating what makes customers convert: When macro conversions are high, it is imperative to understand your success formula so that it can be replicated. The different types of factors you need to look at include:

The type of user- age, demographic, gender, browser history, and so on.
The time of day/month/year you get maximum conversions.
Is this a customer who bought something before and has come back a second time?
Did you put a new product out?
Did you start a new marketing campaign?
The particular products or services on sale.

Looking more closely at these areas will help you understand what pushes your conversion rate up.

Evaluating what prevents conversions: When micro-conversion rates are low, you need to take a closer look at the product or service you are offering. Why do people come to your website but then decide not to buy a product or sign up for a course? Were they expecting something different? Did they find the price too high? Will they complete the order from another device? These are the questions you need to find answers to.

If you have a high micro conversion rate but a low macro conversion rate, you need to re-evaluate your product or service, and your website as well. Sometimes, it could be the user interface that makes completing the purchase difficult or a bug that prevents the process from reaching completion.

Fixing what prevents conversions: Once you know where and why your conversion rate is getting affected, you need to do what it takes to correct the problem. Asking for customer/potential customer feedback also helps to improve a website. Maybe if you sell multiple products and some sell better than others, you can discontinue the products that are not bringing in sales. If a course is too expensive, you can have a deal or offer a discount for a referral or have other promotional offers. If no one is signing up to read your content, you can try writing about another topic or changing your presentation style. Sometimes, something like changing a blog to a vlog can make all the difference.

Assessing competitor websites: Never underestimate the power of your competitors. If they have a higher conversion rate than you, then it wouldn't hurt to take a leaf out of their book. Observe their pricing strategy, website design, tone of voice and even their target audience. In effect, you want your competitor's customers; so, learn how they get them.

Why you need conversion rate optimisation

Conversion rate optimisation is what drives a business. If you are not getting your audience to take the desired action, you will miss your targets. Conversion rate optimisation helps you to assess different areas of your website so that you can fix all areas that are not conducive to driving your profits.

Get in touch with the team at Liquid Digital to optimize your conversion rate.