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Understanding Conversion by Medium
One thing is clear when you’re looking at your website traffic: they all come from a source/medium.
Some might arrive at your site through a search engine and make a purchase, while others might see your ad on Instagram, hop over to your online store, and place an order.
Medium is how your traffic arrives at your site. Google refers to it as the general category of the source. Mediums can include web referral (referral), cost-per-click paid search (CPC), and organic search (SEO) – essentially, whatever the category of where your traffic originates is referred to as the medium.
At Tydo, we define conversion by medium as the percentage of site visitors who place an order, broken down by medium.
Understanding lead generation and which mediums perform best for your ecommerce brand is an essential part of marketing, and you’ll want to know how each channel stacks up in terms of the number of conversions. By tracking these metrics, there’s an opportunity to lean into your best-performing mediums. You can also make adjustments where conversions aren’t as high and optimize.
Keeping an eye out for potential gaps and opportunities within your business allows you to make necessary changes (or optimizations) to increase revenue and enhance user experience.
How to calculate Conversion by Medium
Conversion by Medium A = number of orders by Medium A
Data source: Google Analytics
Example
In June, there were 5,000 orders placed on your online skincare store. 500 orders came from short message service (SMS), 1,000 from an email campaign, and 3,500 from paid social media ads.
Conversions by SMS = 500
Conversions by email = 1,000
Conversions by paid social media = 3,500
Takeaway
Conversion by Medium is like fishing with different types of bait. Just as a fisherman needs to use the right bait to attract different types of fish, marketers need to use the right medium to reach their target audience. Different mediums, like different types of bait, have their unique strengths and weaknesses.
Collecting data for your ecommerce business is incredibly important because it gives you insight into how well things are running under the hood or where changes need to be made to increase conversions and ROI.
Seeing where your orders (aka conversions) come from – whether it’s Instagram, through an email campaign, or SMS – offers a glimpse into which channels drive the most traffic and which customers are making a purchase.
Once you see which mediums are performing best, you can leverage strategies and respective budgets to enhance those conversion rates further. Identifying mediums that aren’t performing well has benefits, too.
For example, maybe you need to adjust the copy with your SMS campaigns because the messaging isn’t resonating with your target audience as well as your email campaigns. Or, it could be that your website isn’t converting because there are technical issues.
Conversion by medium can empower you to optimize your current strategies. Using this data, you can better allocate your budget and make smarter, more informed decisions
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Difference between Conversion By Medium and Conversion Rate
It’s a good idea to get a sense of what the traffic coming to your site is doing. Is your traffic converting into paying customers, or are you seeing a high bounce rate?
Conversion rate gives you the big picture, while conversion by medium is more like a pixel. By zooming into your channels, you can see which channels drive the most conversions and then allocate budget and resources to those channels.
Looking at both conversion rate and conversion by medium is helpful to get a complete picture of what’s working and what might need improvement via messaging, creative, or targeting strategies. Focus on conversion rate optimization (CRO) at the macro and micro levels.
How to increase your Conversion By Medium
Add subtitles to your ads
When you’re on mobile, do you tend to keep your sound off? The majority of users do, according to ChatterBlast Media.
Looking at data collected by ChatterBlast Media, conversion rates, engagement, video views, and website traffic perform better when the sound is off.
Because ads perform better with sound off, adding subtitles makes it easier for your audience to stay engaged with content and take the actions you want them to take. Plus, your content should be accessible to all.
Another strategy for improving conversions from paid ads? Keep it simple. Simple messaging and creative wins. Don’t try to overcomplicate it.
Plus, authenticity wins over highly-curated ad pieces. While you can certainly include produced ads in your campaigns, consider meeting your audience where they are to improve conversion rates (for example less curated ads work better on TikTok).
Test out SMS as a marketing channel
When you want to connect directly with your customers, SMS is an effective way to do it as long as it’s done correctly.
Aside from having high open rates (as high as 98%), it’s incredibly fast and doesn’t require immediate action from the recipient.
Here are a few good strategies for brands new to sending text messages to customers:
- Make sure your customers opt in. Leaving a good impression is key, and asking permission to text is the best way to keep communication successful.
- Send messages intentionally. Too much content makes it more likely a customer will unsubscribe. Send messages once or twice a week at most or only when a cart is abandoned.
- Personalize the messages. Customers find messages to be more relevant if they’re customized in a way that makes sense.
SMS is a powerful medium with plenty of potential. If you’re ready to get started, you can find tutorials and template ideas for campaigns with Fantastic Texts. And, don’t forget to try out a/b testing with various marketing campaigns to see what resonates with your customers.
Use quizzes to accelerate the path to purchase
One way to increase your conversions by medium? Try using a quiz. For customers who are new to your brand or are unsure which products might work best, quizzes are a helpful tool. Plus, they’re easy to implement into the path to purchase journey—for any medium.
At the start, customers input their email or phone number to gain access to results, which leads to more targeting opportunities with email marketing and social media marketing.
Quizzes are especially helpful for skincare and cosmetic brands—especially for first-time customers or those nervous about purchasing makeup online. Jones Road Beauty connects interested customers with various quizzes depending on whether they’re shopping for foundation, bronzer, or concealer.
Alternatively, Laird Superfood’s website features a quiz, where they can harness data to learn more about their customers and pair them with related recommended products.
By taking time to learn more about its customers, the brand earned thousands of conversions in the first month through its Daily Ritual quiz.
Optimize your website for desktop and mobile
As more customers spend time online, ecommerce brands need to ensure websites are optimized for mobile. It’s where consumers shop these days.
That means building your website to be simple, clean, and easy to navigate. Make sure buttons are easy to tap, minimize text, and highlight products for a better shopping experience.
You might consider building an app for your website using a tool such as Tapcart or Plobal. It’s a great way to build customer loyalty and improve the customer experience. If you’re wondering how to market your new Shopify app, you can learn some A+ tips here.
Build and optimize landing pages
Landing pages are often the first interaction/touchpoint a customer has with your brand, and they typically lead to high conversions. For that reason, you want to invest in building landing pages that set your brand apart and highlight products effectively.
One way to do that? Add user-generated content (UGC) to your LPs. It’s a great way to highlight product benefits.
Bailee Cooper, UI/UX director at Sharma Brands, recommends keeping customers on the landing page by adding a ‘shop now’ button. “Put a CTA where it makes sense, not everywhere.”
