Few marketing topics come with as much mystery (and differing advice) as the conversion rate.
At face value, it seems pretty straightforward: You have a landing page with a conversion mechanism (such as a form). You set a goal and track performance of your landing page by calculating the rate at which your prospects are converting. The more conversions, the better. Simple, right?
But there’s still a lot of unanswered questions. Such as…
Am I tracking conversions properly?
…What’s a good landing page conversion rate, anyway?
Now let’s say you determine that you’re not hitting the “optimal” conversion rate…
Why aren’t my landing page visitors converting? How do I adjust my landing page to boost conversions?
To help demystify the infamous conversion rate and get you on track to measurable results, let’s break down and answer your 5 common questions.
1
Am I tracking conversions properly?
In simplest terms, a conversion is “the point at which a recipient of a marketing message performs a desired action.” When it comes to landing pages, a conversion occurs when a visitor to your landing page completes a desired goal, such as filling out a form or making a purchase.
There are many different types of conversions to track, and which ones you choose to measure should be entirely based on your business, industry, campaign, channel and goals.
To make sure your conversions are mapping directly to tangible results, your landing page or campaign must be optimized to be able to collect accurate conversion data.
2
What’s a good landing page conversion rate, anyway?
The truth is, it depends. Conversion rates can vary significantly depending on factors such as your business’ arena (B2B or B2C), the type of conversion you’re tracking (purchase, quote, info request, etc.) your audience, where they are in the buyer’s journey, and more.
That being said, a quick Google search uncovers several sources that explore the topic of conversion rate benchmarks in more detail.
For example, WordStream states that the median conversion rate is 2.35%, but highlights that the top 25% are converting at a rate much higher than that – top 25% are 5.31% and above and the top 10% are at 11.45% and above. However, this analysis looks at conversion rates on the account as a whole, not individual landing pages.
This report from Unbounce breaks down median landing page conversion rates by industry. The report reveals that the median conversion rate for all the landing pages analyzed is 3.2%, but similar to the example above, the top-performers do much better and rates vary significantly by industry.
The moral of the story is that “good” conversion rates should be taken with a grain of salt. It’s important to look at a number of sources to determine a realistic benchmark for your industry and campaign. It’s also important to consider how unique circumstances, like the COVID-19 pandemic – may affect conversion rates and audience behaviors.
At Responsory, we don’t rely on universal “benchmarks” to predict clickthrough (CTR) and conversion rates for our clients’ campaigns. Instead, we use pilot campaigns and test strategies to identify more customized and meaningful benchmarks for ongoing success.
3
Why aren’t my landing page visitors converting?
Hint: it’s probably not your CTA button color.
When addressing conversion rate problems, many marketers turn to A/B Testing, which involves adjusting landing page elements (such as imagery, design elements, headlines or CTAs) and testing different page versions against each other. The page elements are then adjusted based on which ones performed better.
While you should be doing these optimizations on a regular basis, you’ll likely only see small (and short-lived) increases in your conversion rate. And most importantly, A/B testing isn’t going to get you to the root of why your landing page visitors aren’t converting.
To figure that out, you’ll need to dig deeper. Most of the time, it all goes back to how well you know your customers. Ask yourself, how do our customers research and purchase? What are they looking for when visiting our landing page or website? Is our copy answering their questions? Is it easy for them to get in touch if they want more information?
4
How do I adjust my landing page to boost conversions?
To build a customer-focused landing page, start with these steps:
- Segment your customers for each landing page campaign (consider markets, demographics, purchasing behavior, etc.)
- Identify the needs and pain points for each segment. Different types of customers will interact with your business and use your website in different ways. What types of information are they looking for? How can you help meet their needs?
- Pull in data from sources like Google Analytics to better understand customer preferences and how they use your website and landing pages.
- Evaluate the user experience by testing it with real people who most closely match your target audiences. Is it intuitive? Does the copy and offer resonate with their wants and needs? Is it easy to navigate and complete the desired action?
5
How much do conversion rates even matter?
Conversion rates matter, but they’re not the only thing that matters.
Conversions can take time (especially if you’re in an industry with longer sales cycles). Often, a customer will have several interactions with your brand, moving along a journey that brings them a little bit closer to conversion each time. This is why multi-touch campaigns and re-targeting are so important. You’ll also want to spend time on customer journey mapping to truly understand the varying mindsets and decision-making processes of your target audiences.
Landing pages are easily the most important pages on a company’s website, yet many marketers struggle to understand their performance. And the overload of information and advice on conversion rates certainly doesn’t help. However, when you break it down, you realize that reaching an optimal conversion rate isn’t so mysterious after all. Like most things in marketing, it all goes back to data, a thorough understanding of your customers and smart testing.
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