How To Translate Conversion Ratio Opportunities Into Real Cash

Which weighs more, a ton of bricks or a ton of feathers?

O.K. – we’ve all heard the goofy riddle. But, in an odd way, many online marketers draw similar parallels to conversion rate opportunities. Improving a Web site’s overall orders to visits conversion ratio can be a big task and many of the most seasoned marketers can be left scratching their heads wondering where to begin improvements. Which areas should you concentrate on improving with your E-commerce Web site? The answer to that question depends on a lot of factors. By digging into this a little more deeply, you can begin to understand where to begin.

A Ton of Bricks – Quantifying Real Revenue Opportunities

A few days ago, I posted a piece on The 4 ½ Conversion Metrics No One Ever Talks About. A general piece about how many online marketers view the overall Web site convert rate metric as the end-all, be-all when it comes to E-commerce. The post breaks down the 4 key areas of a Web site conversion funnel and discusses the idea that concentrating on each step in the process will help improve the ratio as a whole. If you haven’t read this post, it might be a good idea to start there (photo by alexkess).

The point is, many online marketers get caught up in metrics and ratios without taking a step back and quantifying the real revenue opportunities at each stage in the process. Once you get an understanding of where your Web site is lagging within the funnel – and what that means in cold hard cash – it will hit like a Mack truck.

You can quantify these ratios and the resultant revenue by doing a little math. But, to help things along I’ve built a handy Conversion Funnel Calculator (.xls) that you can use to help you quantify the opportunities on your Web site. Let me know what you think.

A Ton of Feathers – Identifying the Areas Your Site Needs to Improve

Here’s where things get tricky. Where do you start the improvements? It really depends on a lot of factors: goals of the site, time, resources, etc. One thing’s for sure. Seeing the gaps within the funnel can be pretty sobering. Plus, seeing the lost opportunities at each stage in the process will help you identify improvements and map out an action plan pretty quickly (photo by *Melody**).

One thing to realize is that it’s very difficult to look at each step, page or phase in the process inside a vaccuum. Changes made in one area will no doubt have a knock-on affect later down the line in the process.