When it comes to online advertisement, are we putting the 'cart before the horse'?

Most of us are advertising first and optimizing for increased page conversion rates later
(or never)

A recent survey done by the Backbone IT Group concludes that over 80 percent of business websites are 'Throwing Away Sales'.

Two interesting  points from the same survey:

• Just 11 percent of sampled businesses were using some form of Conversion Rate Optimization, compared to 75 percent employing Search Engine Optimization. 

• Websites increasing visitor conversion rates by just a few percent typically double or even triple the number of sales or enquiries generated. The impact of Conversion Rate Optimization on bottom-line profitability can be remarkable.

Forrester estimates that Interactive Marketing Spend will increase from $18b in 2007 to $61b over the next 4 ½ years, and that search spend will triple in 5 years. Even in the context of all this spending conversion rates are typically low. MarketingSherpa reports average rates being less than 4% while Fireclick reports general conversion rates that are closer to 2%.

With billions of dollars being spent generating such poor results, why wouldn’t online marketing professionals invest more into conversion rate optimization? The only logical reason for such a disconnect is a lack of awareness about products and services that can ameliorate the problem.

What do you think?

Conversion Rate Optimization For The Rest Of Us

Adaptive Multivariate Testing Breaks Adoption Barriers

As online advertising continues to take a larger share of overall advertising expenditures a broad array of technologies are being employed to increase website effectiveness. 

Until recently, much of the focus has been on tools that are designed to increase the number of website visitors. 

Many companies have now realized that while increasing the number of visitors is important, converting these visitors into customers is the real benchmark of success.

You must optimize your conversion rates

As more website publishers target increased conversion rates, the use of multivariate testing to determine which combination of website text and graphics is most effective has grown. 

Increasing conversion rates is a non-trivial task. Any single web page might have dozens of variable elements that could be tweaked in many different ways.  If one chooses to test all possible combinations the problem quickly gets out of hand. 

Most multivariate testing  solutions rely on a piece of statistical black magic known as fractional factorial testing.  In layman’s terms, not all page combinations are tested.  Instead, after testing an array (a subset of combinations) a statistical model predicts the most effective combination. 

What tool you should use?

While clearly a good approach, there are a number of downsides.  Available offerings are quite expensive, complex, and in some circles are viewed as less than completely reliable.  Worse yet, since they test an array until statistical reliability is achieved for every combination in the array, they require a large number of web visitors to work.  Some vendors point to a minimum of one hundred thousand visitors per month.  These limitations have left most small to medium sized businesses on the sidelines when it comes to website optimization.

Adaptive Multivariate Testing

Not any more. Hiconversion (www.hiconversion.com) has introduced an Adaptive Multivariate Testing  Solution that breaks website optimization adoption barriers. This patented technology adapts to visitor behavior and converges to the best page combination in real time.

As result, it is effective with an order of magnitude fewer website visitors than traditional solutions.The product is designed for non-technical users and it is priced for mass adoption.

With Hiconversion, effective website optimization services are now available to all of us.