Good marketers attract quality leads.
But great marketers? They're optimizers.
On top of acquiring leads, they also measure what's working, what’s not, and look for hidden opportunities to improve conversions.
You want to be a great marketer, and we’ve got the goods to teach you.
By the end of this guide, you’ll learn about the conversion rate formula, what makes a good conversion rate, and the proven tips on boosting conversion rates across your copy, web design, and the user experience of your website.
Let’s roll.
Conversion rate is the percentage of users that complete an action.
This action could be opting into an email list, signing up for a 14-day free trial, or making a purchase.
Here’s the conversion rate formula:
Conversion rate = (No. of conversions ÷ No. of [Action]) X 100
How does this look in practice?
Imagine you’re a freelance SEO strategist driving traffic to a landing page using Facebook ads. Out of 9,500 users who viewed your ad, you attracted 512 leads.
Using the conversion rate formula: (512 ÷ 9500) X 100
You’d calculate your Facebook Ads campaign with a conversion rate of 5.39%.
The average conversion rate spans from 6% to 15.6% depending on your industry.
Here are the median and best-performing conversion rates across all industries based on the latest conversion benchmark report by Unbounce.
That way, you’ll know where you stand and have a plan for improvement. Note: This only covers landing pages, as reports on other forms of web pages have been limited.
There are all kinds of nuts and bolts involved in generating a lead or sale.
Copy, design, or user experience, they each play a role in turning prospects into leads that convert.
When I put out a request on HARO, 129 people replied and shared their experiences on improving conversions for their websites. I’ve filtered the list and rounded up 15 important tips to help you go get the bigger wins.
Alright, let’s dive in to learn the specifics!
Your value prop shows customers what they get when they use your product. It answers the big old question in their heads: “What’s in it for me (WIIFM)?”
For TheraSpecs, this WIIFM is therapeutic glasses that filter out harmful light that triggers eyestrains and painful migraines.
If you read TheraSpecs’ old product page, you’d be tempted to click the back button as it droned on about features.
Sure, there's a subtle mention of the WIIFM, but it’s far too buried in the copy for prospects to notice.
But if you were to read their new product page? You’d want to buy a pair or two.
Doesn’t it look better?
TheraSpecs spotlights their value prop by laying out the benefits of their light sensitivity glasses (e.g., relieve eye strain, minimize pressure on face).
It even backs up these claims with credible research and a money-back guarantee, proving the value it promises to deliver.
No surprise, the conversion rate rose by 26%.
Social proof like testimonials works wonders, as they eliminate doubts at the point of sale.
It shows skeptic prospects what customers are doing, proving that they can’t go wrong with their purchase.
When EmailAnalytics added a testimonial on their landing page, the conversion rate went up by 22.5%.
The key lesson here?
The next time you come across a positive review on social media, don’t leave it as it is. Embed the code of this user-generated post on your website and watch your conversions soar.
You want to actively invite customers to share their reviews, too.
With VideoPeel, you can send a link to customers to record their own video testimonials. No logins or downloads is necessary.
Once that’s done, upload them on your website. Better yet, use these videos in your ad campaigns.
Want to attract more customers? Display real-time notifications on your website to alert visitors of the customers who bought your products.
Evidence helps you to instill confidence in prospects and boost your conversion rates.
Here’s the cold hard truth: Customers don’t want your product.
They only want the results your product delivers.
That said, your headline needs to speak to the desired outcome your product creates, not how it does it.
See how these top brands highlight the desired outcomes in their headlines:
Evernote: Note-taking app. --> Your notes. Organized. Effortless.
Intercom: Customer messaging platform. --> Deliver great experiences, no matter what
CXL Institute: Online marketing training. --> Become great at what you do.
Aren’t they irresistible?
JMarketing applied this approach on Oak Room Wines’ website and skyrocketed their conversion rate by 149%.
They changed their yawn-worthy headline “Corporate Wine Gifts” to a captivating one, “How to make customers love you”.
“The reason is that wine was the vehicle, but it wasn't the customers’ goal. If they wanted wine, there's a store on every street corner. Instead, what they wanted was an ROI on their gift.”Joshua Strawczynski, Managing Director at JMarketing
You need to do customer research to identify this desired outcome. Look for “swipeable” words and phrases through:
And test them. Use a tool like Copytesting to gauge how customers feel when they read your headline.
Does customer research create a lot of work?
For sure, but it’s worth it.
Websites and blogs with poor designs stick out like a sore thumb.
Not to mention, it also creates uncertainty in a prospect landing on your website for the first time. “Erm… Are you sure you can do the job?”
Take Virtuance.
Back then, it was tedious navigating their old website. But after re-launching the site with simplicity in mind, browsing became a much more pleasant experience.
The result speaks for itself: Conversions jumped by 40%.
This rule applies, especially to your pricing page.
Your pricing page is a “money page” that targets your most aware prospects and leads. You don’t want to introduce friction when they’re looking for information to reinforce their decision.
In Umbraco’s old pricing page, the comparison table looks overwhelming. Notice how hard it is to differentiate the plans available. It’s impossible to tell which is the better option!
But their new pricing page is a different story.
Immediately, you see better grouping with clear labels that show the critical differences among the four plans.
Since updating the price comparison table, Umbraco improved their conversion rate from 0.89% to 1.03%.
Sometimes, a simple tweak is all it takes to have a massive impact on your conversion rates.
Your call-to-action (CTA) button color is one of them.
Steve Pritchard, CRO Specialist and Managing Director of It Works Media, changed Citrus Holidays’ CTA button from green to orange and increased their conversion rate from 2.35% to 2.9%.
It takes 20 - 500+ touchpoints for customers to make a sale.
And to make matters worse, 69.57% tend to abandon their carts during checkout.
Fret not, there is a way to recapture these indecisive customers’ interest. And that is to show them remarketing ads.
Remarketing ads are shown to customers who left during checkout without taking any action. These ads pop up when they browse Google or its partner websites, nudging them to make a purchase.
Sanket Abhay Desai, a digital marketing consultant, vouches for the effectiveness of remarketing ads. When he ran them for an ecommerce client, he increased their conversion rate by 23%.
Visual indicators signal to users that there is more content below the fold and guide them in the right direction.
When Ruben Bonan, Founder of Marketing Marvel, added a downward-pointing arrow to his client’s landing page, he increased their conversion rate from 2% to 17%.
Because of that, I’ve gone down a YouTube rabbit hole and found a custom HTML code for my own website using Elementor. Here’s what I ended up with:
Arrows aren’t the only way to draw attention.
If you run an agency that offers multiple packages and you’re looking to attract more eyeballs to your premium package, use a ribbon element and add a text like “Popular” or “Best-selling”.
Here’s a ballsy move that paid off for one ecommerce brand:
Offer a massive discount for the first order of your subscription plan.
Illuminate Labs gave new subscribers a jaw-dropping discount for their health supplement subscription program, increasing the number of subscribers by 900%.
“When we launched our subscription service, we weren't getting much traction because we were offering a small discount for a large commitment. We decided to offer 80% off for first subscription orders, which is the highest discount in the industry by far. You want to lock customers in a monthly pricing plan, whether your business is B2C or B2B. Recurring revenue is the most stable way to become cash-flow positive.”Calloway Cook, President of Illuminate Labs
In my personal experience, I’ve learned that I need more than seven days to decide if a tool is going to be perfect for me.
Your prospects probably feel the same way. So think about extending your trial duration. That way, your product’s value will become apparent to them.
And while you’re at it, use OnboardFlow to monitor these free trials. You’ll be able to see how customers are engaging with your SaaS product.
It’s easy to send hyper-targeted messages to users who need a little push to convert.
Here’s another interesting thing: If you’re an affiliate marketer promoting SaaS tools, you can give this approach a whirl, too.
Simply ask the vendors if they’re open to extending their trial duration for your readers.
James Canzanella promotes software on Isolated Marketing Nights and earns commission whenever a reader buys through his affiliate link. Back then, he would make about 13 sales a month.
After extending the trial duration, sales went up to 43 software a month.
Check your affiliate dashboard and see if companies offer programs with extended trials. If they don’t, just ask! Sometimes it involves a bit of digging.
"I noticed that many people in the community talked about how they wanted a longer trial duration. So, I reached out to the support team and asked if I'd be able to extend the trial to thirty days for the customers that I brought in, and they simply said yes. All I needed to do was email support whenever someone new signed up, and they would extend the trial duration on their side."James Canzanella, Owner of Isolated Marketing Nights
Pro Tip: Make sure you’ve made a few sales before requesting an extended trial from the affiliate manager.
Untimely pop-ups ruin user experience.
In the best-case scenario, it annoys users. In the worst case, as Malte Scholz discovered in his CEO role at Airfocus, it reduces conversions.
“You may think that everything is going right with your website, but there could be an element that’s causing people to bounce instead of converting. We had a pop-up that showed up exactly when a visitor was about to see the 'Buy now' button, and it ended up reducing our conversion rate by 50%.”
When’s the best time to display your pop-up?
There’s no fixed answer. It depends on your average time on page.
So head on to Google Analytics to identify this average amount of time users spend on your page. That should give you an idea of your optimal time.
If you want to learn more about pop-ups, check out our guide on Sumo. We collected 23,645,948 email addresses and found some interesting statistics that will knock your socks off.
And speaking of Google Analytics… If you’re not using it, you’re missing out.
Google Analytics tells you what actions users are taking on your website and the impact of those actions. It’s a powerful tool that helps you identify ways to improve your conversions.
Take it from Effy Yu, Senior Marketing Manager at AdChina.
After using Google Analytics, she came up with an action plan based on the performance data she collected and increased conversion rate from 2.57% to 3.73%.
Here’s how you can go from amateur to pro in using Google Analytics.
Step 1: Data Collection
Identify the pages on your website that could be leaking conversions. Next, log in to Google Analytics and gather your page performance data, such as:
Step 2: Lead Qualification
Determine what makes a great lead. Then assess the quality of the leads you’ve been attracting.
Step 3: Analysis
Write down the learnings and insights based on the data you collected, and the corresponding action points to improve the conversion rate.
For example, you notice visitors are often shown the exit-intent pop-up when they scroll up to click to another webpage. Your action point could be to extend the time required before showing the pop-up.
Bear in mind, Google Analytics won't reveal what happened in your prospect’s mind that caused them not to buy.
Which brings us to the next tip…
Tools like Google Analytics are great at pointing out behaviors that can be quantified, but it can only do so much at the end of the day.
If you’ve been using Google Analytics for some time, you’d know that it tells you the WHAT but not the WHY. Luckily, this is where qualitative research comes in.
Raphael Paulin-Daigle, Founder and CEO of SplitBase, advocates this approach and even credits it as the reason behind increasing Haute Hijab’s conversion rate.
When Haute Hijab approached him to boost conversions for their product pages, he decided to poll prospects to see if there were unanswered questions that may be stopping them from buying.
He also emailed surveys to existing customers to learn what made them buy, for good measure.
In the end, he discovered two things.
In the polls, prospects shared they didn’t buy the hijabs as they didn’t know how to wear and style them for different occasions.
In the survey, customers shared they bought the hijabs after watching videos of Haute Hijab’s founder, Melanie Elturk, on social media.
With these fresh insights, Raphael added tutorial videos on the product pages, featuring Melanie and her tricks on wearing hijabs with style.
Conversions went up by nearly 27%.
Brilliant, right?
Without qualitative research, he wouldn’t have known videos would compel prospects to buy.
Videos boost engagement and entice users to take action, as they bring your product to life.
In the online shopping world, where customers are unable to hold products in their hands, videos help them paint a picture in their heads on how their lives will look after using them.
Jeff Moriarty, Ecommerce Marketing Manager at Moriarty's Gem Art, attests to the unmistakable power of videos. In fact, 80% of his store’s sales came from product pages that had a video!
“Instead of just a few images and a detailed description, we displayed a full video showing the complete view of the product. This was a process, but looked at the results over the past six months. The conversion rate of the products with a video averaged 2.12% vs. 1.60% for those without a video. This makes a substantial difference, especially when our average sale is over $1,000.”
Videos work for services, too.
When Itamar Blauer, an SEO Consultant, suggested his client, MintTwist, to embed a YouTube video to show the process for their services, they received 3X more inquiries.
The key lesson here?
Invest in quality recording equipment and start creating videos to attract that moolah.
If you have a modest budget, we got your back. Here are two video tools that won’t break the bank:
Does your website speak directly to your best customers?
When CIPHR conducted an A/B test, they found out personalized content that speaks to their customers improved conversion rate by 90%.
“When we're able to identify a website visitor's industry based on their IP address and match it to their key sector, we don't just display the generic HR software messages. We personalize it, so it's relevant to their industry. This includes mentioning the specific features, changing the images and persona (referring to ‘schools’ rather than ‘companies’), and including customer logos and testimonials.”David Richter, Director of Marketing at CIPHR
Here’s how the generic CIPHR homepage looks like:
And here's how it looks like to folks working in charities. Note the logos at the bottom that feature charities, instead of random companies.
Sleek, isn’t it?
You can personalize your website using tools like Webeo. It helps you to create content and images tailored to each visiting industry.
A word of caution: Don’t go overboard with it. There’s a fine line between personalizing and creeping out users. You don’t want to be on the wrong side.
Customers LOVE live chat — 79% said they’re a fan as they get their questions answered quickly.
When you provide timely support, you help prospects and leads address their questions and eliminate their buying objections. In other words, you get them closer to saying yes.
It rings true for Copper H2O. After implementing a live chat on their website, the ecommerce store saw a 20% increase in conversions.
Looking for a powerful live chat software?
Re:plain is a no-download live chat that receives and sends your website messages directly to Facebook Messenger and Telegram.
You can add an unlimited number of operators and an unlimited number of websites for free, and even transfer customers between operators quickly.
Some marketers acquire leads and call it a day.
But not you.
You’re a great marketer who knows there’s always a hidden opportunity to optimize any website.
Ready to put these tips to practice? Let’s recap on what you’ve learned:
It’s time to go after the bigger wins.
Let’s get to work!
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