The Conversion Scientist ARCHIVE™

Science by Email

How Are You Going to Fix Your Conversion Problem?

September 29, 2009 on 3:29 pm | In Marketing Culture | Comments Off

The heartbreak of “bounce” and what to do about it.

Boing!

That’s the sound of someone finding your site, but not finding what they wanted ON your site.

Boing!

That’s the sound of Web site content that doesn’t match your marketing.

Boing!

That’s the sound of a Web site that talks about the company instead of the visitors’ problems.

Technically, a “bounce” is a visitor that looks at only one page, or a visitor that spends an embarrassingly short time on the page.

A visitor bounces when they don’t find anything close to what they were looking for when they visit your site. Either you’re attracting the wrong visitors or you’re don’t know why they are visiting.

Bounce is the most extreme form of conversion problem. High bounce rates are an indication that you are throwing good marketing dollars down the tubes. Whatever you’re spending to get traffic to your site is being wasted.

The Campaign Culture

The conversion problem is one of culture. Most marketers and business owners have a campaign culture. This is a marketing department that creates programs with fixed goals over relatively short time periods.

It is the culture of marketing people focused on monthly and quarterly objectives.

It is the culture of limited marketing resources.

It is the culture of project-oriented agencies.

It is the culture of IT departments lording over online resources.

Curiosity and the Conversion Culture

A marketing department that has escaped the campaign culture is one that produces campaigns effortlessly. The primary attribute of a conversion culture is curiosity.

Just as great companies like Google and 3M have given their employees freedom to explore new ideas, a marketing department must have the time, budget and permission to learn from their efforts.

It is a culture of that knows why it has or hasn’t met objectives.

It is a culture in which every communication is a test.

It is a culture in which momentum carries it across project boundaries.

It is a culture that builds brand while it educates and persuades.

Are you a Curious Marketer?

You may be a curious marketer trapped in a campaign culture. I believe that curiosity is a basic human trait. Where can you start to instill curiosity in your organization?

Start with yourself. Exercise your curiosity muscle.

On October 8, a group of the most curious among us are gathering for a day of conversion tactics, strategy and culture in Austin, Texas.

I’ll be leading a workshop in which the entire conversion “stack” will be introduced and discussed. The goal is for everyone to leave with a new set of skills and a renewed curiosity.

We’re going to understand how to start asking, “why” in each of our communications. We are going to adopt some tools that will help us organize our work around the visitor.

I’ll be leading the workshop, and by the end of the day, will have covered almost everything I know about online conversion.

Will you be a part of this curious group?

You can also join me in San Diego for DMA 09. The Direct Marketing Association has invited me to present this material in a two-day pre-conference workshop, followed by four days of mingling with some of the brightest marketers on the planet. This is another place that curious marketers come to ask “why.”

Marketers that know how to apply curiosity will be writing their own ticket in the next five years. Join us in a place where curiosity is welcome and celebrated.

Science by Email

Online Display Advertising Can Rock Your Marketing

September 24, 2009 on 3:56 pm | In Behavioral Marketing | Comments Off

I always scoffed at the low click-through rates on banner ads. Things are changing.

I completed my thesis on the evolution of online advertising in "Evolving Further Toward Targeted Display Advertising." Our journey ended with Homo Optimizapien, "Optimization Man." Homo Optimizapien has achieved a place where display advertising, or banner ads, deliver search-like returns, only with wider reach than search can deliver.

Display is more than clicks

Through my work with my clients, it has become apparent that display advertising can influence purchases even if it doesn’t generate clicks. I was fortunate to have seen this first hand when working with Apogee Search. Apogee had recommended that one of my clients use a portion of their paid search budget on the "content" networks, meaning that my client’s ads would appear on other Web sites. You’ve seen the "Ads by Google" blocks. I was skeptical.

As predicted, click through rates from the content ads were horrible. However, our client saw a marked increase in purchases from direct traffic. When we turned off the content network, the sales dropped. When we turned it back on, sales went up.

While everyone’s trying to figure out how to measure this effect directly, I’d recommend that you try text or display ads. The cost is low, but the benefit could be great.

Juicing Display Advertising

There are companies who can make display advertising work even better for you.

One is a company called AdReady. AdReady has a library of banner ads that can be customized by you. Furthermore, you can select the ad template that is currently performing well for other advertisers. AdReady can share your ad on the major ad networks such as Google and Yahoo! and track your results.

Dapper.net has an interesting approach. They will literally scrape your eCommerce Web site and build a database of offers from your product pages. As you change offers on your site, the ads running through Dapper change as well. This is great for organizations who have a large catalog of offers, or whose offers change frequently. Think "Travel."

If you’ve had success with pay-per-click search ads, and are spending $10,000 or more per month, you might consider some of the more sophisticated implementations, such as those offered by Tumri and Teracent.

Consider Display

It’s easy to test display advertising, and often the cost is low. My recommendation is try it in our market to see if you can increase direct and indirect conversion rates.

Images courtesy Teracent.

Science by Email

Entrepreneurship – One thing the US could export to change the world

September 21, 2009 on 10:07 am | In Events | Comments Off

Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life. Teach a woman to fish and you feed a village.

Every entrepreneur should come to understand what microcredit is teaching us. This movement is teaching us about the very foundation of our free enterprise system. It is teaching us where compassion lives within our framework of self interest. It is showing us that we are right to believe that opportunity brings out the best in us in ways that charity does not.

In terms of providing “aid” to struggling countries, the US is quite generous. However, the results of our aid are often heart breaking, with much of it being wasted by the governments that are supposed to get it to their people.

Charity has its place. Opportunity, however is the jet engine that moves charity to increase a person’s standard of living. As Americans, we believe that opportunity is the seed from which freedom springs.

Microcredit is opportunity. It is the process of making small loans to individuals in countries that do not share our freedoms… yet. These loans are given to individuals who wish to build businesses in their communities. Initial loans are often no more than US$50.00. Payback rates are well above 90%, and typically approach 100%. It is women who are taking the most advantage of microlending opportunities. This is good, because they tend to invest their profits in their children and their community.

DiscoverHope is a “blended” microcredit organization headquartered in Austin and focusing on South America. I support DiscoverHope because they don’t just loan money, but have built education centers to teach their clients how to build and run a business.

I love the thought that my donations to DiscoverHope will create value over and over and over. This is what we want in our businesses. Why not demand it of our giving?

DiscoverHope is home-grown goodness, started right here in Austin, Texas. In classic Austin tradition, DiscoverHope is using music to express their gratitude and raise more funds for sprouting entrepreneurs in Peru. It’s Saturday, September 26.

You should buy a ticket. The $25 you pay goes right to DiscoverHope activities.

You should also plan to come. You’re going to meet people who have a positive, expansive vision for how we can give back some of the bounty we enjoy here in America.

Do you give out of guilt, or give out of gratitude? Come mingle in a room full of the grateful, and see if you don’t start the next day with a fresh attitude.

Conversion Sciences is a proud sponsor of Band Together for Hope and a donor to DiscoverHope.