How to improve your website
conversion
Mark Patron
CEO, RedEye
9/10/13
1
Agenda
• Econsultancy/RedEye Conversion Rate Optimization
Report 2013 and survey
• What improves conversion - survey respondents
• What improves conversion - analysis of the survey data
• Maturity model
Source: Econsultancy/RedEye CRO Report 2013
2
Why are conversion rates so low?
•
Average retail conversion rate has declined from 8.4% to below 3.8%
over last seven years. At same time market has grown from £30.2bn
to £60bn plus.
•
•
Due to move from “online purchasing” to “online shopping”
Improving website conversion is more complicated than spending
more with Google…
Source: IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index
Source: Econsultancy/RedEye CRO Report 2013
3
Conversion rate optimisation spend is low
Currently for every $92 spent acquiring visitors, only $1 spent
converting them. So spending money intelligently on Conversion Rate
Optimization (CRO) should be a better investment than spending more
money on generating traffic...
Converting
customers
Acquiring
customers
Source: Adobe/eMarketer
4
Econsultancy/RedEye CRO Report 2013
• Over last 5 years surveyed thousands of digital marketers about
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
• Respondents mostly European based retail / e-commerce
Source: Econsultancy/RedEye CRO Report 2013
5
Satisfaction with conversion rates is low
Source: Econsultancy/RedEye CRO Report 2013
6
Agenda
• Econsultancy/RedEye Conversion Rate Optimization Report
2012 and survey
• What improves conversion - survey
respondents
• What improves conversion - analysis of the survey data
• Maturity model
Source: Econsultancy/RedEye CRO Report 2013
7
Methods used for improving conversion rates
Source: Econsultancy/RedEye CRO Report 2013
8
Best practices carried out by organisations
Source: Econsultancy/RedEye CRO Report 2013
9
Barriers preventing improving conversion?
Consistently top
Source: Econsultancy/RedEye CRO Report 2013
10
HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO IMPLEMENT
Value and difficulty of different methods
Now look at
top 4 methods
in more detail
Website personalisation
Cart abandonment analysis
Customer journey analysis
Multivariate testing
Event-triggered / behavioural
email
Segmentation
Expert usability
reviews
Competitor benchmarking
Abandonment email
Usability testing
A/B testing
Copy optimisation
*Size of the bubbles is directly proportional to the percentage of
companies surveyed using each method for improving conversion rates.
VALUE
Source: Econsultancy/RedEye CRO Report 2013
11
Testing
Companies whose conversion rates have improved over the previous
12 months are performing on average 50% more tests to improve
conversion than those companies whose conversion rates have not
improved.
Sales
Large increase
Small increase
No change
Decrease
Average number of tests
each month
7.88
4.32
2.61
1.86
Source: Econsultancy/RedEye CRO Report 2013
12
Specifically for your website, what do you test?
Top four:
- Call to action buttons
- Page layout
- Copy
- Navigation
Source: Econsultancy/RedEye CRO Report 2013
13
Important to a successful testing strategy?
Top:
Defining testing goals
and objectives &
Prioritising tests
Bottom:
Choosing software
Source: Econsultancy/RedEye CRO Report 2013
14
Usability testing
• Usability testing with eye tracking is the best way
to understand how your site design is performing
and why your customers are doing the things you
see in the web analytics data.
• To get support for your website optimisation process
show key stakeholders and senior management
highlight clips from usability testing showing users
struggling to achieve those key goals.
• A/B and Multivariate tests can take can take a number of weeks to
generate a statistically robust answer. So you really can’t afford to do
random testing. Usability testing is a useful method to help prioritise
tests.
Source: Econsultancy/RedEye CRO Report 2013
15
Customer Journey Analysis
• Customer journey analysis is the first step
in understanding what customers are doing
on your site
• Typically not a simple sales funnel
• Consider all primary user goals
• Challenging e.g. cross device
• By understanding customer
journeys you can pull your
customers through your
site rather than push them,
inbound rather than
outbound
Source: Econsultancy/RedEye CRO Report 2013
16
Agenda
• Econsultancy/RedEye Conversion Rate Optimization Report
2012 and survey
• What improves conversion - survey respondents
• What improves conversion - analysis of the
survey data
• Maturity model
Source: Econsultancy/RedEye CRO Report 2013
17
What improves conversion - analysis of data
The five additional variables most strongly correlated with
improved website conversion and sales are:
• Having a structured approach to improving conversion
• Having people responsible for improving conversion
• Perceived control over conversion rates
• Using a number of different methods used to aid conversion
• Cart Abandonment Analysis
• Note top 3 are all people issues
Source: Econsultancy/RedEye CRO Report 2013
18
Example of a structured process
Business objectives
Goals, aspirations, target audiences
Insight
Analytics, Usability testing, surveys…
Repository for quant & qual
Testing
insights &
learnings
Ideas & Prioritisation
Quantify, Predicted Uplift, Justification
Testing (A/B, MVT)
Test plans, UX Design variations, Reporting
& Measuring uplift / ROI
Continual Website Improvement
Increased Conversion, AOV, X-Sell,
Retention, Loyalty, UX
Quick wins e.g.
fixing usability issues,
interaction problems,
bugs
UCD/UX Design e.g.
New functionality,
redesigns,
wire-framing, prototyping
19
The more methods used improves sales
Companies whose conversion rates have improved over the previous
12 months are using 40% more methods to improve conversion than
those companies whose conversion rates have not improved.
Sales
Large increase
Small increase
No change
Decrease
Average number of
methods used
5.03
4.92
3.05
4.37
Source: Econsultancy/RedEye CRO Report 2013
20
Complimentary methods lead to better results
Companies with £10m+ revenues
who integrated usability testing and
analytics well were more than twice
as likely to have seen a large
increase in sales as those that didn’t
Source: Econsultancy/RedEye CRO Report 2013
21
Agenda
• Econsultancy/RedEye Conversion Rate Optimization
Report 2012 and survey
• What improves conversion - survey respondents
• What improves conversion - analysis of the survey data
• Maturity model
Source: Econsultancy/RedEye CRO Report 2013
22
Conversion Maturity Model
Increasing number of complimentary
methods used, tests and segmentation
£
Not using a
structured
approach
Little
or no control
of conversion
½ person
responsible
for conversion
In control
1 person
responsible
for conversion
Testing landing
Pages
Structured
approach
to improving
conversion
2 people
responsible
for conversion
Incentivising
staff based on
conversion
Testing multiple
landing pages
Starting to test
landing pages
Starting testing
Using A/B
testing or MVT
Starting Out
Intermediate
Strategic
Time
23
Survey summary - most valuable methods
4 most valuable methods to improve conversion - survey
respondents:
• A/B testing
• Multivariate testing
• Usability testing
• Customer journey analysis
Source: Econsultancy/RedEye CRO Report 2013
24
Most correlated with improved conversion and sales
Excluding most valuable methods on previous slide –
5 variables most correlated with improved conversion and
sales are:
• Having a structured approach to improving conversion
• Having people responsible for improving conversion
• Perceived control over conversion rates
• Using a number of different methods used to aid conversion
• Cart Abandonment Analysis
Source: Econsultancy/RedEye CRO Report 2013
25
Conclusion - survey and correlated variables
Top 7 things to do to improve conversion:
• A/B and Multivariate testing
• Usability testing
• Customer journey analysis
• Having a structured approach to conversion
• Have people directly responsible for CRO with perceived
control over conversion rates
• Use a number of different methods to improve conversion
• Cart Abandonment Analysis
Source: Econsultancy/RedEye CRO Report 2013
26
Thank You
From 30th October download the full Econsultancy/RedEye Conversion Rate
Optimization Report 2013 at
http://econsultancy.com/reports/conversion-rate-optimization-report
See RedEye’s white papers on Conversion Rate Optimization at
http://www.redeye.com/events/whitepapersandreports/
[email protected]
mark.patron
uk.linkedin.com/in/markpatron
Source: Econsultancy/RedEye CRO Report 2013
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