Improving Conversions: Difference Between Larger and Smaller Companies
About the Author
Kevin Gold (77 Posts)
Kevin Gold is Director of Internet Marketing at iNET Interactive, a social media company operating prominent online communities for technology professionals and technology enthusiasts. Kevin is a frequent contributing author to multiple publications including Search Marketing Standard, Practical eCommerce, DIRECT, Entrepreneur.com, ConversionChronicles.com, About.com, and On Target (Yahoo! Search Marketing newsletter).
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good points and a great reminder to see your online venture as a whole and not just each bit individually.
Thanks Kevin for your insightful article!
How did you know which channel (PPC/ email/ offline etc) brought in the sales when you first spoke with the client? I assume they were not tracking it.
Hi Mislyd,
Initially the client provided financial data from their shopping cart (they were using Volusion) and we gained some information from their basic web analytics program. We also installed Google Analytics right away (our normal first step for many clients when they are using a basic analytics program or if they don’t have one.) The client had some affiliate and high-level PPC tracking setup in Volusion but no one paid attention to it.
What I find frequently is that clients don’t have the time or skilled resources to commit to studying their analytics or if they do, the analytics they are using paints a different picture than actual reality. After a few weeks we found a number of errors in the client’s initial tracking as well which complicated the process but we re-worked it and added additional tracking of their site’s merchandising strategy (e.g. home page banners.) That led to a lot of new insights and supported a number of conversion strategy decisions. It’s very time consuming work but it develops the foundation for future improvement. Many times, increasing a site’s conversion involves so much more than just simple design or placement changes – instead it requires market startegy, advertising and analytical changes as well.