Blocking the conversion funnel leakage on your online store

By Mike OJ

Friday, July 19, 2019

In a perfect world, 100% of prospects should ordinarily convert to sales but we can all agree that in reality, it is a different case. Most businesses lose potential customers between stages of the conversion funnel, though it is okay if there are no excessive as excessive funnel leaks add up to a lot of lost revenue for the business so therefore, it is important to identify where leaks are happening so you can patch them as much as possible.

Consumers make their purchase decisions in three basic stages, first they search online, then they find products/services, and finally, they check out. At each stage, your funnel springs a leak.

In this blog post, you will learn the common causes of funnel leaks and how to fix them at different stages of the conversion funnel.

Based on Google Analytics, there are three funnel-related reports which you can use to find leaks in your conversion funnels:

§ Funnel visualization report (Conversions > Goals > Funnel Visualization). This is the most basic report, which will show you a visual overview of your funnel, depending on the goal selected.

§ Goal flow report (Conversions > Goals > Goal Flow). This shows the most accurate path to conversion. Plus, it’s a bit more flexible than the funnel visualization because it allows you to use advanced segments and date comparison.

§ Reverse goal path report (Conversions > Goals > Reverse Goal Path). This shows you your actual funnels. Here, you’ll discover funnels you didn’t even know existed. Essentially, you’ll see the three pages visited before conversion.

Leaks at the Top of the Conversion Funnel

At the top of the conversion funnel, the focus is on creating awareness and exposure of your brand and product. This often means prospects are visiting your marketing website for the first time, perhaps after seeing a post or advert from you. At this point in the funnel, the prospects are just exploring; they are not ready to make a purchase.

Leak: Your content message is not hitting it with the right people.

Fix: Take a step back to determine if your content would make an instant connect with the right people. You should regularly review buyer personas and ask: "What needs to be done to attract customers to your product?”

Once you have this, you should make sure all your messaging matches the buyer’s persona and expectations. Keep your message simple as your messaging should be highly targeted, relevant, and clear.

Leak cause: There are issues with your CTA (Call To Action).

Fix: Try experimenting to determine the CTA copy that converts best for your product. You can A/B test CTA copy, button placement, and even colors.

Leaks at the Middle of the Conversion Funnel

Once you have identified that you’re targeting the right traffic with relevant and clear messaging, you might want to take a look at the quality of leads moving forward through the funnel and how those leads are engaged. In the middle of the conversion funnel, leads will be looking to determine if your solution is a fit for their needs.

Leak cause: Leads aren’t qualified.

Fix: A study by IDG revealed 61% of marketers report problems generating high quality leads for their organization. Look at the data related to paying customers and you’ll notice some shared characteristics. For a B2B that may include business size, ARR, industry, etc. Use those common characteristics of previously converted customers to determine guidelines for defining higher quality leads.

Leak cause: You’re not nurturing leads.

Fix: According to Kissmetrics, "79% of marketing leads never convert into sales. Lack of lead nurturing is a common cause of this poor performance.”

Learn to nurture your leads, Test out multiple cadences for yourself to discover what works best for your business.

Leak cause: Friction during the signup process

Fix: Depending on your own product’s complexity, you will need to determine a signup flow that is as frictionless as possible.

Leaks At The Bottom Of The Conversion Funnel

Finally, in the bottom portion of the funnel… Conversions! A lead decides to do business with you! If you have a free trial or plan it may be a conversion to try your product or they may convert directly to a paying customer. Either way, the bottom of the conversion funnel focuses on conversions and making sure the new user receives maximum value from your product.

Leak cause: Leads are getting lost during the handoff between internal teams.

Fix: Make customer handoff seamless.

One of the easiest places for a lead to get lost in a sales funnel is during the transfer of ownership inside your organization. Make sure your team understands the whole conversion process and how they transfer ownership of the prospect, as well as ownership of their knowledge to the next person.

Leak cause: Onboarding issues.

Fix: First, understand that onboarding issues may mean it isn’t easy for someone to get started using your product or that they aren’t realizing the value of your product. The obvious fix is to improve onboarding.

As part of onboarding issues, you may also be having leakage related to making it difficult for a user to upgrade their account and get started as a paying customer. You will need to remove the friction and make the process easy to fix the problem.

Conclusion

No one thing is going to completely change your business and conversion funnel. You have to identify leaks and slowly chip away at plugging them to move the needle in the right direction.

And what about you? Where have you discovered the biggest leaks in your business’ conversion funnel? We welcome your tips and experiences in the comments below.

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