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Shopping Cart Optimization: Take This Step Today
In my last post, I wrote about treating your various sources of traffic differently from one another. Track the individual conversion rates of your CPC, organic/SEO, email, etc. so you can prioritize the opportunities you have to optimize your web site’s performance. That is just the first step, though. Next, you need to separate each traffic source into segments based on the various campaigns or marketing efforts in each traffic source.
Let me use an example. There is a climbing gym in Salt Lake City called “Momentum.” [Note: This company is not a FutureNow client]. Let’s pretend that we know their traffic source mix:
- 15% of their traffic is Direct
- 68% of their traffic is Search
- 38% of Search is Paid Search
- 30% of Search is Non-Paid Search
- 17% of their traffic is Email
At this point, we should break down each of these traffic sources into segments based on different channels or campaigns. Let’s come up with a scenario for their Paid Search traffic (CPC). Let’s say that we’re able to break down their campaigns into three different buckets:
1) Some of the paid terms sending traffic to their site are brand specific; for example “Momentum” and “Momentum climbing gym.”
2) Some CPC terms are non-branded, but are specific to the qualities that Momentum has to offer, or location; e.g. “Salt Lake City climbing gym.”
3) Finally, some of the CPC terms are very general; e.g. “climbing gym.”
From this list, we can tell what group is more likely in the “late stage” of their buying process. By visitors searching for brand-specific terms, they are showing us that they have a specific interest in the company, their products, and their services, and therefore this traffic should be the easiest to convert. This is where we should first focus our attention when trying to improve our web site’s performance. Where is the first place we should look to increase results for the late stage traffic? The shopping cart and checkout, of course! Start optimizing your shopping cart today by tackling these 5 questions visitors have while they are in your shopping cart. Or, use these 10 tips to improve your shopping cart performance for your late stage visitors.
The analysis you do before starting your conversion rate optimization efforts needs to be nearly equal parts Art and Science. Don’t rely on industry benchmarks or the metrics from other case studies; your analytics data should drive the planning, prioritization, and implementation of changes to your site.
About the author
Melissa is a Senior Persuasion Analyst at FutureNow.
More articles from Melissa Burdon
- Nobody wants to read your sh**!September 21st, 2009
- Redesign? Ask The Right Questions!September 18th, 2009
- Cross-post: How to Improve a Product Page, Part 1September 15th, 2009
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January 18th, 2010
4:40 pm
i still think product reviews can help well for the shopping cart sites and the security. buyers buy when they need to buy.
January 18th, 2010
9:57 pm
I have a close friend who knocks the socks off of everyone else I know because she has over 100,000 uniques per month traffic.
And, yet, even with attracting that many new people every month, she is only able to convince advertisers to place ads on her blog for a total of $200 per month.
You would think that just by accident someone with that kind of traffic would be in demand, but not so, unless my friend is kidding me.
If 100,000 is a true number, what would you expect her income from advertising to be?
January 19th, 2010
6:13 am
To the poster above, with 100,000 uniques per month Im sure she would not have to worry about advertising, but will also depend on what the website is about, a popular product will demand a higher advertising rate that a information site..
January 19th, 2010
10:39 pm
You are right on here. Improving your cart performance is nothing different than having quality cashiers or a sales person that can close. A necessity. Thanks for the tips.
January 20th, 2010
6:32 am
@Beth Charette
If she really has got 100.000 uniques per mo. She could make at least 1000$-2000$ in ads.
If she doesn’t she should think about the site design and the way she presents the site over the net.
January 20th, 2010
7:01 am
Excellent advice Melissa. Makes a lot of sense
January 23rd, 2010
5:21 am
the scent of the title does not meet the content’s.
but thanks for the other two posts link
January 23rd, 2010
6:17 am
Well I agree.Separating the traffic sources and working on these sources separately will help in increasing conversion rate.
January 25th, 2010
5:06 am
very nice post with a lot of information.
January 25th, 2010
4:55 pm
very good soucre of online information. thank you
January 25th, 2010
4:58 pm
this is a nice site which hold plenty of good information- it makes very good reading and lots of posts- please keep it up, thank you for my comment
January 26th, 2010
8:59 pm
Wel…Very nice yor information,thanks
January 27th, 2010
5:45 am
At least it’s one of the most easy parts of your website to start optimizing as it stands pretty much on its own. Security is definitely important but your visitors probably already had a good feeling with your website otherwise they would have never made it to the cart.
January 28th, 2010
1:43 pm
This is a pretty good outline of the analyses that every webshop owner should do by heart – over and over again. Thanks for inspiring!
January 29th, 2010
7:41 am
Shoping cart optimization is great thing and this post gives alot about this. i am going to upgrade my cart with these tips.
January 30th, 2010
11:05 am
I know most of us need help with shopping cart issues.
January 30th, 2010
9:55 pm
This is really a very interesting post.I enjoyed reading it.
January 31st, 2010
5:31 am
thanks for sharing us this informative post…I’m doing SEO and marketing and I’m really amazed with this strategy.
February 1st, 2010
6:19 am
“your analytics data should drive the planning, prioritization, and implementation of changes to your site.” Quoted for truth, I run into so many companies that employ “spray and pray” marketing techniques when all they have to do is analyze the data they already have! Knowing how to use this information is absolutely crucial to success.
February 2nd, 2010
2:48 am
Thanks for the advice.I will really try this today.Thanks once again.This blog teaches so many important things.
February 16th, 2010
12:39 pm
very good advice, but not an easy thing to do
February 20th, 2010
8:07 pm
[...] full post on Conversion Rate Optimization & Marketing Blog | FutureNow, Inc Enjoyed this article?WebsiteWordpress [...]
February 24th, 2010
3:24 pm
lots of information thank you.i will come back and read these blogs and comments time after time. abbanow
February 27th, 2010
7:55 am
Great article and advice just not always easy to do.
February 28th, 2010
1:50 am
Very nice strategy. Thank you for sharing.
March 2nd, 2010
5:29 am
Good tips for all those interested in e-commerce. Enjoyed the article.
April 2nd, 2010
7:46 am
[...] been following our blog, you have probably read by now that we start working with our clients by first understanding their data. We look at their top-performing marketing channels and segment each traffic source into early, [...]
April 4th, 2010
8:38 pm
thanks for advice. good post.
April 6th, 2010
1:45 pm
Security is definitely important but your visitors probably already had a good feeling with your website otherwise they would have never made it to the cart.
April 6th, 2010
3:34 pm
shopping cart optimization is very important to get the desired sales you need and want.
April 9th, 2010
6:03 am
[...] been following our blog, you have probably read by now that we start working with our clients by first understanding their data. We look at their top-performing marketing channels and segment each traffic source into early, [...]
April 9th, 2010
9:47 am
traffic coming through brand name search especially organic traffic is easy to convert because they already know the brand and products and the only thing we need to convince them is the benefits of these products.
April 18th, 2010
3:46 pm
A great product with fair price and excellent reviews can bring many customers, and they should be enlightened about the security of their online transaction even before they place orders, it helps a lot to build trust and repeat customers.
April 22nd, 2010
5:16 pm
Security has become a very important issue, especially with PCI compliance getting so strict these days. There are huge fines for not being in compliance.
April 23rd, 2010
2:43 pm
Nice blog – couldn’t agree more with whatever you said. Keep up the good work!
David
credit card processing fees
April 28th, 2010
9:46 pm
“your analytics data should drive the planning, prioritization, and implementation of changes to your site.” Quoted for truth, I run into so many companies that employ “spray and pray” marketing techniques when all they have to do is analyze the data they already have! Knowing how to use this information is absolutely crucial to success.
May 1st, 2010
8:22 am
SEO was really powerful and intelligent now you can also find shopping carts that are optimized.
May 7th, 2010
6:30 am
Great reviews, great products this is how one gets the clients in and coming back for more. One has to always bear this in mind when looking to grab new clients to ones business. Having great business skills as well as the right SEO on ones site this all helps in making things better in the long run for your site.
May 8th, 2010
8:06 pm
Well I agree.Separating the traffic sources and working on these sources separately will help in increasing conversion rate.
May 8th, 2010
8:07 pm
Great reviews, great products this is how one gets the clients in and coming back for more. One has to always bear this in mind when looking to grab new clients to ones business. Having great business skills as well as the right SEO on ones site this all helps in making things better in the long run for your site.
May 8th, 2010
8:07 pm
hen looking to grab new clients to ones business. Having great business skills as well as the right SEO on ones site this all helps in making things better in the long run for your site.
May 12th, 2010
2:27 pm
[...] [...]
May 15th, 2010
8:13 am
Fantastic blog post! This would aid plenty of people learn about this matter
May 18th, 2010
10:36 pm
Nice blog – couldn’t agree more with whatever you said. Keep up the good work!
May 22nd, 2010
1:06 pm
Direct email marketing is also good for a business because you are doing marketing directly to your prospected customers.
June 6th, 2010
1:07 am
This is a good step for those who want there stuff to be more visible in the market. your marketing should be good so that you can sell your product easily.
June 17th, 2010
3:44 pm
Well it looks to me like the 100,000 people going to a site and the $1000-2000 figure mentioned that is only .01 cents per hundred vistors surely adsense alone would pay more than that? I would monetize it with a product or do product launches for others.
June 28th, 2010
5:28 pm
I am impressed with all this useful information. Was WAY more than I expected.actualy you hold a few useful facts there in your Video Greeting from Ontario
July 15th, 2010
3:12 pm
You are right on here. Improving your cart performance is nothing different than having quality cashiers or a sales person that can close. A necessity. Thanks for the tips.
July 15th, 2010
3:21 pm
@Beth Charette
If she really has got 100.000 uniques per mo. She could make at least 1000$-2000$ in ads.
If she doesn’t she should think about the site design and the way she presents the site over the net.