Why does your site exist?

Of course, we can all identify the primary purpose of most websites: bookings and purchases. These are what we call the “macro-conversions”: the ideal end goal that you would like most of your web users to reach.

But what do you do with the vast majority of visitors who visit your site and don’t engage in a macro way?

In reality, only around 1-2% of your visitors will undertake a macro-conversion - perhaps 3-6% if you are really lucky (or have set up your analytics wrong!). Because of this, it is vital to also identify your site’s micro-conversions. “Yes, yes” I hear you say, “brochure requests, Enewsletter registrations, affiliate links and so on”. And you would be correct – these are all examples of micro-conversions. But, if you analyse your site a little deeper, you will find that there are so many more types of micro-conversions waiting to be capitalised on.

How do I identify micro-conversions?

The best way to identify all the micro-conversions on your site is by looking at your website on a page-by-page level.

Take https://www.rolcruise.co.uk/find-your-cruise for example. There are several clear examples of micro-conversions present on the page:

• Request a call
• Make a call
• Enquire
• Shortlist deal
• Brochure download

These are all quite obvious and are clearly very important for generating overall sales. However, there are many more that, while not immediately noticeable, are still important tools for encouraging consumers to move down the purchase funnel:

• Subscribe email
• View a deal
• Live chat
• Nav bar interaction
• Engagement with search refinement
• Interaction with CTA
• Image and proposition engagement
• Content shares

It is only once all of the micro-conversions have been identified that we can begin to track and monitor their impact on the user journey.

How do I get the most out of my micro-conversions?

At Accord, we use a market-leading third party tracking system, which has been continually tested and reviewed over the past decade to ensure it is always up to speed with the latest client needs. By viewing this kind of deep-dive data within a user-friendly format – like Accord’s leading site video and mapping tool - you can then begin to review data patterns and trends within each micro-conversion, helping you to understand how users are interacting with your site’s features.

This granular analysis is crucial – bringing all your data together in one easy format will allow you to understand the importance of each micro-conversion. For example, using touchpoint attribution – a type of data analysis that assesses all of the digital touchpoints your users make across their entire consumer journey – you can assign value-weightings to each micro-conversion based on the overall impact they have on final bookings/sales.

It doesn’t matter if these values are theoretical or estimated (although agencies can help with this due to their sector expertise, tools and experience).The point is that we now have a starting position from which to optimise these micro-conversions and, by extension, achieve our overall goal of securing macro-conversions.

Now we are able to monitor and quantify micro conversions we can optimise two distinct areas:

Providing more in-depth understanding of media spend effectiveness and having the confidence to invest in areas that contribute or remove those areas of media activity or resource that do not.
Allocating with confidence budget and resource to a continuous cycle of conversion rate optimisation through A/B testing of different approaches to quantified or qualified ways to improve performance of those micro-conversions.
It is important to remember that conversion rate optimisation is not about drawing a straight line from macro-conversion back to a single site entry point and then trying to get people to repeat the same journey. Instead, it is about understanding what the other 98% are doing whilst not macro-converting, teasing the extra percentage of engagement out of them until they generate 10% or 20%+ improvement of your main goal.

This is not a theory - these ambitions are being delivered. But none of this can be achieved without first asking yourself a simple question: “Why does my site exist?”

By Simon Gear, Agency Director at Accord West