Imagine you have done all the conversion rate optimization work and now you live in a world of perfect landing pages. All you have to do is get visitors to click on your link and ~ poof ~ once they see your landing page, they all convert.

It’s a dreamland scenario for conversion optimizers, but it’s not as far-fetched as it sounds.

For an extreme example, if you gave away a Ferrari to everyone who took your call-to-action, you’d likely get a 100% conversion rate – though you’d be in dreamland for entirely different reasons.

Back to reality, depending on …

Read More

Remember the good old days of retailing? You could count on at least two truths. First, advertising would get people into your store and, second, you converted some of that traffic into customers – at least 20% of them, with many sectors enjoying rates of 50% or more.

And there was a bonus truth: ‘cart abandonment’ wasn’t in your vocabulary.

Then along came ecommerce. The two truths remained the same. Online advertising, like SEO and PPC, would drive customers to your website. But the second truth proved shocking. While conversions still occured, online conversion rates were an appalling 2% to …

Read More

For the purposes of this post, we need to get one basic thing straight: what is a landing page?

The literal definition is: a ‘page’ that a web visitor ‘lands’ on when clicking on a link to that page or when arriving at a site after entering a URL in a browser.

So a landing page can be just about any page on your website. A fact confirmed by lots of leading landing page specialists, including Unbounce and Hubspot.

The Term ‘Landing Page’ Sucks

What good is it if it refers to every page on your site? Why not just …

Read More

The silver lining of appallingly low online conversion rates is that even small conversion improvements can produce big bottom-line improvements.

And whether you listen to the experts, like Neil Patel, or simply observe the experts, like Google (which performs thousands of tests each year – pardot.com) you’ll know that A/B or split testing is integral to improving conversion rates.

But, believe it or not, if you run any kind of testing program, you are in the minority.

Only 44% of companies use some form of testing to improve their conversion rates.

But Don’t Get Smug if You Split Test 

Perhaps …

Read More

If you have ever visited a tradeshow, you probably experienced a very clear example of the effect of social proof. Think back to the time you spent strolling the trade show floor, not with any particular booth destination in mind, but just looking to see what’s what.

Which booths caught your attention? Chances are you were drawn to those that had visitors and avoided those where the booth representative stood alone.

Yes?

The thing that attracts you to the busy booths, or crowded stores at the mall, is the social proof demonstrated by the mass of people.

According to Wikipedia, …

Read More

 Considering it’s just a few short clicks from beginning to end, your conversion rate optimization work has lots of tricky turns, bumps and exit points. Keeping prospects on track is key and you can’t let up on your efforts to do so until the final CTA completes the conversion.

Whether you want to increase your conversion rate, generate leads or make a sale, the very last step in your funnel involves some sort of sign-up form. But, just because you got them this far doesn’t mean your prospects won’t bolt in a second if your form isn’t optimized at least …

Read More

It’s simply no longer an option to ignore or underestimate the impact of mobile shopping on ecommerce.

Sales results from the 2013 holiday season underline why. According to Custora’s Ecommerce Pulse, as reported on marketingland.com, mobile e-commerce grew 50% during the 2013 holiday season versus 2012.

Almost 30% of holiday ecommerce orders were made on mobile devices.

But, in a June 2013 post, Marketing Pilgrim highlighted a study that showed 49% of ecommerce merchants did not have a mobile-optimized site and, remarkably, a further 17% didn’t know or weren’t sure if their sites were optimized.

Part of the problem is …

Read More

If anything, it’s a major flaw in accepted ecommerce strategy that we pay more attention to attracting customers than we do to the checkout process they follow. Never before has the need to study retail checkouts been so high than since the emergence of ecommerce. And, considering the pitiful conversion rate, never has it been more crucial.

Battle the FUDs

If your online customer had the same familiarity and certainty she has in the checkout line of a bricks and mortar store, where she is even willing to wait to checkout, you could expect your conversion rate optimization to move …

Read More