A high conversion rate is generally indicative of a strong, healthy website while a low conversion rate may signal problems with your site's design, content, or offer.
Conversion Rate Calculator
Did you know that many businesses only last around 10 years or less? After 10 years, it becomes less and less likely that a business will stick around. Businesses fail for all sorts of reasons, but failure can happen especially when you're not constantly promoting your business and your business's products and services.
You can make sure your business stays in good shape by running ads for it every once in a while (if not all the time). But before you run any ads, it is first important to understand what a conversion rate is. Conversion rates are all about turning simple internet users into paying customers.
But how can you go about doing this? Keep reading and learn more about advertising conversion rate and how you can make sure that your conversion rate is as high as possible.
What Is a Conversion Rate Exactly?
Suppose that you run an ad to promote your business. This ad will show on certain websites and be viewed by certain groups of people hundreds or even thousands of times. An impression is each time such an ad gets shown, but it is not the number of how many times a user interacts with the ad.
Instead, when a user interacts with an ad, this is known as a user engagement or click. Naturally, not everyone who sees your ad will click on it. As a result, an ad's impressions will almost always be higher than the number of clicks it generates.
It's great news for your business when someone clicks on one of your ads because that means that the person will be brought to your website where he or she will have the chance to explore your website's products and services. But there is a problem: even if a user clicks on your ad and ends up on your website, there is no saying whether or not this user will turn into a paying customer.
This user might instead look around on your website and then leave without doing much of anything. This, of course, would not be very helpful to the success of your business. That's where the art of the conversion rate comes in.
The Conversion Rate Formula
The conversion rate is the number of visitors on your site divided by the number of people who convert. In simple terms, the conversion rate = total number of visitors / total number of conversions.
Total number of visitors is sometimes referred to as total number of sessions or total number of users, in simple terms it is your site traffic. Conversions may mean a desired action, sales or the total number of leads.
This is important because just as there are fewer clicks than there are impressions on an ad, there are also fewer actions than there are clicks. This is not great news if you're trying to grow your business fast and low conversion rate stats won't get you anywhere anytime soon. But why is conversion rate so important to begin with?
What would happen if you ignored conversion rate and tried to grow your business without it in mind?
Why Does Conversion Rate Matter So Much for Businesses?
Conversion rates permeate just about every aspect of the digital marketing sphere. It's used to calculate the success and efficiency of all sorts of marketing campaigns whether it be email marketing, content marketing, or anything else. Without understanding conversion rate, it would be virtually impossible to see how successful your marketing campaigns really are.
For example, you might be able to see how many people click on an ad, but without understanding the conversion rate, you would have no understanding of the ratio of people who make some kind of action on your website compared to those who simply click on your website and then click off. The goal of any business is to gain as many customers as possible.
The more customers you have, the more money your business will make and the more people will know about your business. This, of course, will perpetuate your business and will ensure that your brand lasts as long as possible. The trick is to figure out how to turn online users into customers.
This is easier said than done. This requires a way of enticing users to become interested in whatever your brand has to offer. Some people may already be more interested in your brand than others, so it will be easier to convert them into paying customers.
Other people, on the other hand, may not be very interested in your brand at all, but with the right marketing tactics, you might still have a chance of converting them. Whatever the case, knowing more about conversion rate can benefit your business by showing you what works (and what doesn't) in the world of advertising.
You might even find some weaknesses in your website itself or in your marketing campaign as a whole while you're at it.
The Levels of Conversion
For example, suppose that you send out regular marketing emails as part of your email campaign. These emails contain new information about your brand's products and perhaps even discounts for those products. By analyzing the conversion rate for these emails, you can tell a lot about how effective they are and what you could do to make them better.
If very few people click on the emails in the first place, the emails themselves may not be interesting enough to generate clicks. But what if people click on the emails but then don't pay for any products or services? In that case, your call to action may not be strong enough to transform these users into paying customers.
Keep in mind that it is not a direct path that takes users to becoming customers. In a way, you have to lure in these users before they become customers. For example, you might start by sending out an email to a group of people that might be interested in your brand.
Then, some people will click on those emails. Of those people, some may sign up to get more emails from you. After that, some might finally end up buying a product from you.
Understanding these different levels of conversion is vital. A person clicking on your website for the first time is only the first step. A person who has already progressed through several conversion levels will be much more likely to purchase something from you compared to someone who has not even gone through one conversion level.
Conversion Rate Optimization - What is a Good Conversion Rate?
You might be asking yourself: If conversion rate is so important for a successful business, what number would constitute a good conversion rate? Is 5% good or bad? What about 80%?
The first thing you should know is that conversion rates don't usually come in huge percentages. It would be very rare, if not impossible, to find businesses that have conversion rates that are as high as 80%. Instead, lets say the average conversion rate is around 5%.
This may sound very low to you, but 5% is actually a very good conversion rate. This means that your brand's ability of turning users into customers is 5%. Again, this may not sound very impressive, but what you should keep in mind is that it is actually quite difficult to convert users into customers.
This is especially true depending on what industry your brand is in. Usually, more industrial businesses have lower conversion rates compared to businesses in more popular niches such as fashion. Does this mean that certain niches don't have any chance of succeeding because their conversion rates are naturally lower?
Not at all! Your brand could have a conversion rate of 2% and still be a great success. Most businesses don't have conversion rates higher than 6-8% anyway, so don't be discouraged if you find that your conversion rate isn't high.
However, don't take this as an excuse to not work on your brand's conversion rate at all. You should always work towards increasing your conversion rate for the sake of your business. Many good things can result from a high conversion rate.
The Benefits of a Good Conversion Rate
For example, not only will you generate more customers but you will also have more people aware of your brand. This may generate even more customers down the line. By keeping your conversion rate steady and improving it while you can, you can make sure that your business stays in good shape.
Also, keep in mind that your conversion rate doesn't only measure users who buy things from your site. Remember that conversion rates measure actions that users take on your website. These actions might include signing up for your newsletter, subscribing to your email list, inputting their contact information, and so on.
All of these actions are important as they bring your users one step closer to becoming customers. While it might be difficult to start converting users at first, you will find that the effect will start to snowball once you get enough users involved. As more people discover what your website has to offer, it will become easier to convert more users.
And, of course, there are several ways in which you can improve your conversion rate which we will discuss next.
How to Achieve a Better Result With Your Conversion Rate
One of the best ways you can improve your conversion rate is by experimenting with A/B testing. A/B testing is all about creating multiple versions of specific web pages to see which ones are more effective than others. For example, suppose you have two versions of your website's product page.
While they display the same products, they look different and have different layouts. When you direct your potential customers to these pages, you will have the chance to analyze the results and see which page your users like better. More often than not, your users will prefer one version over the other and that preferred version will often result in a higher conversion rate.
By doing this, you can see what makes a particular web page attractive or catchy in the eyes of internet users. That way, you can better streamline your website as a whole and make it more attractive to your potential customers. Keep in mind that this will take some time to figure out and you won't see results overnight.
You might even need to create three or four versions of certain web pages before you find a version that your users really like. Interestingly, the problem could be as simple as the size or color of a button. For one reason or another, your users might subconsciously not like the appearance of the button to lead them to their shopping carts.
This tiny detail could prevent hundreds if not thousands of people from purchasing products from your business. But if you experiment with some simple designs, you can quickly weed out these small problems before they can impact your conversion rate too heavily.
Your conversion rate will also depend on what level of the sales funnel your prospect is in. If a user has landed on your site after their first interaction of your business, they will be less likely to convert than a customer who has been retargeted with warm relationship building ads who has just landed on your site. We many have seen Facebook ads or Twitter ads for a product we are interested in and only bought it after we got a timely reminder. It is best to create segments in Google Analytics to track what stage of the sales funnel your customers are in so you can work on each group individually. We have also created a free conversion rate calculator you can use above.
Other Examples
Another example of achieving a better conversion rate is to utilize more engaging language both in your ads and on your website. Using language that really speaks to your users will attract them more compared to boring, scripted language. But what makes language engaging in the first place?
Usually, you will want your language to come from the user's perspective. That way, the user will feel more connected to your content automatically. From there, you can use language that will inspire your users in some way and give them the boost they need to pry deeper into what your website has to offer.
What to Know About Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is one of the most important stats you need to consider when growing your business. Without it, you'll have no way of knowing how successful your ads are, let alone your business as a whole. Once you convert more users into customers, you'll find that your business will be more successful than ever. The bottom line is that conversion rate is the metric on which many online businesses live or die, so make sure to give it the attention it deserves. A strong average order value (AOV) combined with a strong site conversion rate can make a huge impact.