How to increase your conversion rates? A hot issue for affiliates and other marketers (+ expert view)

Some publishers already tend to think that affiliate marketing may be dying but still, “not exactly”. We don’t agree with them, even with a reservation to the “not exactly” part. Well, today, we say we find evidence that affiliate marketing is very much alive, and dive into some valuable knowledge on how to increase conversion rates of your landing and transit pages and improve your sales.
Statista conducted a survey in 2020 and revealed that in the US, spending on affiliates was estimated to exceed $8.2 billion. So, the question of conversion rates stays as relevant as ever. And to increase it, you need to sort through the tools that any publisher should use as their trusted aids.
How to boost conversions with personalization
Personalization isn’t only a good one-time help for conversions, the publisher’s ability to use it for their own good is a guarantee for user loyalty.
How can we explain what personalization means here? It’s what robots, applications, and websites do to show the most issue-related content to potential buyers based on their behavior on the internet. This algorithm takes geolocation and all the online resources that people frequently visit into account.
Google personalization is the study of the baggage of user queries in search engines. The more often the search engine is used, the more information it aggregates about each user.
But how can you increase your conversion rate by using personalization to your advantage?
How can traffic grow due to personalization?
The system stores and conducts analytics of users’ personal data for more detailed SERP results (but it’s not the only purpose, of course). The search feed shows results from services, as well as Google social networks, relevant to the query. When personalization works correctly, your site is shown to users who have visited similar sites and already searched similar queries.
This algorithm allows you to target ads to people who are interested in your niche which increases the likelihood of targeted clicks to your site and solves the burning issue of how to increase conversions.
Personalization levels and how to increase conversions with their help
This indicator depends on your expectations for the result, technical capabilities, and the size of your target audience. By increasing the level of personalization, we complicate technical solutions and increase the result, understanding how to increase the conversion rate in our specific case.
· Mass-scale offer
Perhaps one of the most famous ways to set up personalization that implies getting high volumes of traffic at low prices. It focuses on the majority of potential clients and doesn’t take social and demographic data into account.
· Loyalty program
It’s a type of mass offer aimed at a specific brand. To effectively manage this type of personalization, you will need a warmed-up customer base.
· Target offer
Personalization based on the characteristics of the client and their preferences: gender, age, purchase history, request history, etc.
· Personal offer
Potential clients receive a personalized offer based on their actions, preferences, and behavior. Efficiency can reach its max when the offer is developed individually for each client.
If you don’t ignore these 4 tools, then the chances of getting the best leads will increase significantly and then you will gradually satisfy the age-old need to increase your conversions, and with a positive outcome.
6 effective ways to increase conversion rates of websites, landing pages, and other platforms
85% of the inhabitants of the Earth can be classified as visual learners, as often said by scientists. If these aren’t just some abstract scientists, then this fact can work to our advantage and help us with our ads’ design since this especially applies to online sales.
Are there design principles that can directly affect your conversion rate? And how to increase your website’s conversion rate using specific design techniques? How to improve your conversion so that you always have the opportunity to drive profits?
Yes, there are such techniques. Let’s look closer at them.
Points of Power
The Rule of Thirds that applies to photography also works in web design. According to the rule, the frame or page of the site can be divided into three equal parts. There are 9 identical squares and 4 points at the intersections separating them.
These four points are the so-called Points of Power which means that it is in these places where the online visitor’s attention turns in the first place. How can we use this fact? Our landing pages or creatives should contain the most important elements exactly at the intersections of these Points of Power. In general, make sure to use these Points of Power to help you resolve the question of improving your conversions.
Hick’s Law
According to psychologist William Hick, the time it takes a person to make a decision is directly proportional to the choices available. So, roughly speaking, if you want a landing page visitor to make a purchase faster, narrow the quantity of your goods/services. Or, you should think in advance about the possible decisions of the user and reduce them to a minimum.
Is there any valid evidence for this phenomenon? Yes, a social experiment by Mark Lepper and Sheena Iyengar. In the course of their study, these psychologists found out that a table consisting of 6 different jam products was more attractive to buyers than a 24-jams version.
A simple and scientifically based example of how to increase website conversions quickly and easily.
Spaces
The science of web design operates with two interrelated concepts – positive and negative space. All the elements of your landing page can be considered positive. And the negative includes the empty spaces between these elements. The correct use of negative space makes the information on the landing page more visible and readable. This can help your landing page bring you an impressive conversion rate.
How to increase website conversions with negative space?
· The smaller the font size, the bigger the distance should be between the letters.
· The line height should be approximately 150% of the font size.
· No big blocks of text – large paragraphs of the text should be broken into smaller parts.
· Add more negative space between large landing page elements.
Another way to increase website conversion rate uses geometric accuracy.
F-layout
This is what people see when looking at landing pages, basically. Well, as well as any other online resources. Our eyes instinctively move in one pattern: from left to right and then down. Anyone, in 99% of cases, will practically ignore the lower right corner.
How to improve conversion with this principle? Just put the most important things within the bounds of this F-shaped space.
All the ways to contact you and purchase products should also be in these most privileged places.
8-second rule
The essence of this mysterious-sounding rule is that you have only 8 seconds to hook a person’s attention – this is exactly how long a person can concentrate on one thing.
Hooks and Social Proof
The hook part includes various website widgets and forms: newsletter subscription, callback pop-up, online consultant window, sale countdown timer, etc.
Social proof is all kinds of diplomas, certificates, and reviews. Data Insight and AliExpress even conducted a study on reviews, the results of which revealed that 9 out of 10 purchases are made as the result of other customers’ reviews.
We asked an experienced affiliate we know to give his comment on the matter:
Ivan Merkulov, owner of the Carbon affiliate team:
In our practice, we have used the following methods to increase conversions:
1. Making the landing page design similar to the design of the creative (for example, imitating Instagram colors on the landing page if the ad comes from Instagram).
2. Content repetition, this is when the information in the advertisement is “confirmed” on the site. Just duplicate it.
3. Imitation of a blog or a real story. People believe people, so storytelling works well.
4. Adaptive content. Place the name of the user’s city in the headlines on the site (for example, “Girl from {city name} lost 500 kg”).
5. Designing the order form as a consultation, not a plain purchase sheet (give the client the feeling of being able to refuse the offer at any time)
Conclusion: Conversions are a versatile thing and all the tools to manage this versatility are in the hands of us, publishers. In order to effectively use these tools, you need to add the proven knowledge of fellow marketers to your personal creativity and analytical skills. This is what this article is all about. So now, we can only wish you good luck in your affiliate deeds, the highest approval rates, and great ROIs! And let the question of improving conversions just be hypothetical for you.
Kind regards,
Webvork