How to use micro conversions to improve your shaky sales
Getting an excellent conversion rate on a new product can sometimes be unnerving. Your team spends hours creating the perfect video or perfect page that everyone loves, including you, in order to put it on the market … only to see negative results and break your heart.
You’re so in love with that video (or that page) that you think there may be a mistake, so try another ad network, but nothing. So, with the tail between your legs, admit defeat and start planning a new sales page … or not?
Here, it is right here that the “Mr. Marketer” with his hands on his hips and his chin on top says, “Boy, the answer to your problem is precisely in the micro conversions”.
What is a micro conversion?
A macro conversion is the ultimate goal that you would like to reach, which usually coincides with a sale. However, in order to reach it you will have to go through many micro conversions.
The magic behind micro conversions
“Focus on the evaluation of the macro (in general) conversions, but for an optimal size, identify and evaluate also the micro conversions” – Avinash Kaushik, author of Web Analytics 2.0
At the beginning of this article we looked at the conversions from a “macro” point of view (click> sales), but if you change perspective, you will notice that it is quite impossible to see where the clutch is that leads to a low conversion rate.
If instead we look at a typical online sales process (visitor> lead> sale) through the lens of micro conversions, it will look like something like that …
- Impression > Click
- Click > Opt-in
- Opt-in > Follow up in email (OpenRate)
- Follow up in e-mails > CTA in Emails
- CTA in emails > Click on add to cart
- Click on add to cart > Order form completed
- Order form completed > Payment
- Payment > Product shipped
When we expand the sale in all these eight phases of micro conversions, we could work on the problem by analyzing one step at a time.
How to remedy shaky sales with micro conversions
And here you are in front of your weak sales after publishing that new video that everyone liked. Now what will you do to remedy this problem?
Instead of throwing away all that work to start a new one (only to repeat the same mistakes), let out all the micro conversions, then identify the parameters for each of them. Once you have identified, like the CTRs, the delivery rate and the abandonment of the cart, you will analyze them one by one.
Maybe your CTRs were too low to cause too high a CPC and to limit it to visitors, or maybe your emails were not sent to everyone and there are people who are still waiting for your answer.
There are many different scenarios that could occur and yours could be different from mine. In any case, the point is that when you divide the whole sales process in micro conversions, you can identify where the clutch is and then solve the problems one by one.
Then, once you have identified and removed the problem, you will be the “Mr. Marketer” who with your hands on your hips and your chin will say, ” The sales were flat, but I analyzed the data, I found the point of friction, raised the offer and now they are up!”
Prevent the problem before starting
Once you’ve identified the micro conversions, you’ll be able to set the tools to track them constantly, like Google analytic, KissMetrics, MixPanel: everyone has the ability to track both micro and macro conversions.
In this way you can throw an eye on all your micro conversions to make sure they do not surprise you with something unpleasant.
In particular, once you have analyzed this process and set up the tracking tools, you can ensure that the problem does not occur a second time and you can also make small changes to improve and enlarge sales numbers.