What are the Steps of Conversion Optimization?

For marketers, conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a top priority, regardless of what space your business is operating in.

This process of streamlining your marketing funnel for greater success is integral to the longevity of your business, and it’s an essential goal of paid advertising.

In this two-part series, we’ll explore conversion rate optimization, and explain how to get a better return on investment (ROI) in each of the key areas of your marketing strategy. Moreover, we’ll reveal just why PPC managers should be doing this by highlighting everything you have to gain.

So, let’s get started by getting familiar with the fundamentals…

What is Conversion Rate?

In the simplest terms, a conversion is when one of your site visitors completes the desired goal, such as signing up to your mailing list or buying a product. Ergo, the conversion rate is the percentage of total website visitors that complete the desired goal.

You can calculate it using this conversion rate formula:

Conversion Rate = Conversions/clicks

If you have a high conversion rate, you can take confidence in knowing that your marketing and web design are on-point — people like what they see!

What is CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization)?

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is an ongoing process that virtually everyone in online marketing is striving to improve.

The aim is to maximize your conversion rate by encouraging a greater percentage of visitors to take the desired action on your website. To perform CRO effectively, you must analyze customer on-site behaviors, drawing insights from their actions to determine why some people don’t convert.

How to Optimize Your Conversion Rate

In PPC, smart managers focus on two main goals — increasing their conversion rates and reducing the cost-per-conversion. Everything else is secondary.

Many people dive into an Ads campaign and struggle to achieve the conversion rates they want. As time rolls on, time, money, and effort go to waste.

Before you start with Google Ads, save yourself the hassle by using our checklist for CRO.

1. Is your Google Ads Campaign CRO Compliant?

To ensure you have a strong foundation for PPC advertising success, your campaign absolutely must be CRO compliant. Here’s what to do:

• Invest time in keyword research — This is vital to CRO. With deep research to identify branded and non-branded keywords, you boost your chances of meeting advertising goals.
• Intelligently define your keywords match types — Your match types tell Google how much freedom to give your ads in relation to user search queries. Consider your campaign goals to define intelligent match types. Conversion-oriented campaigns with CPC bidding are best aligned with a balance of different match types.
• Use negative keywords — This will prevent your ad from being displayed in irrelevant searches, which saves you from incurring wasted spend attracting unqualified traffic.
• Consider targeting — With your ideal customer in mind, think about how to reach them. From devices to geo-locations to the day of the week, by experimenting with targeting options you can maximize your ROI.
• Start with manual bidding — This will give you better control over spending as automatic bidding tends to waste money. Just take care to consider competing bids so you can get a better impression share.
• Don’t battle the big players — While you should consider your bids in relation to competitors, it’s wise to avoid challenging big companies who have deep pockets. Just like going up against the richest guy at the poker table, it can quickly leave you bankrupt. Instead, find targeting areas where the competition is not advertising.
• Follow a cascading bid strategy on match types — Allocate most of your spend bidding on exact match keywords, then focus on a mix of broad, modified broad, and phrase types.
• Track conversions — Enable conversion tracking in your account or website so you can accurately measure conversions and associated metrics.
• Uncheck search partners setting — You’ll find this in your campaign settings. By starting with Google search only, your ads will be displayed on the search network only, allowing you to take more control of your campaign.

2. Is your Advertisement CRO Compliant?

To stand out from the pack, you need a creative ad that attracts more clicks. This is a challenge, but it’s essential to improve your quality score and conversion rates.

Here’s what to think about:

• Ad focus — Is the ad focused on the visitors’ end goal? Does it present a competitive offer?
• Numbers — By using ASCII characters and numbers (e.g. 20% discount, 24-hour service etc.) your ad can grab more attention than a wall of text.
• Timing — It’s important to be current. By timing your ad right, you can garner more interest and engagement.
• Highlight benefits — Other than saving money on products or shipping, you must communicate the value of your offer to your prospects.
• FOMO — Can you use the fear of missing out to drive action? For example, just 10 days left for a 20% discount.
• Call-to-Action (CTA) — What are people supposed to do?

By using dynamic search ads, you can leverage your ad copy for greater effect. Whenever a user searches with a term closely related to those on your website, Google Ads will select a landing page and generate a relevant headline for your ad.

This helps get your ads in front of more eyeballs, and over time, you can work building greater relevance between the keywords and ads in your campaign.

3. Is your Landing Page CRO Compliant?

Are you getting a lot of clicks but not so many conversions? Perhaps your landing page isn’t optimized. Here’s what you need to do:

• Customer-centric experience — Think about their viewpoint rather than your product or company. Your landing page should have a clean, simple design, and fast loading speeds. Don’t confuse customers or waste their time with unnecessary distractions.
• Be relevant — Everything from your keywords to ad copy to images should resonate with your leads.
• SEO — Align your keywords with user search terms and problems to attract more qualified traffic.
• Stay above the fold — this is better for instant engagement.
• Convey trust — Display updated versions of your privacy policy, data usage policy etc.
• Create a Strong CTA — Your call-to-action should be clear, concise, and compelling.

4. Is Your Lead Generation Form CRO Compliant?

What works today may not work tomorrow. As markets evolve and consumer interests change, your business must stay agile to continue driving traffic that actually converts.

There are several factors to consider here. Check you are on top of these:

• Be brief — Don’t deter people by asking for too much information. Just get to the point in an intuitive, creative way.
• Save them time — Pre-fill default answers to make it easier.
• Opt for single-column — much better than multiple column lead forms.
• Trust – Clearly include your privacy policy
• CTA — Rethink it, again and again, until it’s perfect.

Why Should You Bother with CRO?

You’re probably thinking this is a lot of work. You’d be right — it is.

However, it’s worth doing it all.

So, what are the benefits of CRO?

5 Major Benefits of Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Conversion rate optimization is much more than a buzzword term in the marketing space. It is a genuine strategy for success.

Whatever industry you are in, whatever your products or services may be, your brand and business can gain a lot from understanding and improving CRO.

Here are five big benefits of better CRO:

1. It Offers Improved Customer Insights

As you optimize your marketing funnel, you gain a deeper understanding of your target audience. Over time, you’ll develop brand messaging and language that is better aligned with user intent.

2. It Generates a Better ROI

It’s much cheaper to retain customers than get new ones. By achieving a higher conversion rate, you will be maximizing your resources to get the most out of every acquisition.

3. It Makes Your Business More Scalable

As your business grows, your audience may or may not. In any case, CRO enables you to scale up without running out of resources or prospective buyers.

4. It Enhances the User Experience

The user experience (UX) counts for a lot nowadays, as people stick around more on sites that are easy and enjoyable to use. If they feel frustrated, confused, or misdirected, they’ll soon leave.

Empower your visitors to encourage them to engage with your brand — they may just become your biggest advocates.

5. It Nurtures Trust

Without trust, there will be no sale. It’s simple. Your website is your top sales rep, so it must be professional, helpful, and above all else, trustworthy. Only then will people hand over their information.

Recap of the CRO Checklist

So, now you know how to get a better return on investment (ROI) in paid advertising. More to the point, you know why these methods work.

Let’s take a quick run-through the checklist again.

Campaign CRO Compliance

• Use a well-defined keyword list that includes keywords and match types that are aligned with your business goals and target audience interests. Also, add negative keywords to filter out unqualified leads.
• Experiment with targeting different devices, locations, and times/days of the week to find out what works best.
• Start off with manual bids only. Bid most on exact matches before using a cascading strategy through other match types. Consider your competitors’ bids but be careful you don’t get sucked into a bidding war with big guns that have huge budgets — it won’t end well!
• Enable conversion tracking and uncheck the search partners setting. This will allow you more control and more accurate measurements.

Advertising CRO Compliance

• Adopt a customer-centric approach by focusing on their goals and the benefits they can receive.
• Think about how factors like timing, numbers, and urgency can drive action.
• Make your call-to-action clear and compelling.
• Try using dynamic search ads to boost exposure.

Landing Page Compliance

• Enhance the UX with fast load times and slick navigation.
• Strive for relevancy with great SEO and targeted content.
• Build trust with official policy documents.
• Maximize conversions with a strong CTA.

Lead Generation Form Compliance

• Minimize digital touchpoints by asking for essential info only and pre-filling fields.
• Instill trust with your privacy policy.
• Optimize your CTA for greater engagement.

Conversion Rate Optimization is Central to Your Success

It’s essential. If you want to go beyond brand awareness and clicks, then you have to optimize your entire strategy from start to finish. By doing this, you’ll see more clicks turn into conversions.

Not only that, but you will have more success in retaining customers, which lowers your costs in the long-term, ultimately contributing to a greater ROI for your campaign.

You don’t need a massive audience to succeed in business. You just need loyal followers that will support you by buying again and again.

By following our checklist, you can develop an effective conversion rate optimization strategy. As a result, instead of attracting hordes of the wrong type of people, who invariably don’t purchase anything, your business can find enough of the right type of people to drive your business forward. Is your strategy performing in terms of conversions? Run PPCexpo Conversion Performance Report to evaluate if you are meeting your campaign objectives.