So you have your store up and running and hopefully you are watching those conversions closely. Today, we are going to hit some not so blatant discrepancies about online conversions that you should know. I have said this before, but it bares repeating, every store is different. Even store with the exact same flow and product line will convert differently. So lets did in to some conversion dirt.

First of all, and certainly unnecessarily, lets define a conversion…

In marketing a conversion occurs when a prospective customer takes the marketer’s intended action. If the prospect has visited a marketer’s web site, the conversion action might be making an online purchase, or submitting a form to request additional information. The conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who take the conversion action.

So you see a conversion or the act of converting a visitor to an action, not just about a sale. It is in fact a general term referring to getting them to do what you want such as sign up for a newsletter or click an Ad even. Now lets dig in…

I really hope you are using a great Analytics program like Urchin or Google Analytics which tracks conversions (completed sales and funnels) for you. Without these types of analytical tools you are pretty much popping caps off in the dark. We will assume you are using Google Analytics for our purpose.

On your main account stats page, the “dashboard”, you have several statistical summary boxes. We are going to concentrate on your “Ecommerce Overview”. In this summary box within your dashboard you get very basic conversion information. While I would never argue that your overall conversion rate is important, its just not enough information to grow your business. So click the “view report” link and lets dig deeper.

Before we go any further I want to debunk a very common misconception, something I hear far too often…

No, we always sell more beta widgets… That’s always been our top product. The alpha widgets just don’t sell, so lets concentrate on the beta widgets.

Personally, I really don’t care in the least “what you have always” sold more of historically. Have you considered the search rank, volume and potential sales of the other widgets? No, probably not. Here’s the thing, ALMOST 100% of the time when a customer tells me that, their lack of sales/conversions for the under performing widget is related to either their site or its lack of rank and therefore search phrase traffic. Only one time that I can remember was this actually related to a “bad” product. So throw everything you think about your products and whether you think they will sell out the window and rely on the data.

Ok, so we have or page one Ecommerce view up in Analytics. Some cool stuff here and some things I want you too look for…

1. In the top graph is about 30 days of conversions. The blue vertical line indicates the weekly separation, by default this is a Monday. I want you to look at the graph and try to discern if you have weekly sales bursts and plummets related to the days of the week. For example, the site I am using has very poor Friday sales.
2. In the next section there is some interesting data, including the amount of sales generated from your site in the 30 day period. I certainly realize many store convert a large percentage of sales on the phone and that this number is in fact skewed for those types of stores… However, you should always be looking for ways to convert more sales on your website and less on the phone. Better usability, search functions, descriptions and perhaps live help will help you to spend less money to make those sales.
3. Average Order Value. This is a highly important metric! For example the site I am using has an overall conversion rate of 12.14%, but the average order is only $40.87. I know the products on this site are in that 40$ range and this tells me quite frankly that shoppers are not being converted in to bigger tickets, additional products are not being added. There are many reason for this, the biggest one is a complete lack of any cross selling technique. Looking at the transactions vs the products purchased confirms this theory. Making no effort to boost your order average is like agreeing to work for the same wage the rest of your life.
4. On the right hand side of the same box is some very detailed revenue information. We’ll cover just a few, but I encourage you to poke around in here. In the traffic sources, under Revenue Analysis, click keywords. This is all of your converting keyword traffic. In the same area you can select just paid or non-paid (organic). Here you will look for high converting keywords… Even if the visits are low. You should also seek out some very badly performing keywords and jot them down as well… They are likely to have big traffic and low conversions. These are shoppers that you dropped the ball. They got there and you/your site consistently failed to convert them.
5. OK pack to the previous E commerce main page. In the same area click on the map overlay. There is significant value in knowing where your shoppers are coming from. Perhaps you are getting a great deal of traffic from a region you don’t currently ship to… This you can fix. Maybe you can add some products with regional flavor to better convert those regional shoppers in to larger orders. This is good info all the way around.
6. The last section on the E-Commerce main page is “Top Revenue Sources”. Lets check out the “products” section which is on your left by default. Here you can determine a few things about your purchased products… My favorite is “Unique Purchases”. Depending on your shopping cart system this number means the number of purchases used to purchase the total number products purchased. On some shopping cart systems, like Zen Cart, it will track combined cart results and additional purchases from logged in shoppers in the same “purchase”. This is a nice indication of repeat business from satisfied shoppers!
7. Lastly, click back to the main E-Commerce screen and lets have a look at your traffic sources. This is last, but likely to be your best change to get a handle on your site and its potential for sales. Sure you want to look to see what converts best, but consider the source! For example this site is using AuctionBlox for their eBay auctions and clearly they are converting best… Um-mm 100%. So remember, look for opportunities, not just things converting well… They can be quite deceiving.

All in all, you have to get a feel for your site. I would very highly suggest that you checkout a heat map if your visits are high, but conversions are low. Make use of the tools available to you… Things like software/mods to recover cart sales from shoppers who have bailed from checkout are invaluable. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box… And please do your own thing, its ok to learn from others and you may find some success in copying their techniques… But you will never be as successful as you could be with fresh ideas. Your store will give you the answers, just put your ear to the ground and listen.