If you’re looking for help getting more conversions from your website, there are countless articles about CRO (conversion rate optimization). You’ve probably already read most of them and checked off everything on the “X ways to increase your website’s conversion rate” lists. It’s an important and never-ending exercise.
But what if you’re still not getting the volume of conversions you’d like? Or, what if you want more immediate returns? Or, basically, what if visitors keep getting to the site but then dropping off before buying?
The answer, of course, is to launch an online conversion campaign. As the old saying goes, you have to spend money to make money.
To help you minimize spend and maximize results, we spoke to the experts to find out their secrets to successful conversion campaigns.
What tactics are best for driving website conversions?
You have a finite budget that has to accomplish many things, and marketing is only one of them. If you’re going to spend money to drive conversions, where will it make the most impact and have the best return on investment?
We teamed up with research firm Euromonitor International to ask 900 marketers around the world about how they spend their ad budgets and what conversion tactics worked best. And here’s what we discovered:
Paid display/retargeting is the #1 tactic, but not by much. With so many shoppers to reach in so many different places, even the world’s top marketers are spreading their budgets thin to hit all the right spots.
We asked those same marketers what worked best for conversions specifically, and learned that social media marketing and paid display, with their precise targeting and high ROI, were at the top of the list, followed closely by email marketing and SEO.
Now you know where to run a conversion campaign…but how do you run one that will make the most of your investment?
What makes a good website conversion campaign?
The marketers we surveyed also provided some tips for how to run a successful campaign.
1. First, figure out what “success” is for you.
In our survey with Euromonitor International, new revenue and new customer rate were popular metrics. In a more recent survey we conducted of US and UK marketers, conversion rate to purchase, online sales, and sales growth were also popular. There’s no right answer here – just make sure everyone involved agrees on what to measure the campaign against.
2. Make sure you’re getting quality ad placements.
Getting your ad in front of the right people in the right places is key to conversion campaigns. Make sure you’re working with a solution that has broad reach, with access to safe, high quality ad inventory.
3. Optimize ad creative.
A variety of visuals, products, and offers all contribute to how people react to ads. If you’re a do-it-yourselfer, make sure you’re testing lots of different creatives. If you’re using a partner, find one that offers dynamic creative optimization, which uses sophisticated AI to combine ad elements that are tailored for each consumer.
4. Personalize those ads!
Which is more likely to make you buy: an ad with a generic 20% discount, or an ad with a product you recently looked at, plus other interesting related items AND a 20% discount? For conversion campaigns that really rock your bottom line, personalization is a must.
Take it to the next level with look-alike audiences (aka similar audiences).
Most conversion campaigns center on classic retargeting, which shows ads to people who’ve visited your site or bought from you before. That’s a highly engaged and lucrative audience. But it’s also a much smaller audience.
You can reach a larger pool of qualified people using something called look-alike modeling. Look-alike modeling uses your original audience (usually a contact list or an active web or app audience) to find new prospects that look and act similar to your best customers.
The benefits of look-alike modeling are that it expands your reach and finds new people that are not only likely to be interested in you, but also more likely to actually make a purchase.
To build a lookalike or similar audience, you’ll need to get some tracking set up on your site to collect the shopper data. Then, you’ll need to partner with a solution that has a large data pool that can add more insights to your own data and AI that can identify the similarities and common behaviors. Once that analysis is done, your partner can then use it to find matches and build your audience.
Summing it up: 6 tips for awesome online conversion campaigns
- The top tactics for driving conversions are social media marketing, paid display advertising, and email marketing.
- Define your success metrics. Popular KPIs are new revenue, new customer rate, conversion rate to purchase, online sales, and sales growth.
- Focus on high quality ad placements – reach the right people in the right place.
- Test your ad creative, or find a partner that offers dynamic creative optimization.
- Include personalization in your ads.
- Expand your reach with look-alike/similar audiences.
