4 Point Checklist to Optimize Your Conversion Funnel and Boost Profits

You’ve done it all. From setting up an email auto-responder and creating an irresistible lead magnet like a quiz, to building your super-shiny sales page. Your sales funnel is set up and ready to go.

Now all you need to do is sit back with a decaf latte in your hand and watch those sales pour in.

But, nothing’s coming in.

The traffic’s low and conversions are non-existent. Forget pouring, sales are barely trickling. No sales mean no money. No profit.

All your investments down in the drain.

Hold on. What if there’s a problem in your conversion funnel? What if you’re making a tiny mistake that’s costing you sales and destroying your conversion rate? It could be something as simple as a crappy Facebook ad.

Remember, 73% of leads are not even ready to be sold to. This means that they can go cold if you don’t engage enough with them. This attitude of testing and improving is what separates successful marketers from ones that fail and give up.

Mentioned below are just four of the many sales funnel stages you can optimize to multiply sales 10x. So, let’s get started!

1. Optimizing Social Media Ads

You need to start from the top of the funnel. Building awareness. Getting maximum eyeballs on your quiz and converting them into participants. This is where social media ads come in.

Conversion Funnel

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In 2017, analysts predicted a 26.3% global increase on spending for social media ads.

Marketers have been using ads to promote content increasingly. But, just putting an ad out there without understanding what makes a high-converting ad is a bad idea.

As Neil Patel very wisely says, “Getting traffic is easy with ad copy. Improving your conversion rates, however – not so easy.’

So, let’s look at some of the areas you can tweak to optimize your social ads and decrease your cost-per-click (CPC).

a. Attention-grabbing image

Facebook ad example

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Facebook ad example

Picture Credits: Social Media Examiner

Which one has the better image? The former, obviously.

The number one mistake marketers make is using an image that destroys their ad. According to Consumer Acquisition, images are so important, they’re responsible for some 75 to 90% of an ad’s performance.

The first thing your audience is going to notice in your ad is the picture. If the picture doesn’t stop them in their tracks, nothing will. So make sure your ad has a disruptive image.

b. Is your ad copy on point?

Once you’ve nailed your picture, you need to write persuasive ad copy. The long copy vs short copy debate will go on forever, but it all depends on testing. What works for your audience. What converts them.

Keep the following tips in mind while writing ad copy,

  • Use words that your audience use.
  • The copy should clearly tell people what your quiz is about. Don’t be vague.
  • Don’t drone on for too long. Be succinct.
  • Have a clear call to action.
  • Emphasize benefits, not features.
  • Try lots of different variations and then test them against each other to see which converts better.

Claire Pelletreau, a Facebook Ad Consultant, says ‘the key to copy that gets clicks is to just to be clear. Tell your audience exactly what it is you’re offering, without the bells and whistles, and you’ll increase the likelihood of getting a click.’ 

c. Are you leveraging the targeting option?

To further optimize your conversion funnel, test different ad targeting option. It involves lookalike audiences, custom audiences, interest targeting, etc. It allows you to fine tune your campaign and create ultra targeted ad campaigns for different audiences. Here’s a great article to get you started.

d. Are you using the right platform?

Are you reaching the right people? The platform you use to attract your audience plays a huge role. You might go with the flow and use Facebook ads only to promote your quiz. But, if your target audience is teens, you may be using the wrong platform. Instagram might be a better choice for you.

Advertising Platforms

 When choosing a platform, always keep your target audience in mind. It can drastically affect your conversion rate.

e. Mobile vs Desktop – Who’s the winner?

Are your ads mobile friendly?

According to ComScore, in March of 2015, the number of mobile-only users overtook desktop users. If you’re not optimizing your ads for mobile users, you’re missing out.()

2. Quiz Conversion Rate

The next step is optimizing your quiz. Is your quiz hitting all the right notes? Can you optimize it for better conversions?

Let’s find out.

a. Headlines

The first and foremost thing is headline. A boring headline doesn’t invite action. Instead of, ‘Do you like dogs?’, your headline should say something interesting like, ‘If you’re stranded on an island for 10 days, which animal would you like for company?’. Create at least 20 headlines and choose the best one.

California Closets saw 115% increase in their conversion rate when they tweaked their headlines.

Conversion Funnel Split Test

Credits: QuickSprout

Pretty crazy, don’t you think? Small tweaks can account for a massive increase in conversion rates.

b. Questions and Answers

Next is the quiz itself. You don’t want people to leave the quiz midway. You want them to be so involved in it that they’re eager to get their results and opt in for your offer.

Here’s how you do it.

  • Use the right number of questions. Too many questions will bore your audience, and too little questions will not build enough value to capture their information. So, when starting out, create at least 6 to 8 questions.
  • Don’t use complicated jargon in your questions or answers.
  • Try to use images in place of answers. A study of the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand found that adding an image to copy made the copy more believable. People following directions with text and illustrations do 323% better than people following directions without illustrations.

c. Quiz Lead Capture Page

When participants land on your lead capture page, you need persuasive copy to convert them. They’re primed and ready to become a part of your email list, but you still need that one last push to turn them into email subscribers.

Your lead capture page copy should be short and to-the-point. They’re interested in your offer that’s why they’re on this page. So just tell them the benefits of opting in. Have a strong benefit-driven headline in place. Optimize your lead capture form. Perform AB tests to see what works for your audience and what doesn’t.

3. Close Rate

You’ve hooked the leads in, they’ve become email subscribers, now it’s time to close the sale and convert them into paying customers. You can do that through your website, phone or even emails. It all depends on your business and customers.

Tweak and test the following areas to increase conversions.

a. Urgency to buy now

According to behavioral psychologists, urgent situations cause us to suspend deliberate thought and to act quickly. 

Create urgency in your offers by offering discounts, limited time offers, incentives to buy now, extra bonuses, etc. Use words like ‘hurry’, ‘fast’, ‘quick’, ‘over’, and so on to create urgency in your copy.

Compelling Offer

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You can even add a timer in your emails or your website to show subscribers how much time they have left before the offer expires.

When Marcus Taylor of Venture Harbour used a timer in one of their offers, their conversion rate increased 3x. It went from a mere 3.5% to 10%.

Compelling Offer

Compelling Offer

Credit

b. Price

Find your audience’s sweet price spot when promoting your products by testing and looking at competitive prices. Here’s a great guide on pricing to help you.

c. Risk reversal

Offer ‘Free trial’, ‘Money back guarantee’, ‘Results in advance’ guarantees to increase conversions.

When Neil Patel conducted AB testing on his products with risk reversal guarantees and without them, he saw a substantial increase in his conversions. From $20,976 (without free trial offer) to $24,428 monthly revenue (with free trial offer), his conversions increased 6.4%.

d. Email campaign to shopping cart abandoners

According to Baymard Institute, 67.45% of online shopping carts are abandoned.

Business owners have to deal with shopping cart abandoners all the time. Whether you have a shopping cart or not, we’re talking about the people that start the buying process but don’t complete. It’s really frustrating. They’re at the brink of buying, but at the last minute they decide not too.

Conversion Funnel

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So what do you do? You work on retargeting them and turning them into customers. Give them an incentive to finish their checkout by offering discounts and bonuses.

Here’s a great example.

Abandon Cart Example

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Keep a close eye on your email open rate and email click through rates, and segment your audience accordingly. Make AB testing a big part of your conversion funnel process.

4. Average Sale

‘Would you like fries with that?’

If you’ve ever ordered McDonald’s, you’ve probably heard this sentence. Classic example of up-selling. You can imitate this in your business as well and increase your average sale.

A Forrester research analyst said, product recommendations like up-sells and cross-sells are responsible for an average of 10-30% of eCommerce revenues.

Marketers don’t make much of an effort optimizing this part of the conversion funnel. And in that process, they leave tons of revenue on the table. You can easily avoid that mistake by doing the following things.

a. Add up-sell options

Up-sell means to encourage buyers to purchase more products and services from you. There are several different up-sell options you can add. You can sell additional products that compliment their purchase, offer them an option to increase their order size, include extra services with your product, bundle sales, and so on.

Upsell Example

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b. Add down-sell options

When a potential customer abandons their cart or tries to back out from making a purchase, you offer them a cheaper alternate product to buy. This is down-selling.

You can offer discounts and deals to potential customers at various stages of their checkout as down-sell options. Natural Fertility Shop offer 10% off first purchase to customers who checkout ASAP.

Popup Example Credits

You can do it

Success with this process is what separates those that scale their marketing and sales from those that fail and give up, returning to repeat the same vicious cycle with their next marketing strategy.

Here’s a spreadsheet you can use to forecast your conversion improvements and determine what to focus on. Improving multiple areas of your conversion funnel will have a compound effect on your sales.

So, tweak, test, re-tweak and watch your conversion rates soar!

Build Your Email List By 100K This Year Using Quizzes

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Build Your Email List By 100K This Year Using Quizzes

Get Started