Traffic is so expensive, but conversion rate is so low?

Visitor channels , traffic quality, and user experience , which step has the problem? Regarding conversion rate , marketing, operations and products, who is responsible?

We from “User Journey” Starting from the 6 core contact points, we help marketing, operations and products build a complete traffic conversion analysis system.

Below, enjoy!

What is the User Journey

The user journey on the website includes 4 key points: off-site channels , landing pages , and user engagement (activation) and complete the conversion.

2. User journey on the app

The link jumped to the next page and displayed "Open the link in 'App Store'?" At this time, I realized that it was for promoting its own app. I clicked "Open" to enter the download page of the App Store.

Next, I download and install the app, then browse the products in the app, add them to the shopping cart and complete the payment. This is a complete user journey. Of course, users may also leave halfway. For example, if the third step prompts "Unable to open webpage", it may cause user loss; this can also be regarded as a user journey, but it only ends in three steps.

So what is the logic behind our conversion rate optimization? Our colleagues in marketing, operations, product, etc. must work hard to keep users on this platform and complete the entire user journey as much as possible to create greater value.

What are the core touchpoints in the user journey?

Whether it is natural traffic or paid promotion , we all hope that our content can get more exposure. There are two major factors that affect the exposure of off-site channels: user matching and advertising bids.

If the channel we find does not match our target users , the exposure will be less; if it is an advertisement, it is closely related to the amount of money we pay. The more we pay, the more exposure we get.

In this stage, we use the "ad/creative display volume" indicator to measure the effect, that is, how many times our creativity can be exposed.

2. Show creativity

The App advertisement we just saw displayed creative content such as the title, company logo, and product advantages. In the creative display step, we need to design and optimize the content copy to improve the conversion rate of user clicks.

3. URLs to crawl or serve

When we click on the CTA on the creative copy, we will be directed to the URL link of our landing page. If it is SEO ( search engine optimization ), the search engine will automatically crawl relevant page links.

For users, the landing page URL is invisible to users. The key point of this link is that we need to do a good job of tracking and measuring the URL.

Parameters are also called "queries". Parameters starting with "?" are often used to track how the page was reached. Different parameters do not affect the page content. For example:

“?utm_source=baidu_sem&utm_content=new”

When a user clicks on the CTA of an off-site channel, the first page to which the URL jumps is the landing page. Whether the landing page is well designed is very important and will greatly affect the subsequent conversion rate; therefore, the landing page is called the “golden page” or the “expensive moment”.

First of all, how well does your landing page match the previous creative content? Suppose you are an OTA company and have done paid promotion on Baidu; if your promotional idea is "80% off on air tickets ", but the landing page you click on is hotel promotion content. In this case, do you think your users will go to your website to look for promotional content for air tickets? Basically not, especially on mobile devices, where users only pay attention to the landing page for a few seconds. If the page doesn’t match, users will jump out immediately. Secondly, the content and structure quality of the landing page itself.

What is the user's matching degree?

Users of the channel click on the creative copy to enter the landing page. If the content of the landing page meets the user's needs, the user is more likely to be activated or converted; otherwise, the user will think that the previous understanding is wrong and then jump out.

We use the number of incoming users and bounce rate to measure the quality of the landing page.

First, the number of users entering the site, also known as the channel scale; the number of users entering the site is closely related to the channel size and is also the base for subsequent conversions, so it needs attention.

Second, the bounce rate, which means that users come to the landing page and leave without doing anything; this is a negative indicator. The higher the bounce rate, the worse the quality of the landing page.

5. Assisted conversion content and CTA

Assisted conversion content and CTA, this is a very attractive part. For many transaction websites, users need to know some product details and user reviews and feedback before purchasing, which can help users eliminate doubts and complete conversions.

There are two factors that affect the effectiveness of assisted conversion content and CTA: the relevance of the content and CTA.

The relevance of content refers to whether the content you provide can meet the user's further needs, whether your auxiliary content knows the user's pain points and can meet the user's needs. At this time, the relevance of auxiliary content is very important. The other is CTA, which needs to provide users with an entry.

We previously served a client whose landing page content was very good, but the conversion rate was very low because there was no CTA on it and users had no chance to register. So when a few CTAs are added, the conversion rate of the entire page is greatly improved.

We use indicators such as dwell time, visit depth, and activated user ratio to quantify the effectiveness of auxiliary conversion content and CTA.

The first are more general indicators such as length of stay and depth of visit. The longer the length of stay and the deeper the depth of visit, the more interested the user is in our content. The second is the proportion of engaged users. We need to identify what proportion of users have the willingness to convert to our products.

6. Product conversion flow

When the user actually enters the product, for example, has added the product to the shopping cart, we believe that the user has a very strong desire to buy, and we should try our best to help the user complete the entire conversion process. The product is the most important thing. If the user has completed the previous journey, but the product has bugs, then the user will never be able to achieve the final conversion goal.

One sentence to describe the product conversion flow: Remove the dross and the final success or failure lies here!

If our conversion flow has many steps, whether the design of each step can allow users to complete the conversion smoothly is the core factor that affects whether users will stay or leave. The core indicator at this time is the conversion rate of each step within the product.

Interpretation of actual cases

From clicking on channel ads, reaching the landing page, entering the conversion flow to completing the registration conversion, the above table is actually a complete user journey. The user journey consists of 6 parts, each with corresponding core monitoring indicators.

Off-site channels: advertising impressions;

Display creativity: ad clicks, CTR;

Landing page: landing page PV, number of users entering the site, bounce rate;

Auxiliary conversion content and CTA: number of activated users, ratio of activated users , number of users who took the first step of registration;

Product: Conversion rate – Activation – 1, Number of users who registered in the second step, Conversion rate – 1 – 2, Number of users who completed registration, Conversion rate – 2 – Completion.

The boxes in the above figure overlap in indicators to illustrate that each part is closely linked; the above links cannot be separated, they are integrated.

2. Find growth points

Generally speaking, the core indicators of the operation team are the number of activated users and the proportion of activated users, and the core indicators of the product team are the conversion rate of each step of product conversion. So what should we do to improve the overall conversion rate?

“ On-site registration conversion rate = ratio of activated users * conversion rate of each step in product conversion flow”

Why is it divided like this? Because user activation is the responsibility of operations, and in-product conversion rate is the responsibility of product managers, this division is intended to facilitate the division of responsibilities and focus on optimization. In other words, the landing page, auxiliary conversion content, CTA and product design jointly determine the product conversion rate on the site!