How Does Time of Day Affect Conversions and Lead Generation?
April 21, 2009
One of my sites generated our first lead in a new category late last night. One of my partners sent an email saying:
“Who shops for _______ at 12:16am???”
So I got to thinking… 12:16am is late, and the product here is sort of random. My inclination is that if you are shopping for this product at 12:16 am you are not just casually browsing. You are looking to take some action. That is the perfect site visitor. So I wrote a longer response:
<< begin response >>
Consumer traffic is totally like that man. People have to work during the day, so they oftentimes are only able to do their personal shopping at night.
In fact I find that people do lots of “shopping” and “browsing” during the day, but lots of “buying” at night. I once saw someone make a huge mistake… they had a B2B site and put their PPC campaigns on pause on evenings and weekends, figuring that people weren’t at work then and therefore wouldn’t be buying. They were “sorta right”. Most of the traffic was during that time, so even though their ads only ran like 40% of the total hours in the week they still got 80% of the traffic potential, and thus only saved 20% of their total cost by turning the ads off weeknights and weekends.
But the mistake was this… Read the rest of this entry »
The vast majority of my firm’s clients provide either a service or a high-involvement type of product that is not typically bought via an e-commerce store. As such, the client websites are all lead-generation websites. Their primary focus is to generate leads that are then in turn used by the sales team to communicate with the prospect and close the sale. Generally speaking, my criteria for what I will call a “lead” tends to be a bit more strict than most.
When I use the term “lead”, I’m generally talking about an opt-in, direct consumer-initiated action where they are specifically requesting more information from the client. The most common manifestation of this is the prospect doing a search, finding the client’s website, and then either picking up the phone to call the client or filling out a contact form to request more information about the services, pricing information, etc. That’s what I think of when I think “lead”.
I know this is a rather narrow definition, and discounts a lot of other great types of leads that are less-direct, but still quite valuable nonetheless.
Anyhow, when working with a new client I often find myself recommending that they add a contact form to their website, if they don’t have such a form already. Anecdotally, I’ve seen this improve conversion rates and, just as importantly, improve the ability to track effectiveness of campaigns and use that data to improve the campaigns.
We just started with a new client this month, and here is what I emailed them regarding a contact form:
Hi <<Client>>,
I’d very much like to add a contact form to your website, a short form asking just a few pieces of info like name, email address, phone number and service they are interested in, etc. Here are the reasons I’d like to do this:
1) Improve Conversion Rates – In general, I’ve seen contact forms improve the conversion rate of visitors-to-leads for the vast majority of clients. The main reason is that it enables prospects to take action during off-hours. Especially with a service like yours, there is a good percentage of your traffic that is visiting on the weekends, or very late at night. If their only option is a phone number, they won’t call b/c they expect no one to answer the phone. Additionally, you also will get the “goofing off at work” crowd which is actually quite significant – people who are spending a few minutes while at work researching personal stuff, and they don’t want to call b/c their coworkers will hear, but they are happy to fill out a form to make initial contact. You currently have an email listed on the site as well as a phone number. Again, a form is one better than that. For some people just having an email address is to vague. Its not a strong enough “call to action”, and since it doesn’t prompt the user with questions sometimes they don’t know what to write. On your end, a form submission is better b/c you can ensure you have the 2-3 pieces of information you really need from a new contact. With an email they might leave something out such as their phone number or the type of service they are interested in.
2) Better Tracking – We can track all form submissions in our analytics package. We cannot track phone calls or emails sent via the email link in the same way. With forms, I can gain valuable data and learn which keyword phrases bring you the most leads, not just traffic. Often we may find that keyword abc brings 100 visitors and 3 leads, whereas keyword xyz brought only 40 visitors but 6 leads. Without the form tracking we would think keyword abc was better and deserving of more attention. With the form tracking we clearly know that keyword xyz is more valuable to you.
Convinced yet?
The cost of implementing this is on us. Thoughts?
Upon writing this I realized most of the evidence I have is in my head and in my experience. There is a client we started with about 2 years ago that went from 2% to about 3% conversion rates when moving from email to form. We did not leave the email up so this was email address vs. form rather than email address vs. (form + email).
Who has hard data on this? Any case studies?
Two days ago I wrote an email-turned-blog-post about SEO pricing. It got me to thinking a bit about the relationship between pricing models and responsibility or metrics for evaluation.
a) Scale of Pricing Models
My thoughts…
pricing models, evolution of service pricing
- Hourly Rates – responsible for time spent on work, quality input during that time.
- Flat Project Rate – responsible for the completion of the project and quality execution of all components, a step beyond the individual inputs (hours) involved.
- Per-Action (CPA, CPL) – responsible for generating leads or conversions (traffic-to-lead or traffic-to-sale), producing results, a step beyond execution of the campaign.
- Revenue Share or Commission – responsible for contribution to generating revenue, also would include cost-per-acquisition (another CPA), a step beyond lead generation.
- Ownership - responsible for overall entire success of the business venture (profit, etc.), would also include profit-share and stock, a step beyond revenue.
My argument is that these are listed from most simplistic to most involved. As you go down the list, not only do they become more involved but also become more closely associated with the overall success of the company. That is, Company X buys hourly work to contribute towards a project or campaign… that campaign has a goal of generating leads or prospects… some percentages of those prospects turn into sales (revenue)… the owner or CEO or other manager has the objective of not just generating that revenue but doing so profitably. They must control limited resources and also identify which components of the revenue are truly profitable, and which are not. That last item is something I’ve really worked on lately – don’t take silly little projects – they aren’t profitable!
I think each model has its merits, and none is better than the other… just depends. As a buyer, its probably best to match your objectives (what you want to acheive) to a pricing model that is in line with that. Probably not bad from a seller’s standpoint either.
Your thoughts on this “evolution of pricing models” or scale of sorts? Agree? Disagree? Something to add?
b) SEO Pricing Resources, Models and One-Time Projects vs. Ongoing
Here are some other great resources about pricing, with respect to SEO services. They are still fairly relevant for any type of consulting or professional services, though.
- SEOmoz – SEO Pricing & Costs (2007)
- Johnon’s Take – SEO Fee Structures
- High Rankings Newsletter – One-Time Fees vs Contracts
- Search Engine Guide – Barry Lloyd’s Per-Per-Visitor Model (somewhere just below pay-per-lead?)
Let me also add that my firm used to take on “one-time projects” where we would do A, B and C, and we would charge $x. We don’t do that anymore. My problems with that model… for us… are:
- SEO takes time, and with that model you aren’t around to see the results and enjoy the fruits of your labor.
- SEO has elements of time built into it… Google likes to see sites improve over time. Even if you could write a ton of great content, overhaul the site infrastructure and build a ton of great links overnight you probably shouldn’t do it. It looks fake, and that could hurt you versus spreading things out more.
- We’re better in month 6 than we are in month 1. The hardest thing about SEO for our clients – for me – is really learning the client’s industry and the details of their company. It takes me a little while to really learn that, and if we did one project and finished it and moved on to another then we would never be able to learn enough about the industry to be as effective as we are when we partner with our clients for a longer term.
- Things change. SERP algorithms change. Competition changes. Competition starts optimizing when they hadn’t before. Trends emerge. New keywords emerge, etc. One-time projects only get a snapshot.
When I did offer the one-time project option I knew all of the above, but we presented it basically as a low-cost option for clients who simply didn’t have much of a budget allocated for SEO. It was a compromise.
So I just did a Google search on “lead generation” and noticed my lead-gen firm is ranking #16 and this blog is floating towards the top of page 5… anyhow somewhere on page 7 I saw a firm called Admire Group and the approach their site takes really intrigued me. First of all, its nice and simple, which I love. Secondly, they really presented “lead generation” as the clear service they are selling… and SEO is merely the way they generate traffic and interested prospects.
I’ve been running an SEO agency for 5 years now, and I’ve just realized in the past 6 months that what I’m really selling is lead generation, not SEO. Sure I always knew that the leads (results) were what kept my clients – as opposed to rankings (the means to the ends or results)… but I’ve always thought of my firm as an SEO agency. Well screw that. We’re now a lead generation firm. Now someone just needs to find some time redo the website a bit… Perhaps I’ll use my backup instead?
So back to Admire Group. I love their approach. They basically boil their service offering down to four simple steps, and walk you through the process. They are:
- Hi, we’re a lead generation firm.
- We use “search engine maximization” so that the prospects find you, not visa versa
- We then optimize the landing pages to produce better conversion rates
- We do this by building “microsites” …that presumably saves them time and trouble versus overhauling a client’s main website.
I love how this isn’t overcrowded.
So this appears to be a relatively new phenomenon, as many firms that may have thought of themselves as SEO firms are now viewing themselves as either e-commerce consultants or lead generation specialists today. Count me in.
Why the change?
Several reasons, as I see it
1) SEO has negative connotations. Sure, most of us are good (most?)… but search engines tolerate SEOs at best, and there are so many snakeoil salesmen out there that give the industry a bad rap. Check out Aaron Wall’s post about this:
Pick a Smart Professional Label
Google can not keep growing their revenues at an acceptable rate without beating the value out of others. If you are new to the SEO field and want to excel online, call yourself something other than an SEO. Using the label SEO invites arbitrary monitoring and punishment, and there are too many plastic personalities in this field willing to dime out a friend in exchange for a wooden nickel.
from: http://www.seobook.com/to-google-you-are-a-spammer
2) Clients have evolved. While hopefully most SEOs worth their salt have long since realized rankings for specific keywords are virtually meaningless – since they fluctuate so often and are now subject to personalized and geo-based algorithm variations – and that traffic and conversions are what really matter… well truth is most buyers are just starting to get this. SEO is still a nice buzzword, but its allure as “cool” is wearing off as businesses start to look at the real ROI, which is most easily measured in the contribution of search traffic to the top and bottom lines.
Still Not Perfect…
While SEO has negative connotations, so does “Lead Generation”. In fact, the word “lead” means dramatically different things to different people. To me, its an opt-in, “they contacted us” type of inquiry where all we are doing is giving a price to someone who specifically wants to work with us. That sort of lead can convert at 20-50%. To others, a “lead” is a name and phone number on a list of 50,000 others that is five years old and consists of people who are no more targeted for a given offering than the general public. I hate this word “lead”, as I have to explain how our leads are actually good things and not what others might associate the word with.
Anyhow, perhaps its not so much SEO firms switching over to lead generation, as it is lead-gen firms realizing the power and effectiveness of SEO?
Okay I’m about to call it quits here as this is a terribly incoherent post and its 11:00pm and I need to go home… I’ll leave you though with one other link, here is another firm’s presentation of SEO-based lead generation program. Again, I like the simplicity… I just get a slight uneasy “infomercial product” vibe… maybe b/c of the single-page approach.
Industry Life Cycle for Online Lead Generation
July 15, 2008
Tim Staines recently posted about early adopters and I brought in some comments about the product life cycle. It got me to thinking about the Industry Life Cycle for Online Lead Generation.
What stage of growth do you think this industry is in?
I’d say obviously not the last two or three stages… but what about Stage 1 (Dormant) versus Stage 2 (Takeoff). Some might argue either way. I’d dodge the question and say Stage 1.5
Improving PPC Lead Generation Conversion Rates
April 25, 2008
A client of mine just sent me a note saying:
Jon,We’ve seen a decent uptick in <region> area leads/conversions. I know we are spending more $ up there, what – if anything else – do you see happening?
As per usual, I spent some time revisiting the data and identified not one but many contributing factors. I could respond one of two ways to this question. The first would be to basically say “Well we’re doing a better job of targeting our customers and delivering them to better-converting, more relevant landing pages.” That’s basically it. That’s why we’re getting more leads and conversions. I probably should have written that. But alas, the good Lord did not bless me with a knack for brevity.
So here is what I found, more specifically. Note that I’ll paraphrase a bit from my email reply to the client, and also cut out a few points that were situation-specific and not so applicable to PPC-based lead generation and conversion in general. I also changed the regions and keywords as well. The client is in fact not a pizza shop. That would be e-commerce conversion, not lead-gen conversion. We don’t do that!
Hi <client>,
Many things are playing into this, hard to isolate just one:
1) The previous PPC campaign (prior to us) that was targeting Maryland was a national campaign that had keywords which included “Maryland” or other regional words. As such, this would effectively show the ad for a guy in California (not the region we’re targeting) who searched for “Maryland pizza shop” or for a guy who is actually in Maryland and searched on “Maryland pizza shop”, but not a guy in Maryland who just searched on “pizza shop”. Chances are that guy wants a pizza shop in Maryland… but its certainly possible he wants one in Iowa. Just not likely.
We have since paused that old campaign and our current one is regionally-targeted. This means it will show for a guy in Maryland searching on our targeted keywords (without specifying his location), as well as a guy in California who specifies something like “MD” or “Maryland” in his search phrase.
> Video about Google’s Geo-Targeting via AdWords
2) We’ve refined the ad groups and keywords we are bidding on in Maryland such that a greater percentage of the money is being spent on your core services now than it was several weeks ago.
3) I believe the ads are a bit more targeted now than they were previously to people in Maryland, in that they not only have something like “Maryland” or “MD” in the ad copy, but also will show “Maryland” under the URL b/c of the geo-targeting feature.
4) The landing pages we’re sending traffic to now (as of last month) are better matches for the content and also present a clearer “call to action” in my opinion. Thus better conversions. This is a result of the time we spent creating individual, targeted landing pages for each service type your firm offers.
5) By separating out the campaign (versus before us) into separate ad groups for each we’re taking people directly to what they are looking for. If they search on “thin crust pepporoni pizza” we’re taking them directly to that page, not just a page about “pizza in general”. Before everyone was going to the homepage and had to find what they wanted specifically. Now we take them directly to the page they are looking for.
Note: Don’t put a bunch of different keywords in one ad group! That will effectively force them all to the same page (unless you go through extra effort) and will also make it much more difficult for you to compare one type of service versus another in terms of their performance. Break your offerings down into 5-10 smaller buckets and make each of those its own ad group. You’ll be able to better-targeted and match your ad copy to the subject, as well as get higher quality scores for your resulting landing pages.
6) All of the above basically contribute to a lower CPC that we’re now paying. You were paying $10 per click in Maryland and now you are paying like $5.50. Plus I believe you’re getting better quality visitors too. Thus, more traffic and more leads for your money.
So there you have it. Side note on pizza… these pizza kits are yummy. Mmmm. Okay now back to online lead generation!
If you (as an individual or freelance consultant) or your company is looking to set up a blog as a “marketing tool”, I encourage you to strongly consider tying that blog to your existing website or another domain that you own, rather than a third-party hosted subdomain (like http://ourblog.blogspot.com). Why?
- It looks more professional
- You maintain control over the asset (the domain) – you own it
- It ties in more directly with your existing website
- The SEO effect of inbound links to the blog can (if on the same domain) help all other pages on your site, and visa versa… rather than splitting your link juice.
- No reason not to
With that, I’ll share with you a brief dialog that prompted this post:
Client:
A colleague of mine owns a small software development company and I recently noticed that he has started the BLOG thing…
My Reply:
Blogs are nice tools and tie in nicely with SEO in that they
- attract links
- make adding and updating content easier and thus lead to more of it
However, I would have advised your colleague to tied his blog into his brand name – either at http://blog.companyname.com or a new domain like http://www.companyblog.com. This way he would “own” the domain.
Using your own domain with WP or Blogger is in fact very easy to do even while still using the convenience and ease-of-use of hosted platforms like Blogger or WordPress.com (as opposed to more full-version applications that you host on your own server like full-blown WordPress or TextPattern).
The key to online marketing success with blogs is two-fold (to over-simplify):
- you must stick with it
a few posts a week for a long time. don’t burn out too fast. don’t expect overnight miracles.- realize what a blog can and cannot do
it helps build relationships with your market, and it can help position its authors as experts in a field. its NOT very successfully used as a direct sales or lead generation tool. if you position it as that you’ll be disappointed. its much more indirect, and often that’s hard for someone with a serious sales background to embrace.
I probably should have added “3. become part of the blogging community within your topic/niche by commenting on other blogs, issuing trackbacks, linking to other blogs when appropriate and sharing in the conversation”.
If you are going to half-ass it, a blog is probably just going to waste your time. If you are willing to dedicate some time to it though, it can be a very useful tool for highly qualified lead generation (directly – as you have branded yourself as an expert) and also will help with your site’s SEO efforts, which in turn further helps generate new leads. In this particular case, the client has a very good understanding of both the technical and softer-marketing aspects, and so it could be an excellent tool as part of their online marketing strategy.
98 is Too Many… Here’s 11 Online Lead-Generation Tactics
April 14, 2008
Gavin Ingham recently posted 98 lead generation strategies. He says most businesses he consults with only use a few, and simply aren’t implementing as many different tactics as they could be. I agree, but 98 is a huge number. Admittedly, I could only bring myself to quickly scan his list.
While the general topic of this blog is lead generation via search engine optimization (SEO), I’ll take a slightly more broad approach than just SEO, but probably much more narrow than Gavin’s take – let’s just focus on online methods…
…by Building Customer Relationships
- Blogging: goes along with “expert branding” below, helps build credibility and exposure
- E-Newsletters: once a month or so, stay top-of-mind
- Personal Emails: stay in contact, but don’t think mass-emails or automation
- News Aggregation: be a source/resource for your customers
…by Reaching New Prospects
- Natural SEO
- Sponsored PPC
- CPM Banner Ads
- CPM Video Ads
- Vertical Search Engines (B2B)
- Online PR
- Brand Yourself as an Expert
