Converting Websites: How small conversion rate increases can save digital marketing budgets.

Marketing teams are under increasing pressure to deliver against lead targets.  Often the main source of lead acquisition is an organisation’s website.  To hit lead targets, marketing teams have a few options - they can buy leads through greater investment in acquisition channels (SEO, PPC, Paid Social or Affiliates) or they can increase conversion from traffic already visiting the website.

With marketing budgets becoming tighter, and ROI expectations high - increasing acquisition spend may seem difficult to justify.  This makes the website’s conversion rate more important than ever.  So what impact can conversion rate increases have on the marketing budget?

What impact does website conversion have on website lead generation?

The diagram above gives a broad average of B2B lead targets and conversion metrics for 2024.  Using these metrics as a basis for our calculations, we can show the impact of increasing conversion rates on marketing budgets.

According to the statistics above:

• To capture 1,000 leads, the budget will need to be £200,000
• With the conversion rate at 1.9%, the website will require traffic of 52,632 users for 1,000 leads
• It will cost £3.80 per user visiting the website to generate 1,000 leads

We can see above average B2B lead generation metrics, the size of traffic required and the lead acquisition costs as we increase the leads generated through the website.  This is based on a 1.9% conversion rate average, and shows a sizeable requirement for both traffic and cost in order to stay on target.  At this stage, marketing budgets are particularly vulnerable to fluctuations in traffic acquisition costs and user interest in the website.

So why does conversion rate matter?

We can see above that the greater the conversion rate, the larger the saving against the marketing budget.  This can be used in two ways, savings passed back onto the bottom line, or more leads generated within budget to exceed sales targets.  Either way, by focussing on conversion rather than acquisition, more can be achieved with the same budget.

Having a clear understanding of the customer journey through your website will provide insight into the strength of the website’s user experience (UX).  Often, businesses create websites but don’t dedicate the time to analysing the data users generate within GA4, Hotjar or similar platforms. 

Important insight into UX includes:

• Page engagement - which pages are captivating your users the longest and where are the underperformers?
• Bounce rates - are there any pages suffering from high bounce rates from search engine acquisition?
• Contact form completions and abandonment - how far through the form are users abandoning?
• Conversion funnels - where do users drop out of the funnel and why?
• User navigation - do you see users regularly bouncing back and forth between the same two or three pages before dropping off?
• Page scroll and clicking hotspots - How far below the fold do you start to lose most of your users?  Do you have enough compelling content above the fold?  Are users clicking the right buttons to join the conversion funnel?

So how do you start improving your conversion rates?

The digital marketing audit pulls together all digital marketing tools, acquisition channels and conversion opportunities and maps them out into a single document tracking users from acquisition through to conversion and beyond.  From this audit, strategies defining website objectives, customer segmentation and content positioning, and conversion funnels can be redefined and built into a clear improvement roadmap.

Once this roadmap has been implemented, the website should be regularly analysed to track impacts on conversion rates and user acquisition.  Strategies should evolve as insights dictate further developments and changes are tested and measured.

Arboreal Marketing Ltd are digital marketing audit specialists, we’ve worked with many clients defining website objectives and then building customer journey maps for all digital marketing channels.  We can help you improve your conversion rates and save your marketing budget.