sigh! recession is already affecting many online marketers.

Though there may be less targeted search traffic when spending is down, there should be a stronger emphasis on converting the existing traffic in to buyers or leads …

Recession proofing your conversion rates can simply be a case of breaking them down into attributable parts, e.g. by channel / site behaviour. If you’re seeing an overall dip in conversion, this may be due to your acquisitional sources not performing well and bringing down your average. If your loyal customer base continues to convert well despite the recession, then its worth reporting. These are also the customers you’re more likely to have influence over given the right marketing message.

While I agree with the substance of your article, I find this comment particularly flippant and crass.

A farmer can get higher yields from the same number of acres, but it’ll take more fertilizer, weeding, or what have you.

The trick is to educate ourselves, or our clients, that the initial “cost” of improving conversion rates is worth the eventual pay off.

Also, the latest recession (just a regular part of a cyclical economy in my opinion) may be a wakeup call for some businesses, but it only necessitates a change in business practices the way any desire for increased profit does. Wanting a new in-ground swimming pool or summer home on the lake would motivate me MORE than a recession — because the recession will pass, but ain’t no one gonna give me a pool!

“Recessions are the economy’s little reminder that your marketing needs to be more efficient.”

And it’s so true. Especially living so close to the tech bubble burst up here in the ’silicon valley of the north’ it became fairly obvious that in many cases the companies that ultimately failed weren’t even trying very hard to succeed. And the ones that survived the burst were truly remarkable.

Now it’s not as extreme (at least not from my Canadian perspective), but those companies that embrace marketing accountability and spend their money where it counts (i.e. conversion optimization) will ultimately succeed simply because they are in tune to what matters most.

Cheers!

Richard: I think it’s because putting more money into PPC campaigns is something everyone can understand.

But improving landing pages and conversion rates requires a lot of different skillsets. Or, if you need to pick only one, basic understanding of human psycology and customer behavior. Which is something a lot of descision makers lack, they only understand figures and bottom lines.

So for them it’s easier to decide to invest more in PPC. It’s something they can understand.

Whereas conversion is as much an art as it is a science, and it’s hard for a decision maker to go for something they have trouble understanding.

Instead, they focused on considering different PPC mediums and developing a new landing page for a category of their products.

I wonder why my efforts to “convert” them on the benefits of “conversion science” failed?

By the way, it’s always a pleasure receiving Future Now emails. I also visit the website at least once every 2-3 days to see what’s happening.

I think the answer is twofold: people don’t understand numbers and decision making is a scarce resource.

In my annual presentation, I showed the benefits of increased conversion rates on net profits. But I think some people just have a hard time digesting a little math. There are smart people who aren’t mathematically inclined.

The other factor is the scarcity of decision making as a resource. Making decisions in business is both hard and risky. Conversion science is a new field, a new concept, and sometimes a hard concept to sell. Some marketing people find it easier to wrap their decision making around new ad spend campaigns when the real issue is optimizing existing campaigns.