Module 5: Optimize Your Conversions Through Continuous Improvement

Learning Objective

Use metrics to monitor and test your copy’s success so that you continuously improve and optimize conversions.

Lesson 1: Sales Metrics

You can’t decide what to improve if you don’t have a baseline to measure against. This is why tracking the right metrics is so important: they measure your performance and your progress, and help you identify places for improvement.

There are several different metrics you can use, but don’t choose too many to track at once, or you risk confusing and overwhelming yourself.

Learning Objectives

To learn what are the available metrics to measure results.

To understand that without measuring, you are only guessing.

To learn how to apply the measuring tools available.

To use the measured results to gain better outcomes.

Key Metrics

Here are the key metrics to measure:

Conversion Rate

A “conversion” happens when someone takes the action you desire, which in this case is completing a purchase. This is the most important metric to track.

Calculation

Conversion rate = n° of purchases ÷ n° of clicks x 100

For example, if you get 3000 sales from 100,000 clicks, then you have a 3% conversion rate.

If your copy isn’t converting at the rate you’d like, then look again to see if your text is speaking to your ideal customer.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Click-through rate, or CTR, is the number of people who click on the link in your copy. In the case of sales copy, that’s likely to be the CTA button.

Calculation

CTR = n° of clicks ÷ n° of people who see your sales page, email or ad x 100

For example, if your email is opened by 2000 people and 100 click on the link you’ve sent, your CTR is 5%.

If few people click the link in your copy, then try a different CTA button varying the text.

Open Rate

Open rate is a critical metric to track for emails. If people don’t open an email, they can’t click on your links which means you don’t get results.

Calculation

Open rate = total unique opens ÷ total recipients x 100

For example, if you know that 200 emails have been delivered with no bounce backs, and 10 people open them, your open rate is 5%.

If you’re finding that few people open your emails, then you need to test new subject lines.

Cart Abandon Rate

Your sales copy is pitched to send a potential buyer to a shopping cart to complete the purchase. That’s where the money changes hands.

People open carts with the intention of buying but sometimes don’t follow through. This is called the cart abandon rate.

Calculation

Divide the total number of completed purchases (x) by the number of shopping carts created (y). Subtract the result from one and then multiply by 100 for the abandonment rate.

1 - (x ÷ y) x 100 = cart abandon rate %

For example, if you have 45 completed purchases and 200 shopping carts created, the shopping cart abandonment rate would be 77.5%.

1 - (45 ÷ 200) x 100 = 77.5%

This metric gives an idea of what’s happening and is good for flagging a potential issue. However, it doesn’t explain why someone abandoned their purchase. Did the person get distracted, go off to something else and forget to carry through the purchase? Was your shopping cart too difficult to use? Did you suddenly add postage to the total which wasn’t mentioned before? If you’re seeing a high abandoned cart rate, you need to dig into why this is happening.

Use Your Tech

Don’t worry too much about the calculations. There’s tech to help you, especially from the services you use, for example from:

Action Steps

Gather the data and periodically spend time analyzing the results and planning what changes you can make to improve your stats.

Lesson 2: Split Test Your Copy

Learning Outcomes

To learn what split-testing means.

To continually improve your results by split-testing.

Testing Is Essential

No matter what research you do by talking to your customers or looking at what they’re posting online, you won’t know if your copy works until you test it.

Split testing (also known as A/B testing) is the process of taking a piece of copy, making one small change, and trialing both versions to see which converts the strongest.

Sometimes the smallest change can improve your conversion rate drastically.

You can test out every aspect of your copy, for example:

Change Your Copy's Aspects

• Layout
• Font
• Colors
• Visuals (e.g., images, photos)
• Content (body of the text)
• Headlines/subject line
• Subheadings

For example, you could test just the text on your CTA button. To use an example from earlier, change one word and try “Start my free 30-day trial” instead of “Start your free 30-day trial.” In this way, you can see if using the first-person "my" leads to more conversions than the third-person "you".

You could also test the color or the size or the shape of the button.

But only test one thing at a time. If you were to change both the text and the color and you saw your conversion rate rising, you wouldn’t know which change was effective. The same is true for every aspect of your copy.

Most sales platforms you use will help you set up a split testing campaign. You just need to decide what you want to test first.

For example, you’re not sure whether you’re placing the CTA button in the right place. You want to see if you get a better click-through rate if it’s placed towards the beginning of the short post you’re writing rather than at the end.

Or, you don’t know if you need a photo in your short copy. You want to see if you get a better conversion rate with one. These are great opportunities for split-testing to determine if one small change can make a significant difference in sales.

Tips For Split Testing

Split testing isn’t a quick process if you approach it methodically. You need to let it run for a while to make the results useful. Keep your test live at least one or two weeks, or even more depending on the level of visibility your copy is getting.

Don’t stop the test before the end of your testing period or introduce new elements that weren’t part of your original intention, or your results won’t be reliable.

Action Steps

Review the analytics you can access via your existing platforms. Check that you can find data for conversion rates, click through rates, open rates, and cart abandon rates.

Split test an aspect of your chosen piece of copy:

• Decide what you’re going to test (e.g., CTA button color, email subject title)
• Set up your first split test
• Evaluate the results by looking at the metrics
• Take steps to make changes as necessary.