Quality of Traffic Has High Effect on Conversion

We had a potential client approach us about a conversion problem. They were getting healthy traffic (250k unique visitors per month) but were having conversion problems. They were only converting about .6% of visitors to customers. This was dreadfully low for their industry which had an average conversion rate of about 2.5%. Conversion problems usually reside in a combination of two areas; Site usability and traffic quality.

After investigating the client's website we found some conversion leaks, as we like to call them. There were not enough to make up the 1.9% difference in their conversion rate. We began to closely examine the company's marketing strategies and the traffic they produced. It was there we uncovered the root of their problem. Conversion dilution!

First we segmented the visitors based on the campaigns and methods that they used to locate the website:

• Organic search
• Pay-Per-Click search results
• Banner ads
• Cross linking with manufacturers of the products they sold
• Trade association cross linking

We found that a disproportionate amount of traffic was being produced through organic search results. Upon inspecting the terms that were bringing visitors to the website we discovered that a large number of terms had loose relevance to the products being sold on the site. Some terms had absolutely nothing to do with the site. This was the result of a "helpful" search optimization company the client had engaged several years ago who gleefully exclaimed "Look at all the traffic we got you." Unfortunately it was unqualified and low quality.

When talking with clients I ofter state "producing unqualified traffic is like putting a SAKS Fifth Ave right here in Warwick, NY." Warwick is a small Victorian town that prides itself on being a day shopping destination with many small trinket and home goods shops lining Main Street. A SAKS on Main St. in Warwick would probably get plenty of shoppers going in and out of the store, but few of them would ever make a purchase. The visitors are many, the potential buyers are few. This is low quality traffic.

When we factored out the traffic that was resulting from these terms we saw a clear picture of what was happening. The remaining visitors were converting at a much healthier rate 1.9%, which still leaves room for improvement, but is closer to being in line with our expectations. The erroneous traffic was severely diluting the company's conversion rates.

The lesson learned: Not all traffic is good traffic.