Conversion Rate Optimisation

PPC management used to be easy when we first started in 2001, We just popped keywords into Google AdWords on broad match and then bid 10p/20p/50p etc. (even for what are now high-cost keywords like credit card/loan terms!) and let the traffic flow to the site, it was very easy, there wasn’t much competition and traffic converted fantastically so conversion rate optimisation wasn’t something we worried about, traffic was cheap and plentiful if a visitor didn’t convert we just bought more!

Fast forward 10 years and pay per click has evolved to a specialist sector, competition is high in all but the lowest traffic niches and costs are high, sometimes cripplingly so, we regularly work in sectors costing over £20 per click! so every click really does count and every visitor we can get to a site is one visitor we can try to convert into a sale so conversion optimisation is now (and will continue to be) a very hot topic.

Conversion rate optimisation (or conversion optimization if you’re American) is defined on Wikipedia as “the process of increasing website leads and sales without spending money on attracting more visitors by reducing your visitor “bounce rate” and that’s a pretty good single sentence summary so in essence what normally happens is that small changes are made to the target page, then the page receives visitors for a period of time and the outcome is assessed, if the number of desired actions i.e leads, sales, downloads etc. is greater then that change is declared an improvement and thus the winner of the test.

In short we see successful conversion optimisation test outcomes as free sales for our clients as they have already paid for the traffic, we just make it convert better than it did to begin with and we can chalk those down as extra free sales in effect so it’s worth the effort and cost to test and optimise landing pages to try to squeeze every conversion out of them that we can.

Conversion testing can be carried out on a multitude of areas; page layout, images, button size, text and colours, changes to font size, colour, wording etc. For example, changing “Fast Car Data Check” to “Instant Car Data Check” got a 20% improvement for a Car data company we worked with. Changing the ‘add to cart’ button from red to green on another client’s website resulted in the conversion rate going from 4% to 4.25% which doesn’t sound much but it added £27,000 revenue to their bottom line per year.

One site that we love for conversion optimisation inspiration is the now sadly ended ‘WhichTestWon.com‘ as the tests there are many and varied covering elements such as image, font, wording, layout, colours etc. and more subtle variables, more importantly the results of the changes are shared so you get to see which version worked best. So without further delay lets look at the first of two examples that we have images for with kind written permission from whichtestwon.com

Tiles Conversion Optimisation Test.

Version A is on top and Version B is on the bottom.

The conversion optimisation test was trying to figure out if the more tiles were sold if multiple or single benefits were offered, so if you look at to area above the tile description and cost you’ll see a panel in Version A that gives 3 bullet pointed benefits, “Competitive prices, Designer ranges and Full pallet discounts”, then to the right of the three benefits is a free delivery message. In Version B you’ll see that it just mentions the free delivery offer although more prominently than Version A.

Which do you think would work best? Most of the time users need lots of information to form a purchasing decision but in this case Version B won and achieved 27.3% more than Version A. Having said that who’s to know if 3 different bullet points wouldn’t have outperformed Version B, this is why conversion rate optimisation should form part of an ongoing mission for clients of a PPC agency, even when one test wins, there are still variables to test in the ongoing mission to improve the conversion rate.

Conversion rate optimisation example number two is about images, most people give little thought to anything past page layout, they just punt it over to their designer and let them do what they do with little thought on sales, they usually think the ad copy will sell it and little else makes a difference.

Business Cards Optimisation Test.

Version A is on the top and Version B is on the bottom.

The conversion optimisation test was to see if happy smiling people convinced more PPC driven traffic to shop at the site. Most people assume a smiling face will make sales and in many cases it does, (even then it can be further optimised, for example a smiling woman may increase conversion rate for a product or service over a smiling man or vice versa) but in this instance which version do you think convinced more people to buy?

Most people voted for Version B and if you did too then you were wrong too, Version A convinced 18.2% more people to click the buttons to start buying, so in this instance smiling people didn’t work but that’s not to say conclusively that pictures of people won’t work on this site, if for example they tried  just one person it could have worked better, then again maybe not, but all variations are worth testing.

These two examples show tests that worked well with quite subtle changes that resulted in one of each example converting better and this is what conversion rate optimisation is about, your PPC management team should be tweaking, testing and trying to improve, it’s amazing what an uplift in sales can be achieved by just a couple of changes so make sure you add some conversion optimisation testing into your Pay per click marketing, buying visitors is expensive enough, you should be making ongoing efforts to try to convert more into paying customers.

Thanks again to WhichTestWon.com for letting us feature two of the tests they featured, we love the site as it’s great for inspiration so go have a look and see if you can guess (you vote A or B before you see the results) which test won for each of the conversion optimisation tests that they have on-site HERE They also have a great newsletter that keeps you up to date with new tests so it’s definitely worth signing up to.

If your conversion rate could do with a boost then drop us a line today for a no-obligation chat about how we may be able to help you improve yours. Sometimes it’s the subtle changes that make meaningful differences that really affect your profitability. If a conversion rate optimisation agency is something you think you might need then give us a call on 0800 228 9122 alternatively use the call me back form on the right or the contact form on our contact us page.