Conversion rate optimization (CRO) services is just one of many options for a website owner to choose from when it comes to growing their online business, such as:
- Pay-Per-Click Advertising
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
- Content Marketing
- Social Media
Now the obvious question becomes: Which Internet Marketing service will deliver the most sales for the investment? Unfortunately, you will probably need a team of rocket scientists to calculate the ROI for an investment in SEM, content marketing, or social media. And although CRO services deliver far higher ROI than these three options (yes, you can calculate the ROI to a very reliable degree for all three services), we’ll focus on PPC for now and we’ll come back to the other options a little later.
But for now, let’s there is a website out there with the following core stats:
Monthly Income: $15,000
Average Conversion Rate: 2%
Average Customer Sale: $150
So, it is a very respectable site but no one is getting rich. In fact, the marketing budget is very tight and the website owner only has $5,000 to invest to grow the online business in the coming year. Which is a better investment: PPC or CRO services?
Invest $5,000 with PPC
Average CPC: $2
New Traffic: 2500 Visitors
Total New Sales: 50
Total New Revenue: $7500
Gross Margin: $2500
Well, let’s hope this website owner is selling an information product or service. Because with $5,000 invested in PPC advertising, there just isn’t much left over for taxes, overhead, and especially any costs associated with physical products. Now, let’s look at what happens if the website owner invests that same money in conversion rate optimization:
Invest $5,000 in CRO Services
Increase Conversion Rate by 30%
New Conversion Rate: 2.6%
Total New Monthly Revenue: $4500
Gross Margin: -$500
Now before you think that investing in CRO experts is a losing proposition, you have to consider one very important fact:
The increased conversions produced by the CRO experts will continue to generate higher online sales for years after the job is done. That means you won’t be generating $4500 in additional revenues for just one month-but for the foreseeable future and potentially years after the CRO experts have concluded their work. So in light of this fact, that means the $5,000 investment in CRO services will generate:
Total New Annual Revenue: $54,000 ($4500 X 12)
Gross Margin: $49,000 ($54,000 – $5,000 initial investment)
As you can see, it’s not even a contest. And the 30% projected improvement in overall conversion rate is very modest as most projects average a 50% increase. But even with these modest projections, the ROI from CRO services absolutely devastates the ROI produced from PPC advertising. But what about SEO, social media, or content marketing?
Well, compared to these competing Internet Marketing options, CRO services produce far superior ROI due to three factors:
- CRO Services Generate Increased Sales Long After SEO, SMM, or Content Marketing
- CRO Services Do Not Require Constant Investment to Keep Generating New Online Sales
- CRO Services Do Not Increase Marketing Costs
While the difference in ROI may not be as great as it is with PPC, the truth is that SEO, SMM, and content marketing are nowhere near as profitable to invest in as conversion rate optimization.
However, every website needs to build its traffic to ultimately grow so no one is saying that SEO, SMM, and content marketing aren’t necessary. In fact, they are vital in varying degrees to all successful websites.
But if the question is which Internet Marketing service will ultimately generate the greatest bang for your buck, CRO services win in a landslide. And, if you were to invest in conversion services, the increased conversion rate would then make all of your later investments in SEO, SMM, content marketing, or even PPC all the more profitable.
In fact, take our example and imagine that the ppc campaign generated a 2.6% conversion rate instead of the baseline 2%. That means instead of generating $7500 in total new sales, it would have generated $9,750 in new revenue.
And if you haven’t heard of conversion rate optimization, don’t worry, the competition already has or will soon enough. Already, massive corporate giants like Apple and Google are investing in CRO services because the ROI is simply too big to ignore.
