As a marketer, your job relies on driving results. And, if you aren’t seeing the results you’re looking for, it’s also your job to find out why and make adjustments ASAP.
So, what happens when you aren’t getting conversions? Before you really start to panic, you might look at some of the obvious reasons.
You know, maybe your copy sucks, or what you’re offering just isn’t that enticing to your personas and you need to do some repositioning. Maybe you published a landing page with a new offer but you forgot to promote it and it’s not accessible anywhere on your website. These are pretty obvious issues to look at in your inbound marketing automation and aren’t unusual for a marketer to pull out of their bag of tricks as a go-to solution to an ongoing conversion problem.
But what happens when you’ve checked and addressed all of the obvious reasons that your conversions could be suffering, and you’re still seeing issues?
You have to check some of the sneaky, less obvious reasons you aren’t getting conversions instead. Don’t know where to begin? Well, that’s why they’re considered sneaky.
Here are five to get you started:
1. Mobile Responsiveness
Have you ever tried EVERYTHING you could think of and still couldn’t find an actual reason why NOBODY has converted on a piece of content or a specific page on your site? If all of the links are working and you’ve triple-checked that everything checks out, you might want to consider checking mobile responsiveness.
Maybe your website works perfectly well if someone is viewing it from a desktop computer but, well, it IS 2017 and a lot of folks are using their mobile phones or tablets the majority of the time to access websites and might even opt to not have a desktop computer in their home. So, what’s a marketer to do?
Don’t have a website like this:
What’s that, I spot? I think that’s a conversion point. Way on the top left of the screen. I’d practically have to have Superman’s x-ray vision to spot it on my iPhone, though. Good luck trying to get me to sign up for your newsletter!
But, I’d be more willing to fill out a form if your site looked like this on my iPhone instead:
It’s all about user experience. People only care about themselves. So, if something is even a little inconvenient, you’re going to lose a lot of opportunities for conversion. Go to where the people are at and ADAPT. Make it easy to fill out a form, read content, click a button, and navigate your site on a mobile device. Duh.
2. Page Load Time
Similar to the above issue, does your page load time suck? If your site is inconvenient to the user, say buh-bye to your conversions. It’s like that friend that’s like, “K, I’m on my way!” When they really just got out of the shower and won’t be on their way to pick you up for like 45 more minutes. You get tired of waiting.
Pretty soon, you kind of just want to put your sweatpants back on and say “nope” to your plans.
Well, the same thing happens with visitors on your site. Your page takes too long to load? Your visitors get tired, put their sweatpants back on, and make different plans to visit a site that’s ready when they are.
Don't know if your page load time sucks? Visit a website like Pingdom.com or Webpagetest.org to see all kinds of technical and detailed stats about your website.
3. Design/Development Errors
This one goes beyond just evaluating page layout. By now, you’ve heard of checking form placement on pages (placing above versus below-the-fold), using contrasting colors for CTAs, etc. These are basics that any designer should touch on and any marketer should keep in mind when building a wireframe to optimize for conversions.
But what if there is a major design or development flaw that you didn’t account for functionally that is majorly affecting people’s ability to physically convert?
Some examples of things I’ve actually run into in real life (both as a marketer and as a consumer):
- “Submit” buttons that blend into the background so nobody knows where to click to actually complete the conversion (white button with white text on a white background – oops)
- Forms that aren’t connected to anything so when you click “submit” nothing actually happens
- Pop-ups that completely cover the form or the button you need to click to submit so no matter what you do you can’t move on to complete the next step
- Form fields and buttons that overlap with each other
Bottom line: make sure you QA the shit out of your conversion points and take the time to actually USE your site as if you were a consumer so you can catch issues like this before they actually become an issue.
4. Broken Links
The most simple, yet frustratingly stupid, reason to lose conversions. You entered the wrong hyperlink on a CTA, so people might want to really learn more about the webinar you’re offering but can’t actually get to the right page to find out more about it and sign up.
Or, your redirects and/or domain aren’t set up properly and people are lazy and just want to be able to type in “yourwebsite.com” into the search bar instead of having to type “www.yourwebsite.com” every time, so they never visit your website. Typing that extra “www” is a real pain, you know.
You might not think these things are a big deal, but they are. And they can be a huge reason you are missing a lot of conversion opportunities.
5. Broke-Ass Automation
Finally, you might have some broke-ass automation. If you’re noticing a lot of people, for example, are converting on your demo request but aren’t finishing the conversion by booking an actual appointment with you for the demo after an automated email was supposed to go out to them (but didn't) with your calendar link, well, red flag and LOTS of missed opportunities.
Again, it’s important to ensure there are no dead-ends throughout your buyer’s journey and it can help to actually follow the path and physically test things as if you were a consumer you are trying to market to so you can catch a lot of these gaps or errors upfront.
These are just five sneaky reasons you could be missing out on conversions. Once you start to look past the obvious and start to expand your troubleshooting, you’ll realize that there are a lot of things that can contribute to those missed opportunities and a lack of results.
To have a well-oiled and well-performing marketing machine, EVERYTHING needs to be connected seamlessly – from your website to your content to your sales department.
If you think your website might be the reason you aren’t getting conversions, check out our guide below.
