Results roundup – what performed well in October 2020?

It’s tough to call a winning service this month, though Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) has excelled itself for several of our clients. As you’ll see, we’re seeing lasting results and even a positive impact that CRO tests last year are having on sales performance this year.

1. From supersite to super-performer

It’s been a full year since we consolidated multiple websites into a supersite for a family-themed client, which makes it a good time to look back on what we’ve helped them achieve.

The downside of launching a new website is the downturn in traffic – but with a solid strategy and good use of budgets, this is temporary. Within three months, the site had bounced back to its usual performance. A year on, it’s exceeding all expectations.

We’d designed this new supersite for growth and the client’s commitment to consistent investment into SEO, CRO and speed optimisation – as well as an aggressive Paid Search strategy – have really paid off.

• SEO – organic and direct traffic are up by 37% year-on-year (October 2020 vs Oct 2019)
• Overall website conversion rates are by more than 359% to 5.5% YOY, demonstrating the positive long-term impact of CRO/UX UX programme
• Leads generated from Paid Search campaigns have increased by 117% YoY (Oct 2020 vs Oct 2019)

CRO has been a real hero. The tests on key areas of the site have steered us to make changes to the site that are focused on what works for the client’s audience. This has taken the pressure off the client’s marketing team when they are reporting back to the board because the data proves how these data-proven changes make money.

How much money? Good question. A current simple test running on the site is serving four alternative menu hierarchies. The leader is converting 114% better than the control. When we have statistically significant results, we’ll make it a permanent change.

2. SEO gives multi-territory uplift

One of our long-term clients in the home & garden sector engaged us for SEO around six months ago and we’re seeing stunning results, even on a modest budget. While this sector was one of the few positively impacted by the summer COVID-19 lockdown, the fact we’re seeing sustained improvements is significant.

• Organic traffic and conversions are up YoY, with the top five territories showing strong YoY improvements in traffic of between 19.97% and 86.88%.
• Organic sessions for all 18 EMEA sites are up by 52% YoY.
• Paid Media performance through the lockdown period has by far exceeded our expectations – the conversion rate for paid traffic has increased by 19% YoY.

3. CRO’s lasting impact

Another client that experienced an uplift during the summer COVID-19 lockdown is a vehicle parts & accessories business that trades offline and online. They saw significant e-commerce revenue spikes in conversions in April and May.

However, the sustained levels of conversions has again proven that our Paid Media strategy is continuing to grow the business YoY. This is largely due to the scale of our campaigns and a 2 percentage point increase in conversion rate, which we can attribute to CRO testing back in 2019!

• Revenue has increased by 174% YoY
• Order volume up by 184% YoY
• Conversion rate up by 41% YoY
• Session value up by 36% YoY
• ROAS from Paid Media up 48% YoY

4. SEO gave the business case for a new site

This year, a former home & garden client returned to us because they’d experienced disappointing performance since they left some years ago.

We started out with some technical SEO and a content strategy that would target keywords, plus a Paid Media strategy. On a modest retainer, our SEO strategy has achieved a consistent increase in traffic and traffic. We’re slowly closing the gap on leading competitors.

Paid Media has come on leaps and bounds too since we took it back over, thanks to quick tactics that put a stop to wastage and optimised the budget on high performing keywords.

SEO in particular is brilliant at highlighting potential for growth and providing a business case for a new website.  At this point, we’ve exhausted the technical improvements we can make – the website is simply not built to optimise conversions.

However, the client felt confident with the data to sign off on a new build. The learnings and successes we’ve had so far will certainly get it off to a good start when it goes live. SEO-ready and optimised for users’ experience, we’re confident they’ll fly.

5. And again…

Similarly, a relatively new B2B services client has experienced significant growth on a modest technical SEO and content retainer. Improvements in SERP results has given them much greater visibility and traffic (sessions have almost doubled YoY).

This success has exposed the limitations of their current web platform. We’re pleased to say it won’t be holding them back for much longer – their new website, optimised for user experience and SEO, launches in the new year.

Takeaways

• Investment in Conversion Rate Optimisation reaps long-term rewards
• Even a modest SEO budget will benefit performance if used strategically

Door4’s objective is revenue optimisation. If you’d like to know more about what this could do for you, get in touch.

Photo by Vlad Vasnetsov from pixabay