Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
Visitor Conversion
A. Introduction.................................................................................3
D. Summary....................................................................................14
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The Basics of Website Visitor Conversion 3
Editorial Update:
The Basics of Website Conversion Whitepaper was initially launched on May 2006. Due to its success,
Topica is releasing an updated version to guide small and medium sized businesses with their online
marketing plans for the holiday season.
Due to the dynamic nature of the e-commerce industry, statistics were also updated.
A. Introduction
E-commerce has been a powerful marketing channel over the past few years. eMarketer estimates that
retail e-commerce
sales will increase an
average 18.6% per
year between 2005
and 2009. As more
consumers utilize the
internet to purchase
goods and services,
small and mid-sized
businesses are
finding it appealing
to do businesses on
the Internet. In fact,
according to the
Yankee Group, over
2 million small and
mid-sized businesses
do business online
today.
But price increases are not the only trend negatively affecting the online marketer’s success. Not
surprisingly, Forester Research has found that with more ads, performance of online programs is
decreasing and resulting in fewer conversions of first time visitors and higher shopping cart abandonment
rates. Consequently, marketers have to spend more to drive traffic to their Web sites and, at the same
time, are faced with lower conversion rates, all leading to an ever increasing cost per customer.**
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**It is recognized that not all businesses are interested in strictly transacting sales online. For simplicity, this
report uses the term “customer;” however, these concepts can be applied to donors, sponsors, clients, members,
or any other relationship a site might be striving to create.
Currently only 1% - 3% of all website visitors convert into customers. How does that affect a site’s
bottom line? 97% of the traffic driven to a website will leave without ever taking action, if the only
option to engage is to complete a purchase. For example, assume a company is spending $4500 on an
advertising campaign and is generating 3000 additional site visits, the campaign results might look like
this:
Marketing budget: $4,500
Visitors (clicks) generated: 3000
Cost per website visitor: $1.50
* Each new customer must spend $50 just for the campaign to break-even.
Improve visitor conversion rates: In the model above, if the conversion rate could be improved
by only 1%, the number of customers would be increased to 120 (33% increase) and the cost per
customer would decrease to $37.50 (33% decrease).
By focusing on improving conversion rates, a company can affect the overall success of online marketing
channels, make more money from current advertising and traffic-generation, and increase the flow of new
customers – to which it can continue to market and encourage repeat business.
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C.1. Acquire
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These efforts should be maximized by placing lead capture forms on the targeted landing pages where
traffic arrives, as well as strategically throughout the company website. The most effective of these lead
capture forms ask for email addresses and get permission to email on a regular basis. “Subscriber opt-in”
forms can offer regular email updates on relevant industry tips and advice (e.g. a ski shop might offer free
snow reports), sneak peeks at latest merchandise, or email-only promotional offers.
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This “welcome” message should reinforce the company’s marketing message, set expectations for the
type and frequency of communications, remind them that they have opted to allow the company to send
informational emails, and provide them a chance to confirm that email subscription. This will lay the
groundwork for successful conversion marketing campaigns to come.
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C.2. Convert
On smaller purchases the decision maker will often skip Stay CAN-SPAM Compliant:
steps in this model – from needs recognition to
evaluation of alternatives or even straight to the The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 took email
purchase. But in larger or more meaningful purchases, marketing a big step forward. The
legislation cracked down on unsolicited
and particularly with merchants that he has not done
email and provided rules to ensure
business with before, a prospective customer may spend businesses are sending only legitimate,
quite some time and/or effort in the information compliant email messages:
collecting and evaluation steps. This decision process Don’t send false or misleading
applies to all types of purchases – products, service, information
information, entertainment, or even causes. Don’t email after a recipient opts out or
objects to the emails
Online advertising seeks to elevate the value Don’t harvest email addresses from the
proposition of a particular brand to those people in the Internet or generate them randomly
Needs Recognition/Problem Awareness and Don’t send commercial email from a
computer you are not allowed to access
Information Gathering phases. And, it is during the
Include a valid postal address and an
Information Gathering and Evaluation of Alternatives opt-out process with every email
steps of the process that the online marketer can make Include a warning label for explicit
the most impact on conversion of traffic into customers. content in the Subject line
Not coincidentally, prospective customers are likely to
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request information through an online form while they are in this phase. So, here’s the opportunity:
so that the lead can be moved through the purchase decision-making process from information gathering,
to evaluation, to purchase. Throughout this process, the more that can be learned about the prospect, the
better the communications can be targeted to close the sale and the more likely that a promotion is offered
that fits the desires of that prospect. The goal should be to actively manage the purchase decision process
by providing relevant information to prospective customers.
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1. Newsletter is sent to
subscriber containing
links to numerous audio
samples.
2. When subscriber
clicks to listen to a song,
genre preference data is
immediately sent back to
the database.
3. Selection triggers
Autoresponder, offering
more selections from the
same musical genre.
4. Subscriber makes
purchase.
Other ways to gather additional information about prospects include analyzing click-behavior, driving
subscribers to forms with further qualifying questions, and capturing shopping-cart abandonment data.
Behavioral targeting is a powerful segmentation tool. It allows marketers to target prospects
based on the links they have clicked or pages they have visited and non-openers of email. For
example, an investment online publisher may promote different analyst reports to those who
clicked a link titled “risk-averse money management” differently than those that clicked “hot
stock picks.” Or, if a particular Subject line didn’t garner the opens that were expected for a
campaign, re-working the Subject line and re-sending to non-openers may increase the statistics
from the campaign dramatically.
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Driving subscribers to provide more information in forms like “update your profile” can also be
helpful in continually learning more about prospective customers. Pre-populating the form with
the information you already have will make it easier on the prospective customer to simply add
entries for qualifying questions. Promotional offers can be offered as an incentive to completing
this form.
Shopping-cart abandonment data can be captured when a user leaves a purchase mid-transaction.
Email follow-ups can relay that the information has been stored for the subscriber’s convenience
and can offer contact information for customer support in case there are any additional questions.
Discounts can also be offered to encourage the sale.
One Huge Marketing Vehicle: eMarketer estimates that 147 million people in the U.S. use
email, almost every day.
C.3. Grow
Recent research conducted by Bain & Company suggests that increasing a customer retention rate by only
5% can increase the average customer lifetime value by 35% to 95%. As the old marketing axiom goes,
it’s easier to keep a customer than to get a new one. With a strategic lead acquisition and conversion
marketing plan in place, customer retention should be the final communications piece to help a company
really grow.
It is the job of the online marketer to help the customer feel confident he has chosen both the product and
merchant wisely. This can be done through diligent follow up to the sale. Communications should at a
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minimum include a sincere “thank you,” any pertinent information on shipping or accessing the
purchased information, and contact information for assistance, if needed.
In addition, effective post-transaction communications will not only show that the merchant understands
the customer’s desires and needs, but are also a great up-sell opportunity. They can promote compatible
or similar products that might also suit the customer, at a time when the customer is in the buying mood.
Automating these communications can promote add-on sales that can also greatly affect the bottom line.
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incentives to purchase. For example, customer campaigns could be targeted to customers who have
purchased a particular product only once, or customers that haven’t purchased for 6-months, or frequent
purchasers – in addition to demographic targeting that allows for product-type targeting. A targeted
customer promotion might look like this:
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D. Summary
With increasing competition for popular advertising and lower conversion rates on the rise, marketers
sensitive to controlling and reducing their cost per customer need to focus on optimizing conversion.
To increase conversion, it is important to isolate the share of the traffic that is not ready to convert yet, but
has developed a high interest level to request further information while moving towards a purchase at a
later time. This can be accomplished through data collection on various pages of the website or on
special landing pages, in combination with instantaneous messaging leveraging the provided data.
By providing relevant information to interested site visitors, online marketers have the chance to achieve
dramatic improvements of their conversion rate, cost per customer, and marketing ROI. Further, by using
the information gathered during the lead acquisition and conversion processes, businesses can grow
ongoing revenue by creating both add-on sales and repeat business.
Topica helps small and medium sized businesses acquire, manage and convert online leads into
customers. Over 4000 businesses in over 20 countries have chosen Topica including Donor Digital,
Vitamins.com, WebTickets.com, and divisions of leading organizations, such as International Data Group
(IDG), IBM, Corp. and Hachette Publications.
Interested in implementing any of the suggestions in this report? Let a Topica representative
explain how to create similar initiatives for your company. Please call (415) 344-3878 or visit
www.topica.com.
Topica’s team of experts continually produces industry-leading webinars, articles and best practices
trends to help companies build and manage their own successful conversion marketing programs. To
receive the latest updates on email and conversion marketing visit Topica’s Resource Center at
www.topica.com/resources.
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