A conversion is an action by a site visitor that accomplishes a brand’s desired goal. Users respond to call-to-action (CTA) messages. The action does not necessarily have to lead to online sales, as it can also mean signing up for newsletters, completing forms, downloading digital resources, and other activities. A user who converts becomes a lead or a customer.
Many elements factor in for a successful conversion, such as the design of your website or CTAs, website usability, how persuasive and relevant your copy is, and more. A memorable customer experience is important in guaranteeing a conversion.
Brands and retailers can monitor conversions through conversion tracking. The conversion rate refers to the number of visitors who convert. It can be calculated by dividing the number of users who converted by the size of the audience that saw the CTA.
Why Is It Important
Conversions and the conversion rate indicate the success of a brand’s marketing campaigns, merchandising strategy, and UX implementations. These can also help you identify which of your touchpoints are encouraging more users to convert. Some of the questions that monitoring conversions can help you answer are:
- Which element of your product detail pages is best in encouraging purchases?
- Is your email nurturing campaign effective in bringing shoppers back to your site to complete a purchase?
- How many users end up purchasing from using your search engine?
Understanding conversions can direct you to bottlenecks that you need to address and provide you with information on where to put more brand resources and efforts.
Many shoppers do not convert on their first exposure to a CTA. Knowing where conversions happen allows brands and retailers to direct leads on a more relevant path to purchase. The information can help you plan accordingly on how to make the customer journey smooth and frictionless. Tracking conversions also lets you categorize users into visitors interested in brand products and services and those who are merely browsing.
How to Improve Conversions
The process of improving the business conversion rate is called conversion rate optimization (CRO). The following are some of the ways a brand can get its desired numbers:
- Do A/B testing. This allows brands to monitor the performance of pages and identify which elements are working to their advantage. You can test which CTAs, buttons, or design works better to encourage conversions.
- Highlight a unique edge compared to your competitors. Even though your products and services are similar, you can call attention to an element that makes your brand preferable. It should be communicated properly and in a manner that catches attention.
- Gain your visitors’ trust. This can be done in various ways, such as putting accurate information on your website, making use of testimonials and reviews from credible websites, having a physical address, offering an easy means for customers to contact you, and using a professional design.
- Do not complicate purchasing. Visitors can be decided to buy from your site, but a convoluted process may make them change their minds. Purchasing should be as intuitive and easy as possible.