Conversion Rate Optimization is a strategy that aims to make each conversion more positive.
For those who sell online (e-commerce), converting means making a sale, but for businesspeople who do not work in this format, conversion occurs when the customer, from the website, contacts the company or leaves their details to be contacted.
So, regardless of whether you sell through your website or not, it is possible (and necessary) to convert.
So, that’s what this guide is for, let’s delve deeper into this topic. Understand everything about CRO and how to apply it . Enjoy reading!
What is conversion rate?
To begin with, you need to understand what conversion is . As we mentioned above, conversion is nothing more than when the customer performs the action you want.
It could be a sale, generating leads, downloading an app, making a subscription, etc. There are several objectives and each one follows its own strategy.
The conversion rate is one of the most important metrics. Through it, you can understand the total volume of users who visited your page and those who actually converted.
Google Analytics provides all the data you need, such as visits and conversions over a period of time, and also does the math on its own. However, if you want to do it yourself, the formula is simple:
Conversions/Visits * 100 = Conversion Rate.
What is a good conversion rate?
Once this concept is understood, managers and marketing professionals often have a big question: what is a good conversion rate? In practice, this is a very difficult question to answer.
For example, the average conversion rate for a belgium business fax list Brazilian e-commerce site is just 1.65%. When you stop and think about it, this makes a lot of sense from a consumer behavior perspective .
How often do people go into stores just to “take a quick look”? This is even more true online.
The Brazilian rate is low, especially compared to the United States (2.86%) and globally (4.31%). It is difficult to say why this is the case.
It could be a cultural thing, or it could be that Brazilian websites are not as well optimized . Either way, there is always a way to optimize your conversion rate.
What is CRO — Conversion Rate Optimization?
CRO is the acronym for “Conversion Rate Optimization”.
The conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to your website who end up making a purchase , so CRO is precisely about the process of optimizing this rate, that is, extracting the best possible return from it.
This concept is based on the principle that attracting visitors to a company's website always has a cost.
Even if they get there organically, it was necessary to invest in measures such as producing relevant content to obtain this result.
Therefore, it is necessary to convert these visits into sales, even to achieve a return on this investment.
Therefore, CRO comprises a series of mechanisms that aim to increase the website's conversion rate , making a greater number of visitors become customers of the company. Let's look at the main ones below.
So before we dive a little deeper into conversion rate, there are 3 points that need to be highlighted.
1. There is no point in copying
A very common mistake made by those who are just learning about this subject is wanting to “copy” what worked for someone else.
Can they serve as inspiration? Of course they can. Having benchmarks is valuable to understand what the market is doing.
Each website is unique and has its own audience, which means that what works for one may not work for you .
2. Test
It is impossible to do CRO without testing. Options such as A/B testing or multivariate testing are essential for anyone who wants to optimize their conversion rate.
3. Forget opinions and focus on facts
The beauty of Digital Marketing is that there is no room for opinion. You must become data driven and evaluate variables only according to what the data tells you.
Let's give an example that will help you better understand these three points. Imagine that you have an e-commerce site and you think that the color of the purchase button can improve the conversion rate.
Many websites say that red is a great color because it draws attention and gives urgent attention.
But, since you've learned that you can't copy, you'll have to do tests. You may, and should, have suspicions about which type of color converts the most, but the test exists to prove them.
So, you put it to the test and determine that green, for example, converts more.
What is the importance of CRO?
From the concepts above, you can already understand why CRO is important, right? The main goal is to bring more revenue to your company . Furthermore, it is a smart way to achieve this goal.
Each of your company's marketing actions has the goal of making a sale or final conversion. So, by optimizing these conversion rates, you are also being more efficient in each of them.
The advantage is that there is very little cost to doing CRO . In other words, you are not spending more money to produce more content, for example, you are just making the user path more efficient.
Speaking of which, user journey means a good experience . Websites with good conversion rates are naturally easy to navigate.
This makes your user happy and also Google, which means you position yourself better in searches.
Finally, there is an inversely proportional relationship between the Acquisition Cost and the conversion rate . The higher the conversion rate, the lower the former.
Imagine you spent $1,000 to attract 10,000 users and a conversion rate of 1%. In the end, you acquired 100 customers at a cost of $10.
By keeping the numbers the same and increasing the conversion rate to 2%, you double the number of customers converted, and cut your acquisition cost in half. You didn’t need any major investment.
On the one hand, increasing the conversion rate by 1% is not easy. On the other hand, as we saw above, Brazilian websites still have a lot to improve. Therefore, there is room to achieve very positive results .
Best Practices for Conversion Rate Optimization
Now that you know the basics of CRO, let's look at some best practices on how to perform conversion rate optimization .
Knowledge of the target audience
We constantly revisit the concept of persona, because it is truly inevitable. To increase the conversion rate, your website needs to be attractive and this is only possible when the company knows exactly who it is being designed for.
In this material, you will be able to learn how to identify and create these personas .
The more characteristics of the potential customer the company knows, the greater the amount of resources it can use to convert them.
For example: if your target audience is a 30-year-old woman who is vain and has a busy schedule, you can offer a sample of a beauty product when they first purchase from your website. You can even partner with brands when necessary.
Data collection
The first point is crucial, which is having data at your disposal. Fortunately, tools like Google Analytics are simple to use and provide much of the data you need, for free.
There are two ways to use the data. The first is to evaluate it to see if there is a problem . For example, if a page is performing well below expectations, the data can tell you that.
The second is to provide some answer . Data rarely provides any relevant information without you knowing how to ask.
Above, we gave the example of button color, as it is a very common test. But, is this what will make a difference in your conversion rate?
You can even do this test, as it can help, but there are others that can help much more. Analyzing the data allows you to find the points that make the most difference.
Elimination of obstacles
Try to identify any obstacles that the user may have on the website that prevent them from becoming a customer.
Sometimes, there is a very long and complex path between the home page and the actual purchase, which can discourage the user.
Other times, the design has too many visual elements that it makes the visit confusing. Whatever it is, the obstacle needs to be eliminated.
Do A/B testing
This type of testing is also essential for CRO. An A/B test is the comparison of two different versions of the same website or an action within it .
For example: you can create two distinct paths for the user to get from the home page to the form they must fill out to leave their contact details.
Then, you will survey the results of each one to define which is the best alternative.
You can apply this same testing format to identify the best design option, landing page and other aspects. Don't forget to define a correct sampling so that the test is satisfactory.
Build the funnel and analyze the CRO of each stage
For example, the sales funnel provides a lot of information about user behavior throughout their journey.
Google Analytics already provides a very complete funnel and you can evaluate it to find critical points .
If there is a step that is compromised, you can start investigating the reason. It could be something as simple as a slow loading speed.
How is the bounce rate?
Another crucial point to watch is the bounce rate of the most important pages . Bounce occurs when the user enters without interacting with anything.
It is common to have a considerable volume, but your page may not be delivering what the user expects.
In this case, it may be worth looking at your keyword choice, ensuring that there is synergy between the titles and the ads that lead to the pages.
Is the volume of visits high?
Before looking at the conversion rate, look at the CTR. The Click Through Rate is the number of people who see the page and actually click on it. If it appears but is not clicked on, you need to investigate the reason.
Use tools like heatmap and scrolling
Tools like heat maps are great for determining user behavior . They may click in places they shouldn't, and not where you want them to.
With a tool like this, you notice these behaviors and make the necessary corrections.
Scrolling tools are important because the user is lazy. Going back to the button example, imagine that it is off-screen.
If the user doesn't scroll, they'll never see the button and they'll never click it. This is a change that can have big impacts because you have data for it.
Is everything ok on mobile?
Another point that can cause problems is when switching to mobile . Imagine that your screen is not well framed for mobile.
If this is the main way users access your website, which is increasingly common, you have a big problem. You must always have a mobile-first mindset .
