What to measure and how to measure your website conversion rate.
Some clarification first
When we see the term “website conversion rate” this can mean one of two things in the terms of Google advertising and Google analytics
One. What percentage of visitors achieve a goal you set in your analytics accounts
Two. The percentage of visitors to your website that result in a sale.
This article discusses the latter.
How to measure website conversion rate
Online – Website Statistics
The first step is to set up your website to record statistics about your visitors. Probably the most common tool is Google Analytics, if you want to keep your visitor data in-house, Open Web Analytics does a very similar job to Google Analytics.
The downside of using an in-house solution is it makes integration with your Google Ads account difficult.
What to measure
Checkout
We need to be able to see the full visitor experience ie from where they enter your website to when they complete the checkout process.
With this data we can see which landing pages are leading to the greatest percentage of “conversions” ie people buying from the website
Offline – Telephone Orders
Google now allows us (depending on your country) to monitor which ads bring you which telephone calls.
Even if you do not have this facility we can still track telephone calls manually, I suggest tracking each call received and specifically, the subject of each phone call, how they heard of your company (print ad, word of mouth, website etc) and the result of each phone call eg was it in inquiry, was it someone calling to order.
There are programs out there that will log call volume, time of day, call duration etc but none that we know of that will log the other data for you automatically, the closest thing we have seen is Google Ads.
Manually recording telephone calls I think is the simplest solution. Create an excel spreadsheet that each operator can access and complete in real time.
Easy of completion is key, your sales staff’s priority is to serve the customer, not get tied up with paperwork.
Recording this data will give you a baseline on which you can judge the results of your changes/experiments
Baseline Website Conversion Rate
As with every experiment we need to establish a baseline before we start making changes. First log the statistics without changing anything and when we have enough data eg one month, then we can start adjusting the website.
By keeping things stable in the first month, ie print advertising, online advertising, website layout we have a solid base from which we can draw conclusions about our experiments.
We do not want to start advertising a product offline at the same time as we start advertising it online, we won’t know what drove the changes we are seeing.
Breaking it down
If you are just starting the process, look at the most popular landing pages on your website, the best selling products on your website and the best selling products offline. The more data you have the more reliable it will be.
Resolution
We can look at stats from different levels. We can look at the website conversion rate for the website as a whole but we can also zoom in on the statistics for more detail. For example website conversion rate for a specific product type, a specific brand, a specific brand and product type, even down to a specific product.
When we are advertising on Google resolution is key. We want to have ads that are as specific as possible.
Why Super Specific?
Competition is only going to increase. Bidding on broad keywords is expensive now and will only get more expensive. This will make profitability impossible for many products.
Specific ads should lead to higher conversion rates. Higher conversion rates means we can raise our cost per click budget and still maintain profitability.
When we know the conversion rate (online and offline) for our current ads we can start to make adjustments.
Having said this we need to weigh up the time and effort of having super targeted ads versus the revenue they bring. If we are selling something of low value and with a low profit margin, it is probably not worth spending time on. For these types of products we need to reply on organic SEO ie free clicks.
Analysing our data
If we are getting a lot of inquiries but not sales, look at the inquiries in more detail, what information is missing from the website and stopping people from buying. For example people my be calling for shipping prices or availability, if so, add this information to the website, if it is already there, make it clearer.
Starting
The issue with this recording is that it might seem like a lot of work for not a lot, especially when you are starting out. You will be doing all this extra work and you won’t have a data to analyse! The good news is that as you get more data you will have a better understanding of your business and in a years time you will be thankful you have so much data to look at!
StrikeEngine provides Google advertising agency services to companies in the automotive industry.
If you want to start advertising on Google we can give you a massive head start by using our experience to give you an effective account from the off.
You won’t need to spend tens of thousands on advertising in trial and error. We provide you with the benefit of our knowledge and experience which you can then build on for your business.
And if you don’t want to manage your account, we offer a “Setup and Management” service also.
