Conversion rate optimization is exactly what it sounds like: optimizing the ways in which you convert consumers interacting with your ads, website, emails, and more.
In this blog we’ll be walking you through what conversion rate optimization (CRO) is, how to implement it for your onsite conversion efforts, and how to start capturing more traffic.
At Justuno, we’re a full onsite CRO platform that takes more of your visitors and converts them into leads and sales. The conversion optimization world is vast, so this article is designed to introduce you to the basic concepts of CRO and jumpstart your journey so you can start converting more, faster.
First, take advantage of your current data
Before anything else, you need to be taking advantage of the data that you likely already have. In this case, you need to look at how your visitors are interacting with your site. From basic analytics like bounce rate, time on page, and page traffic levels, to heatmaps (where visitors are spending time and clicking) and visualizing the entire visitor journey through your site.
Second, what are your goals? What initiatives are you looking to expand? Do you want to grow your email list so you can spread the word about your company’s newest offerings or promotions? Maybe it’s driving traffic towards the free e-book you’ve written. Maybe you just want more direct sales (which is absolutely normal). No matter which of these is your priority, keep it top of mind as it will affect your outcomes and directives.
Lastly, what are your customers saying? What’s the customer experience like on your site? Are they having trouble navigating it or becoming frustrated after trying to find customer support? This information can sometimes be hard to gather but is absolutely critical in order for effective CRO.
Tip: Offer a discount to all customers that answer a few quick survey questions about their customer experience to get them talking. Or, even reach out directly to customers that have purchased one of your products. Engage with them and listen to their needs and frustrations
With these three items in mind, it’s easy to jump-start your conversion rate optimization game.
Evergreen CRO Strategies
Now that we’ve established the groundwork for a good CRO approach, let’s turn to the implementation of CRO strategies.
Strategy 1: ABC (Always Be Capturing)
Website traffic is good, but only a small percentage of visitors will convert. That’s why it’s critical to start engaging visitors when they first come to your website with pop-ups in an attempt to get their contact information, like their email. Collecting this information allows you to re-engage visitors with off-site marketing further down the road and drive further conversions.
One of the easiest ways is to set up pop-ups, like a Welcome pop-up, or Exit pop-up. These pop-ups will automatically engage new visitors (you don’t want to annoy returning visitors!) and visitors that are about to leave the site in a final lead-conversion attempt.
Other popular tools where you can collect customer contact information include website banners and push notifications. Banners can highlight timely offers that visitors will want to engage with and push notifications allow you to reach customers even when off-site.
Beyond Hype Banner: Spend $75 more to unlock free gift
Strategy 2: Utilize Powerful (Psychological) Promotions
New Visitor and Exit Offer promotions are always no-fail and typically have a steady rate of conversion; however, they don’t match the raw psychological power of upsell, cross-sell, and gamification promotions.
Cross-sell promotions are the classic “Would you like fries with that?” of the e-commerce world. Have a visitor looking at running shoes? Offer high-quality running socks with them. If they have protein powder in their cart, why not a shaker bottle or protein bar recommendation? Amazon’s “Frequently Bought Together” section beneath each product is a great example of cross-selling.
An off-site social cross sell could be a Facebook message coming directly from the brand after your product has arrived and if you’d like to get a related product (after you got their information from a lead capture, of course).
Upsell promotions are the “Would you like to supersize your meal?” of e-commerce. Leather seats over cloth; protection plans and warranties; a better computer processor or graphics card.
Swing Set Cross-sell: Do you have everything you need?
Using upsell and cross-sell promotions work wonders for improving your customer shopping experience, increasing customer average order value (AOV), and increasing your store’s overall revenue. Win-win-win.
Gamification promotions are something entirely different, but no less effective. By introducing the elements of games into a non-game setting (shopping online), this appeals to visitors' fun side. When they spin a wheel or play a game to “win” a prize, they’ll feel a sense of ownership and accomplishment which makes for a creative and exciting onsite experience.
Spin-to-wins, for example, are one of the highest converting promotions averaging around 13% opt-in rates. Imagine converting an extra 13% of your web traffic into leads and/or sales. That’s a huge revenue boost.
Generic Gamification Spin-to-win example
Strategy 3: Omni-Channel Tracking & Mirroring
In this day and age, we have to include tracking and mirroring in any optimization strategy. Considering the numerous channels you can market through (email, paid ads, social media, and more) it's important to consider the omnichannel marketing experience. You need to track both where visitors are coming from and how they behave on your site. In doing so, you can mirror the copy and creative you’re using from other channels. This leads to a streamlined, seamless customer experience in which they’re far more likely to convert.
This especially applies to landing pages, too. Have a dedicated landing page for each marketing channel/campaign that’s clean, simple, and directed to the same promotion or offer. Do all of the thinking for them, making each next step (culminating in a purchase) obvious and clear.
If you’re offering $20 off on an order on Instagram but $15 on a Google Search advertisement, visitors should be presented with only that message both on the landing page and throughout the rest of their onsite journey. We’re not asking you to build several different websites of course, but rather use advanced targeting rules to track specific UTM parameters to have pop-ups ready to engage visitors from each specific channel.
Start optimizing for conversions today
This may sound like a lot, especially to those new to CRO, but we can assure you it’s not! Justuno’s CRO suite makes it quick and easy to integrate into service providers like Octane AI. Increase your email list, reach out to more customers on more channels, and ramp up your conversions.
Love these strategies and want to dive deeper? Start your conversion rate optimization journey with a 14-day free trial at justuno.com
Michael Wadsworth is a partner marketing associate at Justuno. He is passionate about technology solutions across the e-commerce landscape and helping our partners leverage the Justuno platform to its fullest. When he’s not working, you can find him finding the best take-out restaurants in Austin.
