Cookies: They’re a common sight nowadays, and we’re not talking about the chocolate chip variety. Think about the last time you visited a new website, whether to look something up or do some online shopping — you more than likely got a pop-up asking you to accept first-party cookies so you could access the site. 

Indeed, we’re talking about internet cookies, a kind of tool that picks up on visitor data and offers valuable information to business owners by way of tracking website conversion metrics. Such details give marketers insight into user behavior that can help them make intelligent decisions that benefit their brand. 

In short, conversion-tracking cookies are a win-win for everyone involved, especially when it comes to conversion tracking, and at Galactic Fed, we know their ins and outs and what makes them such powerful marketing tools. That said, we also know why search engines like Google are cracking down on certain types of cookies and leaving marketers to look for an alternative to third-party cookies, so let’s take a closer look.

First-Party Cookies — More Than Just Desserts

Just as is true in real life, internet cookies come in multiple varieties. You may have heard of third-party cookies, for example, which are primarily used for online advertising; if you once searched for a product online only to see it advertised on every subsequent website you visit for weeks after the fact, that’s due to the work of third-party cookies.

First-party cookies, however, are a bit different: When you visit a website, only that server can access your data. That kind of system can work to make surfing the internet more seamless and enjoyable, as the websites you frequent will recognize and automatically fill in your unique preferences, like your log-in data, so you won’t have to type them in every time.

Information gathered by first-party cookies also benefits business owners trying to market their brand online by showcasing user interests and behaviors, allowing brands to tailor their marketing strategies accordingly.

The Business Behind First-Party Cookies

First-party cookies are data packets that are created and stored locally by the website operator. They can stockpile various types of data, such as:

• Website data (language preferences)
• User-entered information (log-in data, information submitted on web forms)
• Metadata (the cookie’s expiration time)

Additionally, first-party cookies are responsible for saving entries from search fields, allowing users to re-access them at a later date.

How First-Party Cookies Are Stored

Depending on the web browser you use, first-party cookies will be stored on your computer in one of two ways: Either each new webpage will create a text file to serve as a cookie, or the cookies themselves will be stored in a collective file.

In any case, all browsers give users the option to take control of their cookies. Common choices in the settings tab of any web browser include things like:

• Deleting cookies
• Fully or partially deactivating cookies
• Reactivating cookies

We don’t recommend deleting or deactivating cookies because they benefit marketers and users alike, but web visitors who are skeptical about data collection can at least breathe easy knowing they’re in control.

Advantages of First-Party Cookies for Users

As alluded to earlier, first-party cookies go far in making web browsing a breeze, and the more user-friendly a site is, the more likely a visitor will convert. With that in mind, the benefits of first-party cookies for users include the following:

• Storing language preferences
• Automatically entering log-in data
• Autofilling on web forms
• Displaying most recently visited subpages
• Suggesting recently entered search terms

Once a user leaves a website, the first-party cookies on that page won’t follow them anywhere else; it is only once a visitor returns that the cookies will spring back into action.

First-Party Cookie Benefits for Marketers

Business owners also have much to gain by using first-party cookies, including such benefits as:

• Boosting user-friendliness
• Generating informative data on user behavior
• A long life expectancy of first-party cookies

Unlike third-party cookies, which can be caught by ad blockers, first-party cookies are generally more trustworthy. Marketers can use the information stored by first-party cookies to tailor their content, products, or overall services to better meet customer preferences.

The Disappearance of Third-Party Cookies

Many marketers have concerns about the ever-evolving landscape of tracking users online, and in response, most web browsers are moving to block third-party cookies (if they haven’t already done so), making first-party cookie tracking the better alternative. 

Today’s tracking pixels primarily rely on first-party conversion-tracking cookies, so even though browsers are cracking down on third-party cookies, marketers can still accurately gather data regarding user behavior. 

The General Data Protection Regulation and First-Party Cookies

In 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect in the European Union (EU), changing how marketers access user data by restricting the use of third-party cookies in particular. (First-party cookies aren’t mentioned in the GDPR.)

Even though the GDPR’s reach is exclusive to the EU, laws like it are growing in popularity on a global scale; web owners, therefore, must inform their visitors that their data is being collected and subsequently used by way of first-party cookies, even if their purpose is simply to improve the user experience. Web owners can disclose that information in a banner at the top of their site, and once a user reads and accepts its conditions, the banner won’t have to appear again. 

No matter where your business operates, the more transparent you are with your visitors, the better the outcome; people appreciate it when brands are honest about their marketing practices, especially when they involve the collection and use of their browsing data.

The Positive Side of Growing a Business With Fewer Cookies

With third-party cookies on their way out, marketers must adapt to using a first-party data strategy to track conversions. Customer consent is crucial here, but fortunately, it’s easier to get than you may think. 

Users are more inclined to give the websites they visit permission to access their data if they get something in return; for example, the promise of discounts, freebies, or interactive experiences can get them to click “Yes” and take a step further toward a conversion. 

According to Statista, 61% of brand marketing executives are confident about reaching audiences at scale without the need for third-party cookies; we’re just as sure your business can do the same.

Your New Favorite PETs

Privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) help business owners combat the issues that come with the loss of third-party cookies while also ensuring they make the most out of first-party cookies. PETs help web owners use personal data while adhering to any future privacy rules that may come to fruition.

Some PETs marketers can take advantage of now include the following:

Zero-Trust Data Clean Rooms

These solutions take first-party data from different parties and allow them to intermingle; the best part is that they won’t expose any personal information. If you’re looking for an aggregated measurement of audiences or products, these are what you need.

Differential Privacy

Differential privacy stops personal data from being shared directly by adding randomization and noise to datasets to blur any identifiable information.

On-Device Measurement

Third-party cookies take customer data and personal information and send them to advertisers; alternatively, on-device measurement solutions process events on a user’s device and send that information to ad platform servers.

Where to Find PETs

Understanding PETs can be challenging, but these new technologies allow businesses to use customer data to make informed decisions that significantly better their brand, so it’s crucial to leverage them to get the most out of your first-party data.

Thankfully, many of these solutions are easy to find and use; if you’re interested in data clean rooms, for instance, there are many options to choose from on reputable platforms like Meta, Google, and Amazon.

The Importance of First-Party Cookies, Conversions Analytics, and Staying Ahead of the Curve

The world of digital marketing is consistently evolving, and business owners need to stay ahead of the curve if they want to succeed. Fortunately, even though third-party cookies are becoming relics of the past, marketers can still leverage first-party data and other conversion-tracking methods to make smarter business decisions.

With PETs on the rise and consumers who are willing to exchange their data for a discount or other such perks, there are many ways in which today’s business owners can access user data without crossing any lines that may become illegal in the future.

If you want to learn more about the first-party cookies your website uses and whether you’re leveraging data in a way that’s respectful to consumers while still positively impacting your bottom line, consider partnering with a marketing agency that can walk you through these topics step by step.

The post First-Party Cookies and Their Role in Conversions Tracking appeared first on Galactic Fed.

As competition continues to increase across virtually every sector, it is becoming ever-clearer that marketers must increase their reliance on data to create successful campaigns. Most are no strangers to using data to improve their campaigns; in fact, 70% of leading marketers indicate that their companies use data to support decision-making. It is a common goal amongst these professionals, and leveraging predictive analytics can help achieve it. 

Through the following sections, you’ll learn what predictive analytics is all about, how marketers are using it to drive ROI, the steps you need to take to apply predictive analytics to your own campaigns, and the tools you can use to automate all of it.

What Is Predictive Analytics, and How Can It Benefit Your Marketing?

Predictive analytics is a form of research that uses a variety of data sources to anticipate future trends in consumer behavior. If you’ve ever wanted to peer into your customers’ minds to figure out their deepest desires or understand their paths to purchase, predictive analytics can help you accomplish those objectives.

Engaging in predictive analytics can have a number of additional benefits for marketers, as well, such as:

• The mitigation of bias as you create your advertising campaigns
• Improved customer retention through personalized experiences
• Preparation for a future without third-party data derived from cookies
• Targeting the right audience for improved customer engagement
• Improved efficiency and resource allocation with better forecasting
• Optimized advertising campaigns based on historical data

Predictive analytics is vital for marketers who want to reap the perks of making better, more data-driven decisions with the potential to increase marketing effectiveness and drive ROI.

A Brief Explanation of Predictive Analytics Models

Predictive analytics runs on models. These behave much like algorithms, taking in the data you feed them and delivering a meaningful output that can help you make better decisions regarding your marketing campaigns.

Though there are many different predictive analytics models out there, some of the most popular options include the following:

• Cluster Models: Segmenting or categorizing your audience based on specific attributes
• Propensity Models: Predicting the likelihood a customer will either click and buy or walk away
• Forecast Models: Leveraging past data to make future predictions about behaviors
• Time-Series Models: Analyzing specific time periods to make future predictions
• Neural Networks: Mimicking human intelligence to make connections and find trends
• Recommendations Filtering: Analyzing purchase histories to find sales opportunities

With a clear picture of the models that marketers are commonly using to drive their success, your next step is to understand how to use them to create actionable insights for your marketing.

The Six Basic Steps of the Predictive Analytics Process

The point of leveraging predictive analytics is to drive results and obtain valuable outcomes in your marketing, and in order to do that, you need a methodical, repeatable process you can use to develop, deploy, and validate models for maximum returns. 

These six steps represent the flow of such a process:

1. Define the Project

Before you set off on any journey, you need to know where your destination lies. As such, the first step in the predictive analysis process is to define the project and figure out the problem you’d like to solve. For marketing professionals, it may be figuring out how to improve customer recommendations or increase sales by 25%. 

In any case, at the end of this first step, you should know the objective, scope, and deliverables for the project, along with the kind of data you need to collect and analyze.

2. Collect the Data

All successful predictive analytics campaigns rely on the use of good data inputs. Here, you will likely use a mix of first-party data (collected through direct interactions with customers) and third-party data, such as weather patterns, geolocation information, and historical trends. 

3. Clean and Prepare the Data

You cannot simply take the raw data you collect and train your model on it. You first need to clean the dataset by removing any outliers and filling in informational gaps. Take advantage of the knowledge of a qualified statistician or data analyst to identify what data sets are available and which data is most relevant to your initial business goal.

4. Build and Test Your Model

You’ll want to consult a data scientist to help you select a model that is likely to generate the most valuable outcome, given the goal you’ve set out to accomplish. Once you select your model, work backward to figure out how you should organize your raw data into that model’s features. 

It may take a bit of work to strike the proper balance between accuracy, explainability, and performance, and your data analyst may employ a data wrangler to help make sure your calculations will be useful for making business and marketing decisions.

5. Deploy Your Model

By now, you must deploy your model in the real world to gain meaningful results that you can use in your marketing campaigns. Employ the expertise of a data engineer to help you create a repeatable process for obtaining, cleaning, and transforming raw data so that you can use your model to automate decision-making and drive future results.

6. Monitor and Refine Your Model

As customer sentiment, buying habits, and the overall business climate change, so too may your model’s performance, and in some cases, bad actors can intentionally try to subvert the accuracy of your model. Either way, you will likely need to set a performance threshold for your model and update it once it reaches its limit. Doing so will help ensure that the model’s output remains reliable and accurate for decision-making purposes.

Types of Data You Can Use for Leveraging Predictive Analytics

Using the right type of data is half the battle when it comes to predictive analytics. Marketers who experience the most success with it use a mix of data types, the most common of which are as follows:

• First-Party: Data collected through direct customer interactions
• Third-Party: Data derived from an external source, like trend reports
• Weather: Insights about how weather patterns affect consumer behavior
• Location: Data showing the buying habits of customers based on geography
• Contextual: Data that helps predict customer wants and needs based on their environment 
• Historical: Using information collected in the past to predict future trends
• Real-Time: Fresh information that changes based on immediate behaviors

Using the right data can make all the difference in the reliability and effectiveness of your predictive analytics model.

Tools to Help You Master Predictive Analytics in Your Marketing

Besides leveraging the help of data scientists, data engineers, and statisticians, there are other tools — namely software platforms — that can help make the process of predictive analytics quicker and easier, such as:

Unified Marketing Measurement

Having a plethora of historical data readily available is crucial for any marketing professional wanting to use predictive analytics to drive results. As customers interact with your campaigns and move through your funnel, you must be able to track each of their interactions. Doing so helps you build models that can predict future customer behavior based on what has occurred in the past. 

From there, you must clean and organize the data into something useful for your model. Unified marketing measurement platforms automate the process for you by collecting first and third-party information regarding market trends and customer engagements across channels, transforming the data into something meaningful, and then making it available to all authorized stakeholders through a central source of truth. Together, they automate the data collection and preparation process for true predictive analytics success.

Data Analytics Platforms

Data analytics platforms are focused on using artificial intelligence to help business owners uncover business intelligence and actionable insights. Many of these platforms are able to collect data from hundreds of different sources, which can save you the time you would normally spend manually sourcing the data. 

Data analytics engines can then connect, analyze, and explore that information, allowing you to create advanced visualizations and share them with your teammates in other departments. 

If you choose to use a data analytics platform, ensure that it incorporates machine learning and data science processes to guarantee the most reliable results.

Finding Success With Data-Driven Marketing

As society continues to barrel toward digital transformation, there’s no doubt that it will only become more important as time goes on, and understanding the importance of leveraging predictive analytics now will help you stay ready for whatever the future of marketing brings your way. By incorporating these tactics and tools into your marketing process, you’ll discover new ways to better connect with your customers and keep pushing your business goals forward.

The post Leveraging Predictive Analytics to Optimize Marketing Campaigns: Driving Conversion Rates and ROI appeared first on Galactic Fed.

The post Conversion Rate Optimization Toolkit appeared first on Galactic Fed.

You can put blood, sweat, and tears into driving more traffic to your website, but if you’re unable to convert those visitors into customers once they arrive, all of your hard work could be in vain. 

Every year, brands fork out a ton of cash in an attempt to drive more traffic to their websites. Businesses spend just $1 on conversion rate optimization (CRO) for every $92 they spend on customer acquisition. We’ll let you in on a little secret: if you can double your conversion rate, your business can afford to halve your traffic.

So what’s the best way to convert website window shoppers into satisfied customers? 

And how best do you measure how you’re doing at converting site visitors into customers?

The answer is conversion rate optimization.

In this article, the digital marketing experts at Galactic Fed explain what a conversion rate is and what conversion rate optimization looks like. Our complete guide will help you understand the benefits of conversion rate optimization and even offer tactics you can implement today to improve your CRO immediately across various areas of your website. 

What’s a conversion rate?

A conversation rate is the percentage of people that visit a particular page on your website and complete the desired action you want them to. 

How conversion rate is calculated

Calculate your own conversion rate by taking the number of people you convert and dividing it by the total number of people that visit that specific page:

Source: Backlinko

Conversion rate optimization

Conversion rate optimization is the activity of improving your website’s content to boost your conversions. A higher conversion rate indicates your website has a fantastic user experience, is well designed, and is adequately formatted. 

Why should you care about CRO?

Optimizing your conversion rate benefits your business in several ways, including: 

• increasing your number of qualified leads,
• increasing revenue, and  
• lowering your acquisition costs. 

Where do conversions happen?

It’s important to pinpoint where conversions happen and where you want them to happen on your website and more widely online. For example, are you missing a pivotal opportunity to convert a site visitor into a customer, say, through an informative blog post? 

The most common spots for conversions are on:

• your homepage, 
• your blog, 
• your pricing page, 
• a specific landing page, and 
• ads you place online. 

Each common conversion spot on your website and online can be optimized to allow for greater conversions. 

Your homepage

Your homepage may be the most crucial area for conversions. Think of it as the virtual storefront where customers first interact with your product or service on offer.  Try popular conversions you can measure, including a call-to-action in the form of a button nudging people to sign up to your newsletter, links to more detailed information about your product or service, and a chatbot option that can answer people’s questions quickly and easily:

Source: Galactic Fed 

Your blog

A blog is often forgotten about when it comes to conversion rate optimization. We at Galactic Fed know the power of informative and helpful content, though, and we believe the blog is the perfect area of your website to boost your conversion rate.

To convert blog readers into quality leads, think about what appropriate call-to-actions (CTAs) can be included in each of your articles. Links that provide access to detailed ebooks and whitepapers in exchange for a visitor’s email address can fit naturally within an existing blog and lends themselves nicely to CRO. 

Your pricing page

Your company’s pricing page is another spot where your conversion rate could be boosted or hurt if you’re not careful.

Think about the call-to-actions and options you offer to site visitors. Transparency, clarity, and flexibility can go a long way if your business provides pricing info on a dedicated webpage. 

If you force too many options on your website visitors, they may choose the path of least resistance – to leave your site. 

Too many buttons competing for the attention of site visitors makes it difficult for the user to focus on individual pieces of content on your website.

Less is more when it comes to excellent user experience. Focus on making your main pricing call-to-action (CTA) as straightforward as possible and make it easy to find with one eye-catching and consistent button design. If you have secondary CTAs, use less of a bold font or smaller button design. 

Your landing pages

Landing pages are made for people to take action. If yours isn’t entirely producing the conversion rates you’d hoped, don’t fret! 

Want to know how to create the perfect, high-converting landing page? Check out our step-by-step guide to doing just that.

Your online ads

This article’s primary focus is CRO on your website. However, we wanted to briefly mention improving the conversion rate of your online ads given here at Galactic Fed; we know a thing or two about how to deliver paid media that gets results. 

Whether placed on Google, Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube, your online ads and CRO go hand in hand. 

If your Google Search Ads aren’t getting the click-throughs you imagined when you launched them, try implementing our six tips.

Don’t forget to track your conversions!

An important aspect, if not the most important when it comes to CRO, is tracking your conversions over time. With data and insight comes knowledge and power, especially regarding what’s working and what isn’t with your click-throughs. 

Conversion tracking helps you improve your click-through rate and ultimately turn more site visitors into customers based on data and research. 

Conversion tracking software exists, which makes the job of measuring your click-throughs a lot easier – some free and some available through a fee. At the very least, you should have a free Google Analytics account set up, which makes it possible to track conversions on your own website and track conversions across any Google Ads you place. There’s even an option to track offline conversions!

CRO tips that work

Are you struggling to boost your conversion rate and feel at a loss with what to do next? Check out our five powerful tips for improving CRO to boost your revenue, increase your amount of quality leads, and bring down your acquisition cost today. 

If you’ve got a burning question about improving your company’s CRO, we’d love to help! Contact Galactic Fed today.

The post Galactic Fed’s Complete Guide to Conversion Rate Optimization appeared first on Galactic Fed.

What better moment to reach new customers than when they are already searching Google and telling you exactly what they are looking for?

Google explains that businesses are making $2 for every $1 they spend on Google ads. On top of this, 75% of Googlers say search ads make it easier to find what they are looking for online.

With nearly half of internet surfers clicking on search ads, it comes as no surprise they are the most popular paid ad campaign to run.

Galactic Fed has an expert team of paid search professionals and has partnered with numerous companies over the years to run successful pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. We’ve secured impressive results when it comes to paid search ads. This year we helped Alma, who make it easy for people to find quality, affordable mental health care, increase their leads by 264% with a targeting Google search ads strategy. 

The key to improving your conversion rate through your Google search ads is in the title: search. People are searching for something. Your search ads should present solutions to the problems they’re attempting to solve on Google. From the best-practice ad copywriting tips to boosting your quality score with relevant landing pages, here are six tips for capturing and converting through Google search ads:

Enhance your ad’s readability

People read differently online than they do offline, and it’s essential to understand the differences to craft text ads that suit online reading. 

The truth is people read very little online. Instead of reading every word, they scan web pages for the information they need – including search engine results pages (SERPs.) 

Further, WordStream found that the average reading level in over 600 top-performing ads was written for a 9th grader.

Using clear and straightforward language will assist people as they scan your text-based ads with their eyes, looking for keywords that help them find a solution to their problem. 

Avoid using capitalization. Your ads’ readability is reduced with all caps because all words have a uniform rectangular shape, meaning readers can’t identify words by their shape.

Create a list of negative keywords

Another powerful way to increase your CTR is by using negative keywords. By integrating negative keywords into your paid search strategy, you can bypass irrelevant searches on Google that don’t align with your product or service.

It’s best practice to build a negative keyword list that compliments your primary keyword list if you want to improve your conversion rate.

Preventing your search ad from showing up when you know the audience won’t be interested can not only increase your conversion rate, it can also boost your return on investment and reduce your cost-per-click (CPC.)

So how do you start to build a negative keyword list? 

Although mostly known for helping you find keywords to bid on, Google’s Keyword Planner can also be used to find keywords to exclude. For example, if you provide an online fitness class with a monthly fee, you could search using the keyword “online fitness class” and add “free” to your negative keyword list if you wanted to exclude people searching for free classes from seeing your paid ads:

Optimize your CTA

Does your ad copy include a compelling and concise call to action (CTA) telling people what they should do and why? Does it also have a descriptive and meaningful action to take? 

Wordstream looked at over 600 of the top-performing text ads and found they all had similar words in their call to action – ads with the words “get,” “buy,” “shop,” and “try” performed best:

Source: WordStream

Improve your ad’s visibility with extensions

Boost your Google search ads’ performance with ad extensions and expanded text ads (ETAs) to give people more reasons to engage with your business. Ad extensions appear after the main text of your Google Search Ad.

What ad extensions to use depends on your unique business goals. Common goals that ad extensions support include getting customers to:

• Convert on a specific page of your website 
• Supply their information 
• Download your app 
• Call or message you 
• Buy from your physical business location 

Let’s take a look at the first Google Ad that appears when searching for “dog walker new york”:

Four additional links and description text is available through an expanded text ad, including “Services,” “How it Works,” and “About Us.” 

Google Ad extensions don’t cost more, so the cost per click remains the same, whether a potential customer clicks on your ad’s main text or your expanded text. As Google explains, “by adding more content to your text ad, extensions give your ad greater visibility and prominence on the search results page.”

It’s worth noting some text ad extensions require a high-quality score, which brings us on to our last tip for improving your click-through rate.

Raise your Quality Score

Google rates the user experience or your ads and landing pages out of 10, with one being the lowest and then the highest. In other words, your Quality Score reflects how useful your text ads and site pages are to people searching Google with the keywords you’ve specified. 

Three factors affect your Quality Score:

• expected CTR

• ad relevance

• landing page experience

• ad groups

Choose and group keywords that mirror your landing pages, ensure you write ads that relate to your keywords and landing pages, and make sure your site pages you link to are as useful as possible for potential customers.

Want to know how to create high-converting landing pages? Check out our five building blocks that walk you through the process, step-by-step.

Test, test, and test again!

Split testing your ads can massively impact your conversion rate. If you’re entirely new to A/B testing, check out of recent blog on why it matters and what you can test.

Data from WordStream shows ad groups with multiple expanded text ads (ETAs) were much more likely to be successful and averaged a 21% higher click-through rate:

Data from WordStream shows ad groups with multiple expanded text ads (ETAs) were much more likely to be successful and averaged a 21% higher click-through rate:

Source: Wordstream

New in 2020, Google has introduced responsive search ads, which can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you when it comes to testing your search ads. You’re able to create flexible ads that adapt to screen width, giving you more space to engage potential customers. 

Responsive search ads work by submitting multiple headlines and description options related to your customer’s locations and letting Google figure out which combination is most relevant to your users.

Google search ads that increase conversion

By following these six tips, you’re sure to create high-performing Google search ads that convert more people into happy customers and quality leads. 

Ensure your ad copy follows readability guidelines so they’re accessible to the most amount of people. Building a negative keyword list and optimizing your call to action can help improve your conversion rate. 

Making use of Google’s Ad Extensions, tailored to your business goals, and raising your Quality Score with content and landing pages that are useful to potential customers can boost your conversion rate up and to the left. 

And finally, by testing your ads multiple times, you can perfect your offering to customers and engage more people online with tried and tested paid search ads. 

\ From writing the perfect Google Ad to getting the most out of your paid search budget, Galactic Fed’s paid media series offers expert advice and best practices to follow if you want to learn even more.

The post Six Google Search Ad Tips for Improving Your Conversion Rates appeared first on Galactic Fed.

Over here at the Galactic Fed blog, we share many SEO and paid media tips to help increase website traffic. And if you’ve implemented some of these tips, we’re sure you’re attracting visitors left, right, and center. 

But converting them into customers is a whole ‘nother ball game, which is why we’re here today. It’s time to increase your conversion rate. 

What’s a conversion rate? In a nutshell, it’s the percentage of visitors who perform a desired action (in other words, convert). This action depends on your website or campaign goals, but common ones are purchasing a product, registering for a webinar, or signing up for a service. 

How do you measure your conversion rate? You divide the number of conversions by the number of visitors (or sessions) and multiply this number by 100. 

So if 50,000 people visit your e-commerce store, and 1,000 of them buy something, your store has a 5% conversion rate. 

What’s a good conversion rate? Well, for e-commerce businesses, the average ranges between 2-3%. But we’re not here to be average. We’re here to help you optimize and grow your conversion rate. Conversion rate optimization, or CRO, is all about enhancing your website and content to boost conversions. 

Where do we sign up? Oh, how convenient.

That was pretty meta, wasn’t it? If we’ve converted you (to read on), we’ve met our goal. Now it’s time to reach yours. From our experts to you, here are 5 powerful tips for improving your CRO. 

1. Shorten the checkout funnel

Remember that time you were searching for slippers as a gift for your dad and came across these loafers:

Source: Buzzfeed

As a dad who tells dad jokes, he would love it. But when you went to purchase it, you had to become a member. Although a bit annoyed that you couldn’t checkout as a guest, you click to sign up—for the sake of giving the perfect gift. You supply your name, email, phone number, and address, and click submit. You’re now asked your preferences for slippers?! Enough is enough, you bounce. 

Why? Because the checkout funnel was too long. 

A checkout funnel is a path of URLs that you expect your website users to follow after they initiate the checkout, up until the final transaction. The more steps you add to this process, the more chances you give the customer to walk away from the purchase. 

What’s the solution? 

1. Keep the steps short and simple: If you’re an e-commerce store, all you should be asking for is the contact information, shipping information, and payment method. Let them checkout as a guest. If they have a positive experience now, you can entice them to sign up for your loyalty program and newsletter—or cough up more information about their preferences—later.
2. Monitor the checkout flow in Google Analytics and tweak accordingly: Don’t make guesses or assumptions about when they bounce. If you configure your checkout funnel in the Google Analytics interface, you can see exactly where users are dropping off.

To configure the funnel steps, you will need to go to your Google Analytics dashboard > Admin > E-commerce Settings (under view) > Enable Enhanced E-commerce Reporting. Here you can create readable names for your funnel steps, such as:  

1. Contact Information 
2. Shipping Information
3. Payment Method

Once it’s set up, you will start seeing data populating in your Checkout Behavior report with the checkout steps as shown: 

Source: Little Data

If one URL sees a large drop-off, it’s time to do some investigating. Ask yourself these simple questions: Is it easy to convert? Is it clear how to convert? Optimizing your CRO will always boil down to ease and clarity. 

2. Improve page speed

Perhaps your checkout funnel is simple, but if your website has slow load times, you could be losing out on a ton of conversions. 

Think about the time between ordering food off UberEats and the time the order is processed. What is that, a few seconds? It feels like hours when you’re hangry. 

When it comes to page load times, it’s the same deal. 

The graph below shows that the average bounce rate for pages loading within 2 seconds is 9%. As soon as the page load time surpasses 3 seconds, the bounce rate soars, and it’s at 38% by the time it hits 5 seconds!

Source: Pingdom

Now that we know how page load times may impact your conversion rate, how can you fix your page speed? 

First, see if you even have a problem—plug your website in Google Analytics’ PageSpeed Insights tool to assess your load times. 

If your website requires a facelift in the speed department, here are three easy places to start: 

• Enable compressions: Use a software application like Gzip for file compression, to reduce the size of your CSS, HTML, and JavaScript files that are larger than 150 bytes.

For images, compress them in a program like Photoshop, where you can retain control over the image’s quality. Be sure that your images are no larger than they need to be, that they are in the right file format (PNGs are generally better for graphics with fewer than sixteen colors, while JPEGs are generally better for photographs) and that they’re compressed for the web.

• Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML: By optimizing your code (including removing spaces, commas, and other unnecessary characters), you can dramatically increase your page speed. We also recommend removing code comments, formatting, and unused code.
• Reduce redirects: Each time a page redirects to another page, your visitor faces additional time waiting for the HTTP request-response cycle to complete. For example, if your mobile redirect pattern looks like this: “example.com -> www.example.com -> m.example.com -> m.example.com/home,” each of those two additional redirects makes your page load slower.

Once you address some of these issues that are slowing you down, your CRO is bound to speed up.

3. Use landing pages

Remember that other time when you came across an ad for an automatic potato masher? You were in awe that you hadn’t come across it before. It had you right away with “mash your potatoes in under a minute.” 

You clicked the ad—and landed on an e-commerce store’s homepage. You see pots and pans, knife sets, and those darn manual potato mashers, but not the automatic one. What gives? You bounce. 

Source: Meme Maker 

Time and again, we see businesses spending tons of money on their PPC ad campaigns but send interested prospects to a general web page. With this approach, there are many missed opportunities. 

With landing pages, you can create focused experiences for prospects clicking on each of your ads—making it easier for them to convert. 

What exactly is a landing page? A landing page is a standalone web page created specifically for a marketing or advertising campaign. It’s where a prospect “lands” after they click on an advertisement—and should reflect the same conversion goal as the ad, such as sales or lead generation. Peep this blog post on how to create high-converting landing pages. 

How do you build landing pages? We recommend using a landing page builder. Several easy-to-use platforms offer 14-day free trials: 

• Unbounce
• Instapage
• Leadpages 

Once you sign up and start building some landing pages, we recommend creating different landing page variants for some good ol’ A/B testing. Perhaps a certain image or CTA button is attracting more conversions. When it comes to optimizing your use of landing pages, it’s all about testing! 

Food for thought: According to Unbounce, users can remove the legwork of A/B testing using its Smart Traffic feature. Smart Traffic uses artificial intelligence to send your landing page variants to the right people at the right time. Users reported an average conversion lift of 30%. Hmm… Could AI be the key to improved CRO? Something to think about for all those automatic potato masher companies. 

4. Make your value proposition clear

As a business owner, you’re not crazy to want to show off your product’s bells and whistles. But here’s why it shouldn’t be your copy’s primary focus: it doesn’t clearly demonstrate the value to users. 

To convert prospects, you need to show them the benefits of doing so. That’s where your unique value proposition (UVP) comes in. To build your UVP, ask yourself these questions:

• How are you solving a problem of theirs? 
• How are you enhancing an aspect of their life? 
• Why are you a better choice than your competitor? 

There are a lot of good (and poor) examples in the supplements industry. We get it—it’s hard not to gloat about a pill that has 13 vitamins, 10 minerals (including gold flakes), probiotics, and kale. But all that information is fluff to the average prospect. Let’s take a look at how Jamieson Natural Sources does it right: 

Source: Jamieson Natural Source

This multivitamin’s benefits are front and center on both its product packaging and in the web copy. At this point, we have no idea what’s even in it! But we do know what it does for us—who doesn’t want healthy skin? 

After spilling the benefits, they then support their value proposition with the ingredients list and reviews. Reviews, a form of social proof, help confirm value. People like me like this product? Well then, I should like it! It’s simple math, really. 

And hey— if you’re looking for more ways to boost conversions, don’t underestimate the power of promotions and discounts. Not only do they provide value, but they also provide immediate value. It’s hard to say no to that. 

5. Optimize your use of CTAs

You just wrote some killer benefit-driven copy. What’s the jelly to its peanut butter? A strong CTA. 

A CTA, or call to action, is a short phrase that guides the audience to a desired action. It’s where prospects click to convert—and is usually in the form of a button. Although there’s not a lot of copy involved, you need to make sure it’s clear and purposeful. Not to quote rapper Eminem, but your CTA is your one shot, one opportunity, to seize all the conversions you ever wanted. So don’t let it slip—let’s make it happen. 

When crafting a compelling CTA…

• Ensure it includes powerful action verbs: Let’s not beat around the bush here. If you want them to sign up for your yodeling class, say so: “Sign up for Yodeling!” If your body copy has done its job, you’ve already demonstrated the benefits of signing up (becoming the most popular kid in school, duh). So your CTA doesn’t need to be fancy. It should, however, empower the audience to click it!
• Remove ambiguity: A common mistake is keeping a CTA too simple—to the point of ambiguity. Although they should be clear and direct, they should still tell the reader what to expect by clicking the button. “Get started,” “learn more,” and “try it” are all examples of CTAs being a little too obscure. Get started doing what? Learn more about what? Try it—what’s it?! Pressing the CTA button is a commitment, and people want to know what they sign up for.

When publishing a CTA…

• Repeat it throughout your copy: Again, this boils back down to ease. Expecting a prospect to scroll back up to click on the CTA is crazy talk—and will hurt your conversion rate. We’re not saying to post it after every other sentence, but make sure it’s conveniently there for them to click on.
• A/B test: Your CTA button is great for A/B testing. Are certain words attracting more conversions? A color? Positioning? Oh, the options. Although A/B testing can be tedious, with so many conversions at stake, we say it’s worth the effort. 

So You Think You Can Convert?

By researching ways to improve your CRO, you’re one step closer to boosting your number of highly-qualified leads, increase revenue, lower acquisition costs, obtain greater value from your current leads and customers, and simply, grow better. 

Not a bad day at the office. 

When it comes to your conversion rate, remember—the sky’s the limit. And we’ve got a skilled group of digital marketing experts to help get you there. All you gotta do is ask!

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