As a digital marketing agency, we have spent a lot of time building sales funnels, looking for leaks, and creating conversion optimization strategies.

No matter how strong your ads are, or how engaging your social media is, you need to have a conversion optimization strategy in place. Without one, you are on a slow path to success. So, how do you create a conversion strategy and optimize your funnel? You read on!

Conversion Optimization

Before we get into the strategy, let’s make sure we are all on the same page about conversion optimization. Conversion optimization for digital marketing means “increasing the percentage of visitors to a website that converts into customers” (Neil Patel). That means looking for leaks in your funnel and finding solutions to get more conversions.

There are ten parts to a conversion optimization strategy. Below, we have outlined each.

Stage 1: Research and Planning

Like anything, the first step is research and planning. Since conversion optimization is all about metrics and tracking results, you need to decide what to track. To do this, you need to define your goals. If your main goal is to have people schedule a meeting through your website, you will want to track traffic. But, if your goal is getting people to buy a product on your website, you will want to track more specific KPIs.
To choose what KPI’s you will track, you will need to do research. Look at your past data in Google Analytics, research different metrics, and talk with your team about what your goals are.

Stage 2: Gather User Feedback

Since you are looking for places where people drop off, it’s good to ask people how they think you are doing. To do so, you need to answer a few questions:

  • How will I ask for feedback? Will it be through surveys, polls, or interviews?
  • How will I make the feedback tool?
  • How will I implement it?

Once you have gathered your feedback, analyze the results to know what to focus on.

Step 3: Find Sales Funnel Leaks

To be able to optimize your conversion funnel, you have to determine the leaks in it. But finding the holes is not easy. There is no formula since every company is different. But, there are a few things you should definitely look at to get you started:

  • Identify websites paged with a high bounce rate
  • Identify what emails and newsletters perform worst
  • Identify what links people do not follow on social media and what links they do
  • Identify the least visited and effective landing pages

Step 4: Update Landing Pages

For this step, you will need to review your list of landing pages you gathered in step 3 and update each of them. When updating them there are a few things to keep in mind. First, the consumer feedback you gathered. Second, review all of your sales funnel leaks and loo for patterns. For example, an ecommerce site may find that the pages with the highest bounce rate are those that do not have filters set up. If that’s the case, make sure you include filters going forward.

Step 5: Add Social Proof

When people are looking to buy something, they want to know if it’s worth their money and if the company is credible. The easiest way to show this to your customers is through testimonials and social proof. A positive review from a client is a vote of confidence. One thing to keep in mind is that if you want reviews, you may have to ask for them! That could look like sending someone a follow-up email once they buy your product asking them to leave a review. You could even give them a discount code in return.

Step 6: Optimize your Website for Mobile

Mobile devices are convenient. If you want your brand to be easily accessible, it needs to be optimized for a mobile device. Imagine someone is at lunch with a friend and they like the friend’s shirt so they ask where they got it. The friend tells them and they look the brand up on their phone. If the website is bad, even if they like the product, a bad website is a huge turn-off.
To optimize your site for mobile, review your mobile analytics. Then look for areas that need to be improved and come up with solutions.

Step 7: Update your Social Media

Back in step 3, you identified sales funnel leaks in your social media. Now it’s time to update them! That might mean adding a link tree in your bio so people can easily access your content. Or, it could mean spending money on social advertising. Whatever optimizations you need to make, keep in mind your user feedback.

Step 8: Update Your Email Marketing

Like step 7, it’s time to put your ideas into action! When optimizing your email marketing, you may nat to try put A/B testing, which leads to step 9.

Step 9: Run A/B Tests

A/B testing is a great way to know what works and what doesn’t. It’s almost like asking for user feedback. If you split test a newsletter subject line and subject A performs much better than B, you know people like what you said in A. Going forward, you can make sure your voice aligns with the tone from subject line A. Don’t just run email subject line tests. Try out split testing on landing pages and ads!

Step 10: Review and Repeat!

The most important component of a conversion optimization project is reviewing the results. When you analyze your results, document everything you find. Even if it’s something small, tweaking your process can help you discover valuable information.

Takeaways

Conversion optimization is an ongoing process. Once you get to step 10, it’s time to go back and look for more leaks in your sales funnel. What may have worked for the last 2 months, may stop working. There is a multitude of reasons this could happen. For example, if a certain ad is successful during November and December, but come January it is useless, it could have to do with the holiday season-ending. Or, it could be because the ad has simply run its course.
Just remember to always review and analyze. Don’t be afraid to try something new!

Colibri Digital Marketing, A Conversion Optimization Agency

We are San Francisco’s only B Corp certified digital marketing agency. We’re here to help you reach the people in your area and across the world. Start strategizing with us today by clicking the button below to get started!