Refreshed Media Managing Director Simon Melaniphy presented this powerpoint in a 30 minute session to CIM members of the Solent branch at Winchester on 27/10/10. It explains about website conversions and how to improve them through use of Google analytics and various forms of testing. Case studies included and even touches on content strategy.

1. Conversion Rate Optimisation
Simon Melaniphy
MD, Refreshed Media

2. Why Invest 30 Minutes Today?
“Improve your website’s sales or enquiries without
attracting any more visitors”
1. 60 seconds on my credentials
2. What is a Conversion & Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)?
3. How to research and analyse website activity.
4. Testing ideas on your website.
5. Case studies (including one who increased enquiries 3 fold!)
6. Action points.

3. About Me & Refreshed Media
Founding Director in 2003
Hands on digital marketing consultancy, web design, SEO, PPC
Today Refreshed is a full service digital specialist
• Multi-award winning
• Part of the £25m Emerge Group
Focused on traffic generation and lead & sales conversion
• Google Adwords Certified Partner
• Test and measure to improve your website conversion rate
• Google Analytics qualified consultancy

4. We’ve worked with clients from…We’ve worked with clients from…

5. Website Conversion Definition
“A desired action taken by a website visitor”
Types of conversion?
•E-commerce sale
•Completed enquiry form
•Newsletter signup
•Software download
•Membership signup
•Free trial signup

6. What Is A Conversion Rate?
Goal achievements
________________________ x 100
Website visitors
e.g. 200 conversions
_______________ = 2% conversion rate
10,000 visitors

7. Return On Investment
Example, if a conversion = a sale @ £100 & PPC average CPC of 50p
Monthly Investment Visits Conversions Conv. Rate Revenue
Search Engine Marketing £15,000 30,000 450 1.50% £45,000
Option 1 = Increase SEM Investment (£2k):
Monthly Investment Visits Conversions Conv. Rate Revenue
Search Engine Marketing £17,000 34,000 510 1.50% £51,000
Option 2 = Invest in CRO
Monthly Investment Visits Conversions Conv. Rate Revenue
Search Engine Marketing £15,000 30000 750 2.50% £75,000
Conversion Rate Optimisation £2,000

8. What Conversion Rate Should I Expect?
•Varies significantly
•E-commerce sales = 0.5% to 8%
•B2C typically 1% to 2%, best in class = 5%
•Retail financial services typically 1% to 2%
•Free subscriptions to paid subscribers = 1% to 7%
Stats courtesy of Fireclick.com
•What do you NEED it to be to generate a positive ROI?
•Who is aware of their conversion rate?
•Who thinks it could improve?

9. Conversion Rate Optimisation
“39% of companies are
dissatisfied with their
website conversion rate”
Econsultancy, 2010

10. What is CRO?
e process of measuring, understanding and adapting your website in
der to better suit visitor needs and in order to achieve website objectives.
Visits
CRO: Analysis,
Measurement, Testing
More
conversions /
sales / leads

11. CRO Process

12. Research & Analysis

13. Google Analytics
Free, well featured, supported
Get the measurement culture!
• Where is your traffic coming from?
• What traffic is productive?
• What is happening on your website?

14. Google Analytics – Tracking Goals
•All forms
•E-commerce
•Track basket values and product names
•‘Soft’ goals
•Positive user experience but no £ or data capture
•Particularly if low converting site to get more data
•e.g. free brochure downloads & key button clicks

15. Google Analytics – Tracking Goals
•Funnels
•Monitor visitor activity from point A to point B
•E.g. Through the checkout process or even for 1-stage forms
•Useful for:
•Reducing redundant steps people take towards the goal
•Finding the exit points in the site
•Identifying if not enough info on a
page so user has to click elsewhere
•Testing alternate page versions

16. GA – Segmentation
“Almost all data in aggregate is useless” - Avinash Kaushik
•GA much more valuable analysing in segments
•E.g. find most popular pages for a particular group, e.g.
converting visitors
•Easy to implement – top right on GA reports
•Create your own segments
•e.g. visits with an average order value of greater than £80

17. GA – Custom Variables
Define additional segments to apply to visitors
•E.g. Taylor Wimpey Introduced new incentive pages & drove traffic
•Would these affect the conversion rate?
•Custom Variables put these visitors into their own segment
•YES
•30% more likely to enquire
•40% more likely to download
a brochure

18. GA – Other Analysis
Every time you
implement something
new on your site, ask
how the effectiveness
can be measured

19. Tracking the Whole Click Journey
Click Date / Time Source
1 06/04/2010 – 18:32 Email Campaign
2 07/04/2010 – 18:48 Google Adwords – “new homes Winchester”
3 08/04/2010 – 19:20 Banner advertisement
4 10/04/2010 – 12:02 Google.co.uk (organic) – “Taylor Wimpey”
5 11/04/2010 – 13:31 Direct
Enquiry submitted on the 5th
visit – 5 days and 5 clicks after the original visit
But which traffic source is responsible for generating the conversion?
• First Click?
• Last Click?
Average clicks before conversion = 3.3
Example for house builder Taylor Wimpey

20. Multi-touch conversion attribution
Understand more about your visitors:
• How many clicks on average does it take for a visitor to convert?
• How long from first visit, does it take for a visitor to convert?
• What time of day / week / month / year are first click conversion journeys starting?
• When do I need to appear for research keywords (e.g. “new homes”)?
• When do I need to appear for transactional keywords?
• When really is the best time of day / week / month to send an email?
• How do first click visits differ from last click visits on the site?

21. Heatmaps

22. Scroll Analysis
Are visitors reaching the bottom of your pages?

23. Usability Testing – Your Site
• Understanding the WHY behind the WHAT
• Select users from your target market:
• Focus Groups
• 1-2-1 User Experience Test
• Set specific tasks – listen and interpret

24. Usability Testing – The Market
• Ask users to execute the same
tasks on key competitor sites
• Ask users to perform searches for
your products and services
• 5-6 users can uncover 85% of
usability issues

25. Ideas & Solutions

26. Solutions Priorities
Create a list of conversion improvement ideas, and priorities in order of
importance:
Issue Solution Priority How Measured
Visitor dropping off from stage 4 of
the conversion process.
Reduce the size of the form High % form
abandonment / %
stage completion
Low conversion rate for Product X Change the position of the
call-to-action
Medium Goal conversion rate /
% of visitors who click
through to form
Home page top image taking up
too much real estate
Reduce image depth and
promote search function
above the fold
Medium Bounce rate / pages
per visit / time on
site / conversion rate
Logo does not link to the home
page
Insert link Low Bounce rate / exit rate

27. Prepare for testing
• Pages will typically need 5,000 unique
visitors in order to have a large enough
sample.
• Test one solution at a time!
• Ease of implementation may dictate which
tests are conducted first

28. Testing

29. Conversion Rate Optimisation– Split Testing
• One of these designs gained 25% more conversions that the other – which was it??

30. Split A/B Testing
V
Serving up 2 or more different versions of a page live.

31. Multivariate Testing
Dividing the page into sections, and testing alternatives within those sections.
Different sized
images
Different designs
and wording for
calls to action
Different designs
and wording for
calls to action

32. CRO: Multivariate Testing
• 9 different versions of this page section...
• A massive 300% difference in conversion results
3 different colour tab
versions
3 different text versions
= 9 different page
versions

33. Case Study: Natural Training
Version 2 = 60% more likely to click, 40% more likely to convert!
• Through GA & user tests identified page which converting visitors usually visited
•Struggled to find call to action
•Tested positioning, designs and language

34. Case Study: National Express
The winning version increase conversion rates by 14%!

35. Testing Principles
• A test is only as good as the analysis & research
• Don’t just test the design of calls-to-action if they are not going to make a big
impact to site performance.
• Give the test a chance to reach a conclusion
• Don’t be disheartened if tests are inconclusive:
• Go back and find out why (more analysis, more user tests)
• Don’t be disheartened if the originals outperform the alternatives / solutions
• Better to analyse, test and measure than to not bother.

36. Content Strategy

37. Content Strategy
“In 2011, content strategy will cause a
bigger buzz than social media.”
opening speaker at this year's Content Strategy Forum in Paris

38. Content Strategy
• Think about how you engage your website visitor:
– Video
• product reviews / demonstrations
• Distribute via YouTube and other video sites
– Animations
• Explain difficult concepts
– Client testimonials (text / video)
– Personalise or segment content
– User generated content
• Forums
• Reviews
– Expert Content
• Blog
• Articles (distribution)

39. Content Strategy
– Social Media
• Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook to:
– Drive content
– Stimulate conversation
– Engagement can enhance conversion rate

40. Review & Implementation

41. Implementing winning variations
• Continue to monitor the success of the implementation
• Report back to other stakeholders
• Timestamp / Annotate the implementation
• Useful when reviewing in future or for other staff

42. It’s a cycle!
• Whilst implementing the first test, start thinking about the next test
• Continually add to the solutions list

43. Action Points

44. What Next? Objectives
• Set Objectives:
• Increase conversion rate
from 1.5% to 2.5% within 1
year
• Implement at least 4 tests
within the next year

45. What Next? Strategy
Conversion Checklist:
Research / Analysis Done? Testing Done?
Setup / Configure Google Analytics Decide on split or mutlivariate test
Implement Heatmaps / Scrollmaps Implement heatmaps on variations
Usability Tests Ensure variations can be tracked in GA
Brainstorm ideas with sales team Take screenshots of variations
Ideas & Solutions Done? Review Done?
Create list of issues / problems Analyse the results
Brainstorm how to overcome them Implement the winner
Prioritise the actions / tests Annotate Google Analytics
Agree how to monitor tests Start next test process

46. What Next? Accountability
Give someone in the
organisation
responsibility for
managing the website’s
conversion rate

47. Any Questions?
simon@refreshedmedia.com
01202 414101
www.refreshedmedia.com
Download a copy from slideshare.net/refreshedmedia