When creating, managing and optimizing your marketing campaigns online, there is only one metric that matters to your “boss” and you … It’s the conversion.
As the common example goes: If 100 visitors come to your web page and 1% convert (take action on that page and tracked by you) – you’ll have 1 positive human interaction. This person went from a prospect to a lead (sales cycle), or an actual sale (ecommerce).
What expectations do we have?
Depending on your marketing campaign, industry and many other variables, questions get raised about “expected conversion rates on a landing page”, “industry conversion rate averages” and the like. While interesting, there is nothing like actual results for YOUR business to determine success.
Do you care about naming?
Terms like Landing Page Optimization (LPO), Conversation Rate Optimization (CRO), PPC Management, and their use are important to improve on a process already place, but when you show a 100% conversion (100 out of a 100) – nobody cares about industry acronyms, they just want to know how you did it.
We’ll talk about a big optimization trick today. It’s simpler than you might think.
The usual approach
The standard “search, click or link” from some other page or engagement object (ads, banners, widgets, links, etc) to your website & page is common and expected. But, the truth is – like a bucket of water with holes in it – the conversion process “leaks”. There are too many ways that your prospects can get lost, lose interest and not engage with you. Or, do what you wanted them to do in the first place. We’re all finicky that way!
Here are some examples of prospects not arriving at a “completion” (your definition of a conversion):
- Your page doesn’t load fast enough – or at all – they leave
- Their Internet connection is slow or breaks – not your fault
- They already clicked on 5 different ads (your competitors), and when they saw your page, they didn’t like the colors (didn’t even read it) and clicked back
- Your video was too long before you showed them the “subscribe” or “buy” button – they didn’t even see it
- Your page didn’t show on the mobile device, and has issues with Internet Explorer browser (don’t we all?)
- Your copy on the page didn’t speak to the intended audience, immediately lost interest
- Your page was too boring, too short, too long, fonts too small, too many images, too much text crammed together, and on and on and on…
Get the idea here?
Lots of loose ends, and things to work on. While we love this type of work, it can be a LOT to deal with – even for larger businesses.
However, there is one SUREFIRE way to get a 100% conversion every time, and it’s FREE. It comes from Google themselves, and you may not be aware of it.
It’s Google Adwords “call extensions”. (More here from Google)
Inside the Adwords system, you can set up call extensions – which presents a phone number in your search ad that Google will track for you, among other search metrics.
(It shows up as a different number in your ad).
Here’s an example screenshot:
Now when somebody actually calls you – and you can answer the phone personally, you’ll be the closest you could ever be to a 100% conversion.
What do you think? Have you tried it yet?
Jon Rognerud and Chaosmap work with Fortune 500 companies, small business and entrepreneurs to create digital traffic strategies that scale up customers, leads and sales with profitable returns. Mr. Rognerud wrote a best-selling book (Buy On Amazon), “The Ultimate Guide To Optimizing Your Website” (Entrepreneur). Connect directly here.
