Microconversion — Underestimated Small Steps on the Way to the Customer

Companies are used to assessing only the main target actions like registrations and sales. Wait. What about the steps in between? Do we have to fight for likes on Facebook? Is it worth worrying about the percentage of unsubscriptions from the mailing list? What does the number of visits to the site actually indicate? Today, marketers have access to so much information that it becomes really difficult to determine the significance of each individual action (its value).

Just for such cases, there’s the concept of microconversion. Microconversion helps to optimize advertising channels, visitor path, and improve the typical conversion. What kind of miracle is this? We’ll help you find microconversions and make sure that they’re good for your sales.

What is a MACROconversion?

MacroConversion is something that directly affects revenue. Marketers have long learned to measure macroconversion in their funnels:

• Filled out the form;
• Registered;
• Ordered a return call;
• Subscribed.

What is a microconversion?

On the way to a macroconversion lies microconversions — small visitors’ events leading to success, which usually remain outside the field of marketer’s view doe.

Tracking microconversions is especially important in several cases.

Case 1

The microconversion can be considered as an action that the visitor makes before doing the main action (macroconversion). If you know these steps, you can push the lead not to a big conversion (purchase or subscription), but to small ones — to view certain pages or interact with a specific element on the site. So, by increasing microconversions, you increase the conversion to the main action.

In Dashly,  you can configure scenarios and lead clients to specific events, using triggered messages. Once the visitor has performed the trigger action, send him a message to the chat or make a good offer to point him in the right direction.

Case 2

If you have a long purchase cycle and there’s a lot of time between the basic steps of conversion (and possibly the actions that you’re missing).

If you find out which set of actions leads a user to purchase with a high probability, you can optimize the advertising channels, without waiting for a full cycle.

For example, you realized that the visitors will buy with a probability of 80%, if he visits three pages and watches the video on the landing page. If you see that not enough visitors make this sequence of actions, then you can abandon an inefficient channel without spending too much time and money.

Case 3

If part of the action occurs offline.

For example, a visitor sees an advertisement on the Internet, communicates with the manager by the phone, and concludes a deal in the office. Tracking the conversion at the conclusion of the transaction can be difficult, so you can rely on microconversions. The client made specific actions on the site? Hence, he will close the deal with a probability of 85%.

As microconversions go, there may be steps such as:

• Downloaded one of the free materials;
• Subscribed to the newsletter;
• Read articles in the blog;
• For example, in Kissmetrics on a blog, viewing 3 articles means almost 100% of the user’s registration in the service.
• Liked the Facebook page;
• Subscribed to Twitter;
• Looked at the page with the reviews;
• Read a welcome letter;
• Communicated with the operator in the chat;
• Visited the site more than N times;
• Switched to a calculator with the calculation of the cost.

As you can see, none of this is related to sales directly, but these actions help to attract potential customers, train them and introduce the brand.

If done correctly, microconversions can increase sales, helping customers overcome potential doubts and problems (even before they occur). Remember that microconversions are directly related to macroconversions.

Let’s take an example from the banking sphere. Say we have identified 5 actions that most users make on the site:

• Looks at the page with the tariffs,
• Studies the scheme of travel,
• Uses a calculator of tariffs,
• Looks at the page with credits.

But you found out that the most likely contribution to your bank will be opened by those who studied the scheme of travel and used a calculator. They will be your microconversion. Encourage visitors to commit these actions, because their execution is most likely to guarantee you success. On other events, you can’t pay so much attention.

The work with microconversions is very valuable, but it’s important to be as careful and cautious as possible. You risk drowning in a sea of metrics that do not affect revenue in any way, sabotage your efforts and impedes the visitor on his way to his goal.

We bind micro- and macro together

Often marketers are lost in microconversion, “Oh, cool! I have 10 likes on a new Facebook account!” Of course, microconversions matter, but it’s important to be able to associate them with macroconversions. So let’s talk about this.

Why should you stop chasing MACROconversion

The percentage of macroconversions is easy to see and measure. You can set goals in Google Analytics that will work every time someone buys, signs, or takes a specific action. Alternatively, simply set up the data collection in Dashly to collect all the visitor actions that interest you (which can serve as micro or macroconversion). This setting takes from 3 to 5 minutes, and soon enough you can see how the amount in your account grow.

But there is one problem.

On their own, conversions are nothing wrong. They are important. However, they can be confusing. Despite the fact that comparing conversions on different sites is like comparing apples with oranges, it’s considered that for e-commerce the average conversion value is 1-3%. This means that if you don’t measure microconversions in any way, you do not follow what 98% of visitors to your site are doing and why they are not being converted.

Watch closely  2% of visitors… is really not very sensible if you think about it. Of course, a small change in the percentage of conversion can significantly affect revenue. However, this is the end of the process, not the beginning. There are a lot of little things that happen before the visitor gets to the end point of the order.

Usually people come to your site for various reasons. Of course, some of them want to make a purchase. But this is only a tiny percentage. Everyone else comes to learn more, find something or do an action. Maybe they found your post on Twitter and wanted to read a couple more. Or maybe they were on your site once or twice and wanted to see how they can solve their problems with your help. Focus on determining whether people have succeeded in performing quick, simple, “painless” tasks.

This approach is by definition better for visitors, because it should lead to improved their experience on the site. It should be better for your team, because it shows the elements that can be fixed, changed or tracked.

Before we go to specific indicators, you need to find out which path your visitors are hosting on your site. Build a customer journey map.

What is visitor path optimization?

The visitor path (Visitor Flow or Visitor Journey) is the “path that the visitor passes through the interface (for example, on your site) to complete the task (place an order, buy a product, or subscribe to something),” says Peep of ConversionXL.

The easiest way is to see the visitor flow on the funnel, which is usually used in ecommerce. However,  they are also applicable to visitors who are not converted in the usual sense.

Microconversions help to find visitor paths and optimize them.

For example, you have a lead from an advertising campaign that went to your lending and then registered or bought. But at the same time, you can have a Facebook person who has joined the blog. People familiar with the brand who sit on the main page, and then immediately switch to the sections “Features” or “About Us.”

Each of them is a separate visitor path, with a different beginning and end, with different intentions.

Google Analytics has a useful report, which is called User Flow. It will show you

1) The source that people use to find your site,

2) The first page they enter by,

3) The following pages that they visit;

4) The pages from which they leave the site.

This is not an ideal method as, it has drawbacks. For example, it’s built by sessions, not by visitors. However, this is enough for a start. You can see the common features of behavior. For example, organic search traffic goes to the main page. This will help you to make some assumptions (for example, that most of those visitors are familiar with the brand, since they are guzzling brand inquiries to get to the start page).

You can also see the Reverse path to the goal in the Conversions section. Of course, he focuses on those macroconversions, to which we are wary. With that said, you can see which pages preceded the conversion.

Look for pages that help achieve conversions. Those that make the path easier and make the conversion possible. It may also be useful to apply all of these microconversions to a map to see the path from one to the other.

After that, look for the narrowest microconversion points to find out where the rework is needed.

Here is a classic scenario.

The boss says that the conversions are too low. But in fact, it does not seem that things were all that bad. Normal conversion is around 2% for ecommerce (or 7% for B2B). Of course, this figure may be better, but it is not terrible. Instead, you notice that the number of people who viewed the product page, and then added it to the shopping cart, is very small (or scheduled the demo after viewing the product / service page).

So, you switch your attention to the beginning of the visitor’s life path. How many people from those who are looking at the product page click on a) learn more about the product or b) schedule the demo?

Excellent.

Now find out how many microconversions are performed on each product page. Such microconversion is usually considered viewing visitor reviews, photos, special offers or discounts.

The best thing about microconversions is that you can test them out.

For example, inserting a video in a Landing page increases conversions by 80%. That is, the visitor segment that will watch this video is converted to 80% better than those who do not see it. That is, watching a video can be considered a microconversion. So … get to it! Build funnels and compare those who watch videos with those who are not. Plus microconversion (and funnels) is that you can arm them when you come back to the boss again.

The same can be done with trigger messages. For example, find out what is best for converting users: small pop-up or large, which closes the entire screen? This possibility is present in Dashly — with the help of A / B tests you can compare not only letters, but also different types of communications.

What’s next?

Here you have typed data on the intermediate actions of the visitor. Which of them affect the final conversion? Which ones are worth paying attention to, and which ones are only distracting?

The IT-agency team acted in the most reasonable way. They set out to increase sales in business, part of which occurs offline. The problem was tried to solve with the help of promotional codes and transfer of funnel to online, but the most effective were still microconversions. They compiled a correlation table and found out which events have the most weight and contribute the most to the final conversion.

Pay attention not only to the large steps of visitors who bring you money, but also on the small ones, not so noticeable, but which can really help you grow loyal customers from leads.

Dashly is happy to help you with this task. Collect all information about visitors’ actions, build funnels, segment and analyze away. Having found the bottlenecks, add trigger messages there to help the visitor overcome difficulties on the way to macroconversion.

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