SES New York: Converting Visitors Into Buyers

Converting Visitors Into Buyers

Bryan Eisenberg, Future Now, Inc.
Michael Sack, Idearc

Bryan Eisenberg

“It’s not about what, but WHY.”

Step 1: Define conversion goals
— what action do we want them to take?
— what page will we test?

Step 2: Know your profiles
— how many profiles will we have? not everyone behaves the same way
— how do they buy?
— where are they in buying cycle?

Step 3: Do the creative
— create the pages, PPC ads, etc.
— develop several variations

(Bryan is talking very, very fast.)

What to Test
— top 5 high bounce rate pages
— top 5 exit pages
— top 5 lowest time spent pages
— top 5 key pages

Case study: eliminating flash on home page decreased home page abandonment by 29%

Test different headline styles
Test different call-to-action buttons — “contact me” vs. “submit”
Test the “scent” of your site — “information scent” — are you leading visitors along to what they’re looking for?
— study your drop-off data — where do people leave your site? after how many page views/clicks?

Michael Sack

Two Sides of Lifting Conversions
1) Outside-in — getting people to your site; solved by:
— targeting correct keywords
— sitewide SEO
2) Inside-in — getting people thru the funnel so they convert; solved by sweat equity

Four Steps to Improving Conversions
1) Site prep
2) Target your traffic
3) Track and learn
4) Fix Your Cart

Site Prep
— compare your site to best in industry; why do they convert so well? how do they drive traffic to conversion?
— identify conversion points; conversion occurs in a series of steps
— control the experience — comparison to retail stores and how “shopper flow” is researched and controlled; milk is always in back of supermarket; we mess this up online — information overkill on home page, too many links, confusing navigation, etc.

(personal note: problem with this comparison is that offline stores only have one entrance; easier to control experience that way; online, no such luxury!)

— control the experience (cont.) — online, can use dynamic nature of web, user identification, etc., to customize experience — create and test “virtual doorways” into site (exactly!, as I was saying above in the personal note)

Target Your Traffic
— more specific search phrases lead to more virtual doorways into site, higher conversion, better ROI
— analyze keyword performance at different times of day
— test unique landing pages

Track & Learn
— must be able to track keywords at each engine
— must be able to see click path from search to conversion
— must be able to calculate ROI

Fix Your Cart

Elements of a good cart:
1) speed – fewest steps possible (4 or less); ask for the least info. required
2) inventory & shipping – indicate availability, no hidden charges
3) savable – make it easy to come back
4) giftable – ask, “do you want to make this purchase a gift?”
5) abandonment programs – capture email addresses
6) be nice — handles errors gracefully (“perhaps we didn’t get your zip code correctly?”)
7) no surprises!

[tags]sesny2007[/tags]