When I go out hunting, I bring only a camera; no gun. I’m just looking for some evidence of wild creatures in the woods, so I can go “oooh!” and “ahhh!”, and show off some great pics!
People who really know what they are doing know how to look for signs of the presence of animals. Things like “scat”, or footprints, or bark clawed off a tree. If I really want to see some wildlife, I need to get better at tracking those signs.
Tracking prospects
As a marketer, you need to know what to track to find your prospects! Or more specifically, to find out where they WERE, where they go, and then to find out when they leave your funnel.
The problem is, there are so many variables, it may be hard to know how to track the signs.
Well, we have you covered on that one, my friend. If you are trying to understand what to track in order to grow your ROI, here are some great signs and indications for you to watch:
- Traffic sources. Where are your visitors coming from? Were they referred from another blog? From a search engine? By typing in the URL of your site? All three of these types of visitors are important to understand, so you know where to put your time and effort to get more of them.
If search is a big source of traffic, you’ll want to make sure your SEO is optimized.
If prospects come via referral from another site, you may want to reach out to that blogger to find out how you can benefit each other, so you can also get more traffic from them.
If prospects type in your URL, then you know they are looking exactly for you! Where did they get your URL? You’ll want to make sure other people get it that way too!
- First time visitors. What are they looking at? What are they interacting with on your site? How can you get them to do more of that? Is the user experience on your site sufficient for them?
- Returning visitors. Why are they coming back? What can you do to get them to convert to the next step? These actions could include signing up for your newsletter, contacting you, or buying something.
- Engagement and interactions. What are they doing on your site? What can you do to get them to do more of that? How can you reduce your bounce rate? How can you convert them to take a next step?
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- Value added. Even if visitors don’t buy something from you, they can still add value just by showing up. Indirectly, if they leave comments or share your pages, they are helping. Directly, they can boost your numbers and income – cpm, or cost per mille – if you sell advertising on your site.
- Cost per conversion. How much does it cost you to get someone to convert? From ad to customer, you’ll want to keep track of this because you want to at least break even.
- Bounce rate. A high bounce rate means that someone is showing up on your site and then clicking away almost immediately. There are some things you can do to reduce your bounce rate. Is your source of traffic congruent with what you offer? Is your landing page design congruent with your site? When they see a consistent look and feel, these things let your visitors know that they are in the right place.
Also, is your site easy to use and navigate? Is it properly optimized for search and load times?
If you have an e-commerce site, you may have a high bounce rate if the shopping cart is too complicated or, again, not congruent with all of your other branding.
- At the exit. When do prospects leave your page? Do you provide a Call To Action at the right time in their experience? For example, if you usually wait until the end of a blogpost to do a CTA, try adding one in the middle.
- Links and clicks. There are many places where a prospect can click on your page. Are you offering too many options? Ideally, on your homepage there should be just ONE thing for your prospect to do (sign up for your list). On the other hand, throughout your entire site, there may be a variety of places to click. Track those to see what is getting the most attention. These can include any of the following:
- links
- buttons
- downloads
- payment
- ads
- other calls to action
- videos or audios
- social shares
- ‘add to cart” or “checkout”
- forms
- contact
The whole point of tracking conversions on your website is to identify what appeals to prospects enough to get them to take the actions that turn them into customers.
As with all marketing campaigns, testing, tweaking, and constantly measuring is the prescription that will not only serve your customers, but will also help you grow your business faster.
It’s your turn! How are you tracking your website conversions right now, and what are you doing with these data points? Please share in the comments below!
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