Effective Conversion Improvement Techniques: A View from the West

    Today we are publishing excerpts from the Econsultancy report on conversion optimization. This study is based on a survey of 700 US companies and digital agencies in August and September 2010. Under the cut some interesting statistics on specific tools that are used to increase website conversion. This knowledge is unlikely to help increase the conversion of your project right now, but it may well dispel doubts about which method to use (and this is important, especially if the budget is not so large as to try everything).

    1. What methods are used?

    More than half of the companies surveyed use analysis of user behavior on the site (54%) and content optimization (53%). Also, over the past year, the popularity of A / B testing has grown. Only 27% use usability testing (these are large companies with large budgets), and 22% prefer an expert assessment of usability.

    Interestingly, organizations that have increased the conversion of their projects over the past 12 months use 45% more diverse methods than those who failed to increase conversion. And this means - the more you try, the higher the probability of a positive result.

    Figure 1. What tools do you use to increase conversion?


    The following diagram shows which conversion tools are considered the most “working” - as you can see, A / B testing is leading (57%). As in 2009, almost half of respondents consider multivariate testing and usability testing effective, although fewer companies use them in practice (this is probably due to the cost of use).

    Figure 2. How effective do you think these conversion methods are?


    2. What methods work?

    Respondents were asked to choose one, the most effective tool that they used to increase conversion. They named the following:
    • A / B and multivariate testing
    • New site development
    • User Behavior Analysis
    • Analysis of purchase failures at the payment stage
    • Optimization of the purchase process
    • Content optimization
    • Optimization of navigation or layout of pages (for landing pages and product pages)

    Most use several techniques at the same time, while conversion optimization becomes a continuous process consisting of certain steps with predetermined goals. Many organizations began using A / B testing last year, and it has proven to be one of the most effective methods. 48% of companies plan to use A / B testing in the future.

    The development of a new site, the improvement of navigation or layout of pages allowed to significantly increase conversion, although these methods required significant time and financial costs. Analysis of user behavior, in particular at the payment stage, helped to improve the purchase process by reducing the number of steps or providing more detailed information, if necessary.

    Some respondents also consider site audience segmentation, behavioral targeting and e-mail marketing to be effective.

    3. Work with refusals of purchases at the payment stage

    Today, most companies (53%) do not in any special way work with users who interrupted the purchase process at the payment stage (if this is the case in the USA, then Russia is probably even less). Although 84% of respondents who process failures reported an increase in conversion over the past 12 months.

    Figure 3. Do you work with purchase rejections at the payment stage?


    The following diagram shows the methods that companies use to deal with failures. Almost half of the companies automatically send such clients e-mail, the content of which depends on their behavior on the site.

    Figure 4. How do you work with users who interrupted the purchase process at the payment stage?


    Almost a quarter of companies turn to users who interrupted the purchase process within 1-4 hours after they leave the site, but the majority - 27% contact them after 24 hours.

    Figure 5. When do you contact these users?


    It would be interesting to look at a similar study on the Russian market. In the meantime, it remains only to collect comments - who uses what methods of increasing conversion with us?

    Also popular now: