A marketing referral program is a conscious strategy by companies to incentivize loyal customers to promote their voice and promote the company’s exceptional products or services. Existing customers, in a natural way, share their positive service or product experiences with their friends, family, and social network, effectively spreading the word in a convincing and credible way.

The importance of referral programs in driving customer acquisition and retention cannot be overstated. It’s a simple yet profound fact that people trust referrals from someone they know. A study published by Investpro found that 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends. This trust allows marketing referral programs to hit the targeted audience efficiently and effectively.

One of the key benefits of implementing a referral program in a marketing strategy is that it can result in acquiring loyal and valuable customers. Not only is their customer lifetime value generally higher, but referred types of customers are also more likely to refer new customers, creating a loop of continuous customer acquisition.

They also improve customer retention rates. Satisfied customers who feel valued and appreciated are more likely to stay with a brand and remain active customers for a long time. In terms of businesses, this often translates into positive reviews, increased repeat purchases, and of course, valuable referrals.

Diving headfirst into referral marketing without understanding its nuances can be a daunting prospect. The rest of this blog will discuss the different types of referral programs, provide real-life examples, elaborate on how to promote your referral marketing program effectively, delve into the crucial metrics to measure the success of these programs, and finally give you a high-level step-by-step process on how to create and launch a successful referral program.

Types of referral programs

Referral programs come in a myriad of shapes and sizes, each tailored to a specific type of business or goal. The key is to understand which one aligns best with your company’s objectives. Here’s an overview of different marketing referral program types and their most viable applications:

1. Customer referral program

These programs incentivize current customers to introduce new customers to your business. For instance, a customer could receive a discount or free product for every referral that leads to a purchase. This type of program is exceptionally successful in retail, e-commerce, and subscription services.

2. Partner referral program

This involves strategic partnerships between businesses. Partners refer clients to each other’s services and reap benefits in return. Businesses offering SaaS solutions, consulting, or B2B services can profit from this approach.

3. Advocate marketing program

Here, the focus is on turning current customers into advocates. Encouraged by rewards, these customer advocates willingly promote your brand, helping to create a deep sense of community and customer loyalty. It’s particularly effective for subscription services, software, and community-based platforms.

4. Loyalty referral program

This program rewards loyal customers for making referrals and other activities that earn them points, which can then be used as discount codes and other incentives. It’s an excellent referral marketing strategy for improving customer retention and works wonders for the retail, hospitality, and airline industries.

5. Non-monetary referral program

As the name suggests, this program offers non-financial incentives such as exclusive content, features, or experiences. This approach can be beneficial for industries like online communities, gaming, or content platforms.

6. Two-sided incentive program

A scenario where both the successful referrer and the referred get rewarded. It fosters a mutual sense of benefit and is perfectly suited for e-commerce, subscription services, and financial services.

7. Tier referral program

This type of program offers escalating rewards depending on the number or value of referrals made. Ideal for multi-level marketing, retail, and digital services.

8. Social media referral program

In today’s digital age, leveraging social media channels for sharing referrals and earning rewards makes perfect sense. Online retail, digital content, and apps tend to utilize this approach effectively.

9. Event-based referral program

These are time-bound programs centered around occasions, holidays, or product launches. Businesses in e-commerce, hospitality, and event services can use this to their advantage.

10. Charitable referral program

Integrate corporate social responsibility by donating to charity for each referral. Not only does this resonate with ideal customers, but it also gives a reputational boost to the brand. Key industries for this kind of program are e-commerce, CSR initiatives, and sustainable brands.

The choice of a referral program largely depends on the nature of the business. A DTC business would thrive best with a customer referral, loyalty program referral, or a non-monetary referral program due to its direct interaction with the end consumer. For a B2B business, a partner referral, advocate marketing or two-sided incentive program would be more effective since they center around collaboration and mutual benefits. Keep in mind these standards are not set in stone – a two-sided incentive, for example, may be an excellent choice for a DTC brand.

Examples of successful referral programs

Picking the right marketing referral program can be overwhelming. To guide you through the decision-making process, let’s look at a few referral program examples from well-known companies that illustrate best practices in referral marketing.

1. Dropbox

Dropbox’s referral program, known as one of the best referral program examples, rewards not only the referrer but also the referred individual by providing both parties with extra storage space. This is a classic example of a two-sided incentive program and has been pivotal in the company’s exponential growth.

2. Fiverr

Fiverr’s referral program makes it attractive for users to share their platform with a 10% cash reward for the referred’s first order. Catering to its digital-savvy user base, the simplicity and direct financial benefits of this customer referral program have proven to be very attractive.

3. T-Mobile

T-Mobile has seen remarkable success with its marketing referral program. By offering a $50 prepaid MasterCard for each successful referral, they’ve been able to motivate customers to spread the word about their services.

4. Evernote

Evernote uses a point-based referral program where the referrer earns 10 points for each successful referral, up to 3 referrals. These points are enough for a 3-month (paid) Personal package. This unique approach plays well with their productivity-oriented user base.

5. Amazon

Amazon stands out for its innovative approach to referral marketing. Instead of providing direct cash or discounts, they offer affiliate marketers a commission of up to $3 for every visitor that starts a 30-day free trial of Amazon Prime.

These examples demonstrate how successful companies tailor their referral programs to match their brand and customer base. Whether it be through cash, credit, free products, or flexibility, each of these companies managed to motivate their existing customers to refer new ones. The take-home message here is that a successful marketing referral program requires a deep understanding of your customer’s motivations and a design that aligns rewards with these motivations.

Promoting referral programs

Once you have established the type of referral program that will best suit your business model and have identified some successful referral program examples to emulate, the next step is to promote your referral program effectively.

Utilize all the communication channels at your disposal, including email marketing, social media, and on-site or in-app notifications, to announce and draw attention to your generous referral program. For your existing customers to share it, they first have to know about it.

Rewards or referral incentives that provide actual value to the participant can significantly increase engagement in your referral program. This could be in the form of discounts, free products, cash rewards, or even gift cards. Pick something that you know will align with your customer’s desires.

The more barriers there are to entry, the less likely participants are to engage. Simplify your referral process so that it’s as easy as possible for your existing customers to refer new ones while ensuring that they understand the potential rewards involved. Simplicity is key. Never forget the good ole KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid).

Use engaging content to communicate the benefits of your referral program. This might involve educational content that guides customers through the process, testimonials from happy customers, or enticing visuals throughout your marketing efforts.

Segment your audience and tailor your messaging to fit each cohort. A referral marketing campaign that’s personalized can go a long way in strengthening customer relationships with your existing customers, thus encouraging them to participate. Don’t think this is a small task. Make sure you make use of all the data you have available. Be strategic and approach this step with care and attention, as it can be the biggest boon or crutch.

Don’t let your referral program fade into the background — remind your customers of its existence regularly, and update them on the benefits they could earn through their participation.

Make your landing pages useful and appealing. Points that should be highlighted include clear CTAs, the benefits of the referral program, and how easy it is to refer a friend. No need to overcomplicate, but don’t underdo it either. A well-designed, simple landing page can be the maker or breaker of sign-up rates.

Always remember: creating a sense of urgency can spur action. Consider running limited-time promotions that can provide an immediate boost to your marketing referral program.

Engage with your audiences on forums and groups or on Q&A platforms — this can also extend the reach of your referral programs, but primarily, it will help build that sense of community, which over a long enough time scale, becomes extremely valuable for businesses.

Lastly, collaborations or sponsored content can be a great way to reach entire communities of potential customers and extend the reach of your referral program beyond your existing customer base.

Remember, a well-promoted referral program not only aids customer retention but also helps acquire new customers more cost-effectively.

Key metrics for measuring success

To successfully implement a marketing referral program and fully understand its impact, monitoring key metrics is crucial. These indicators help you measure the effectiveness of the program, tweak it for better performance, and justify your marketing spending to relevant parties.

1. Referral rate

This is the percentage of customers who make a referral. This indicates the overall engagement and effectiveness of the program, and a high referral rate could signal happy customers who are satisfied with your product or service.

2. Participation rate

This measures the number of customers enrolled in the referral program out of the total customer base. This metric allows you to assess the appeal and accessibility of the program.

3. Conversion rate

This is the percentage of referred leads who convert into paying customers. A high conversion indicates that referred customers perceive your product or service to be high value and the effectiveness of the referral program messaging.

4. Lifetime value of referred customers

This represents the projected revenue that a referred customer will generate throughout their lifetime. You can use this KPI to determine the long-term value and profitability of acquiring customers through referrals.

5. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

CPA calculates the cost associated with acquiring a new customer through the referral program. By comparing the CPA of your referral program with other acquisition channels, you can evaluate the efficiency of your referral program.

6. Time to conversion

This measures the amount of time it takes for a referred lead to convert into a customer, helping to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the sales funnel for referred leads.

7. Customer retention rate of referred customers

This calculates the percentage of referred customers who continue to engage with the company over time. A high retention rate signifies customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Imagine you started the quarter with 100 referred customers. During the quarter, you acquired 20 new referred customers. By the end of the quarter, you have 110 referred customers left (this means some of the initial customers didn’t make a repeat purchase or stopped using the service).

Let’s plug these numbers into the formula:

= (110 – 20) / 100 x 100%

= 90/100 x 100%

= 90%

So, the Customer Retention Rate of Referred Customers for that quarter is 90%.

8. Churn rate of referred customers

This indicates the percentage of referred customers who stop using your products or services within a given time period. An increasing churn rate might call for an evaluation of the quality or fit of the referred customers.

9. Average Order Value (AOV) of referred customers

This indicates the average amount of money spent by referred customers per transaction. A high AOV could give a broad indication of referred customers’ spending behavior and their value to the company.

These KPIs together create a holistic view of the success and ROI of your referral program, helping to identify areas of strength as well as those requiring enhancement. Whether your objective is to boost customer acquisition, develop a loyal customer base, or increase revenue, tracking these metrics can help steer your referral marketing efforts in the right direction.

Step-by-step instructions for creating and launching a successful referral program

Referral programs can feel complex, but following a methodical process can take the stress out of this marketing tactic and demonstrate real results.

1. Defining objectives: Clarity is key. It is crucial that CMOs, Marketing VPs, and Marketing Directors establish clear goals from the onset. Whether it’s to ramp up customer acquisition, increase sales, or improve customer loyalty, objectives need to fall in line with the broader business goals.
2. Identifying target audience: Once objectives are laid out, the next step is determining the ideal referrers and referees. Consider factors beyond demographics. Look at psychographic patterns and recognize behavioral variables to frame the referral program that perfectly fits the needs and desires of the target audience. Remember, dig through your data to uncover audience insights.
3. Choosing incentives: Your rewards should not only be enticing but also hold concrete value for your referrers and referees. From discounts and cash rewards to exclusive experiences and early feature access, the incentives need to strike a balance between being cost-effective for the business and valuable to the audience.
4. Designing program structure: The core rule is to keep it simple. The program must be straightforward and easy to understand. Terms and conditions should be clear, referral processes need to be straightforward, and rewards should be within reach. This is around the time when you’ll need to decide whether you are building a program from the ground up or if you are leveraging a third-party solution, which may already have figured out and resolved many of the kinks that can come with building a referral program from scratch. Smaller organizations tend to go the third-party route, as it is significantly more affordable and still quite agile.
5. Setting up tracking and measurement: Employ unique referral codes and integrate analytics tools for robust results tracking. From monitoring direct referrals and conversions to evaluating the broader performance of the referral program, tracking and measurement are pivotal to the success of marketing referral programs. Mostly all third-party solutions will have their own built-in analytics, which may be enough for what’s likely needed. However, this isn’t always the case, so it is a good idea first to map out all the things you’d like to track and analyze and then afterward see if the third-party route can solve that or if you’ll need something more custom.
6. Promoting the program: Utilize all marketing channels at your disposal. From emailing and social media to website banners and in-app notifications, the promotional efforts should be wide-spanning and consistent—reminding existing customers of their ability to benefit from referring friends or contacts.
7. Optimizing over time: A referral program should not be stagnant. Regularly review program data and feedback to adjust accordingly. Trying different incentives, refining promotional tactics, and adjusting the program’s design should lead to better participation rates and improved conversion rates.
8. Fostering community and recognition: Celebrate your top referrers and create an enthusiastic community around your referral program. Engage customers on social media, talk about them in newsletters, and offer exclusive rewards. Give them a sense of ownership and belonging.

A well-executed marketing referral program can transform your customer base into a powerful marketing force. By focusing on engaging incentives, simple structure, consistent promotion, and result-driven optimization, businesses can benefit from increased customer engagement, enhanced brand loyalty, and potentially exponential growth. Remember, when your existing customers win, you win.

The post The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Referral Programs With Examples appeared first on NoGood™: Growth Marketing Agency.

CRO, as you’re aware, is the systematic process of increasing the percentage of website visitors who complete a site’s desired action—be it filling out a form, becoming customers, or any other action that is relevant to your marketing objectives. A finely tuned CRO strategy can make all the difference between a successful marketing campaign and one that falls flat.

Indeed, CRO is an intricate dance that involves detailed experimentation, data analysis, and the ideation of roadmaps to improve user engagement. Whether it’s an A/B test on a landing page, a multivariate test on email marketing campaigns, or a detailed heatmap analysis of user interactions, CRO requires both creativity and technical prowess. The question is—how can we utilize a powerful tool like ChatGPT to streamline this complex process, effectively drive traffic, and increase conversion rates?

Consider this: an assistant that can not only help you ideate experimental design but also assist in the interpretation of user data collected from these tests. What if it could even aid in identifying impactful activities within the CRO workflow and in the formulation of future-proof strategies? That’s exactly the potential of ChatGPT for conversion rate optimization. As a leading LLM, ChatGPT leverages its broad language understanding capabilities to become a robust, versatile tool for your digital marketing strategy.

We’ll delve into how you can employ ChatGPT to enhance your CRO efforts. From ideation to execution and analysis. Whether you’re just starting your AI journey or looking for new ways to push your current AI usage even further, this piece aims to provide actionable insights you can start using today.

As we progress, remember this: the future of digital marketing may lie in the marriage of human creativity and AI’s vast processing power. Understanding and harnessing the potential of ChatGPT (or other LLMs) for conversion rate optimization is not just an exciting adventure—it’s an essential step in modernizing your marketing strategies for the digital age. Let’s embark on this journey together.

Understanding CRO

It’s essential to begin with a firm understanding of CRO itself. While we’ve touched upon what CRO involves in the previous section, it’s worth examining this cornerstone of digital marketing strategy in greater detail, highlighting its unique role across varied industries.

At its core, CRO is a scientific approach to optimizing your website or landing pages to increase the likelihood of visitors completing a desired action. The exact nature of this action can vary greatly depending on your organization’s goals and the nature of your industry. For instance, in ecommerce, the action might be making a purchase, while in the B2B space, it could involve filling out a form for a software demo or signing up for a newsletter.

CRO is not a one-size-fits-all process. It necessitates a deep understanding of your target audience and their unique needs and behaviors. As you begin to unravel these patterns, your marketing strategy becomes more nuanced and effective. The success of your CRO efforts is measured through conversion rates – or move-forward rates, since the metric you may be working to improve is not directly tied to the final conversion, but in a separate key event within the journey toward conversion.

To truly excel in CRO, it’s not enough to simply understand your audience or craft compelling calls to action. CRO requires a rigorous commitment to testing, experimentation, and analysis. This might involve running A/B tests on landing pages, performing multivariate tests on email marketing campaigns, or analyzing user interaction data to understand how various elements of your site or campaign contribute to (or hinder) conversions.

This rigorous process, while rewarding, can be complex and time-consuming. And this is where a powerful tool like ChatGPT can step in, acting as a supportive assistant in the ideation of such experiments, interpreting the complex data generated, and even in the formulation of strategic plans based on the insights gained.

From ecommerce to healthcare, SaaS to Finance, CRO plays a pivotal role in guiding potential customers along the conversion funnel towards the desired action. By effectively integrating ChatGPT into this process, you can navigate this journey with greater confidence, efficiency, and success. Let’s explore how in the following sections.

ChatGPT for CRO – An Overview

The potential of ChatGPT for conversion rate optimization lies in its capabilities across three core facets of CRO: experimentation ideation, data interpretation, and strategy formulation.

• Experimentation Ideation: ChatGPT can simplify your testing roadmap by generating innovative ideas for A/B or multivariate testing. It can pinpoint potential improvements for your landing pages or campaigns, aiding the creation of effective test scenarios.

• Data Interpretation: Deciphering complex datasets can be daunting. ChatGPT helps streamline this process, swiftly analyzing data from tests to uncover vital insights and trends, guiding your next CRO moves.

• Strategy Formulation: Based on insights, ChatGPT aids in crafting strategies that align with your CRO goals. It identifies high-impact activities, taking into account industry specifics and customer behaviors, provided it’s trained effectively.

In a nutshell, ChatGPT’s language understanding and generation capabilities make it a dynamic tool for CRO. Let’s explore practical applications and scenarios.

ChatGPT in Action: From Data Collection to Experimentation

Here are some tangible ways ChatGPT can be employed to augment your CRO workflow, starting from the collection of data through to the design and execution of experiments.

Data Collection

ChatGPT’s potential in data collection emerges strongly when considered in the context of AI-powered chatbots (or similar mechanisms that accomplish the same). Chatbots have been extensively used in digital marketing for lead generation, but the emergence of potential AI based use cases adds a new dimension of personalization and efficiency. An API connection to OpenAI can equip a chatbot with enhanced conversational skills, allowing it to collect crucial data points in a more engaging, human-like manner.

Instead of the typical, somewhat mechanical process of asking for a user’s name, email, or phone number, an AI-powered chatbot can conduct these interactions in a more conversational and personalized manner, leading to higher engagement and sign-up rates. Not only does this enrich the data collected, but it also paves the way for a more customized user experience. Using the collected data, the chatbot can subsequently deliver personalized messages to the users within the same engagement, effectively guiding them through the conversion funnel.

Say, a company in the telemedicine space wants to improve conversions on their website – specifically, registrations for first-time consultation. Their primary user base comprises individuals seeking immediate medical advice from accredited professionals.

An AI-powered chatbot, backed by ChatGPT, can be employed right on the site. When a user visits, the chatbot greets them in a friendly manner, “Hello there! Looking for a quick medical consultation? We’re here to help!”

Based on the user’s response, the chatbot guides the conversation, making it interactive and personalized. It might ask about the user’s medical concerns, preferred consultation timings, and if they have used telemedicine services before.

For example:

1. Chatbot: “Could you tell me a little about the medical advice you’re seeking? It’ll help me guide you better.”
   
2. User: “I have been experiencing frequent headaches lately.”
   
3. Chatbot: “I’m sorry to hear that. Would you prefer to talk to a specialist soon, or schedule a consultation for later?”

As the conversation progresses, it can naturally ask for essential data like the user’s name and email in a non-intrusive, conversational way. With the information collected during the conversation, it can also recommend personalized next steps like “Based on what you told me, Dr. Smith, a renowned neurologist, is available tomorrow at 5 PM. Would you like me to schedule a consultation?”

This process not only gathers crucial user data for the company but also streamlines the user’s journey to registration, effectively serving as a personalized guide through the conversion funnel.

While this may require a more technical build and implementation, it can certainly be done.

In essence, AI-powered chatbots, with ChatGPT at the core, can serve as dynamic tools for collecting richer, more insightful data, while simultaneously enhancing user experience— a critical step in the conversion rate optimization process.

Experimentation Ideation

Now that you have an array of specific data points collected from users through something like an AI-powered chatbot (using the same example from above), these insights can significantly fuel the ideation process for CRO experimentation. The personalized user responses gathered aren’t confined to enhancing chatbot interactions alone but can inform wider business strategies.

Let’s consider a few examples. If you find that many users, like our telemedicine seeker from earlier, have frequently complained about headaches, this could spark an experiment to test whether including content related to headache relief on the home page (or any other key page based on site data) improves conversions. You could test multiple content variants like articles about headache causes, tips for immediate relief, or even testimonials from patients who received successful treatment.

The specific consultation times preferred by users is another valuable data point. You could design an experiment to test sending reminder emails at different times of the day, comparing morning versus evening send-outs, to see which yields a higher consultation booking rate.

Using the information about whether a user has used telemedicine before, you could segment your users and create personalized marketing campaigns for first-time users and repeat users. This could involve A/B testing different versions of the campaign to see which resonates better with each segment.

In essence, the specific data points gathered via an AI-based interaction can inspire a plethora of experiment ideas, each designed to enhance the conversion rate not just within the chatbot’s user journey but across the business’s digital presence.

Keep in mind that while this example focuses around a chatbot-based use case, the concept is by no means limited to it. You can apply this to other scenarios as well. For example, if you already have rich data on your users, you can follow the same thinking and use ChatGPT to help you ideate based on that data. However, the chatbot approach does a nice job at explaining the entire idea.

Experiment Execution

Once you have your experiment ideas, executing them effectively is crucial.

For the telemedicine platform, using ChatGPT, you could efficiently generate diverse variations of content related to headache relief for your landing page experiment. This could range from informative articles, quick tips, to empathetic patient testimonials. All of these content variations could be rapidly created and modified, enabling you to carry out A/B or multivariate tests in a streamlined manner.

When it comes to the experiment involving reminder emails, ChatGPT can aid in crafting compelling subject lines and email bodies tailored to your user’s preferred times. You can test whether a friendly morning reminder like, “Start your day headache-free, book your consultation now!” performs better than an evening-oriented message such as, “Headache keeping you up? Book a late-night consultation now!”

Similarly, for the personalized marketing campaign test, ChatGPT can generate multiple versions of campaign content tailored to both first-time and repeat users. It can help craft messages that appropriately address the concerns of first-time users, perhaps by highlighting the ease and efficiency of telemedicine, and different messages for repeat users, perhaps emphasizing new features or services.

In summary, ChatGPT can significantly augment the execution phase of your CRO experiments, providing the means to rapidly create, test, and iterate on content variations across different platforms and formats, all aimed at enhancing the user experience and boosting conversion rates.

ChatGPT and the Conversion Funnel

The conversion funnel typically comprises four stages: Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action (AIDA). Each stage has its unique characteristics and requirements, and an AI tool like ChatGPT can be leveraged effectively across all of them.

Attention: At the top of the funnel, the goal is to capture the attention of potential customers and make them aware of your product or service. ChatGPT can aid in crafting engaging social media updates, blog posts, or even compelling product descriptions, all designed to reach and resonate with your target audience, ultimately driving traffic to your website or landing page.

Interest: Once you’ve captured the attention of your potential customers, the next step is to pique their interest. ChatGPT can assist in tailoring personalized email marketing campaigns or customized landing page content based on the specific user data collected, effectively maintaining and deepening the interest of the potential customer.

Desire: In this stage, the aim is to convert the interest of potential customers into a desire for your product or service. Here, you could leverage ChatGPT to create compelling case studies, testimonials, or detailed product benefits, all aimed at fostering a stronger connection between the potential customer and your offering.

Action: Finally, the action stage is where the potential customer makes the decision to convert. ChatGPT can assist in crafting persuasive calls to action, guiding the customer to complete the desired action, whether that’s signing up for a service, purchasing a product, or booking a consultation.

Because this is mainly on the content creation side, understanding your audience, the stages of the conversion funnel, and the potentials of AI technology is key to maximizing the benefits of ChatGPT for conversion rate optimization.

Increasing Operational Efficiency with ChatGPT

While other large language models (LLMs) could be equally effective, the efficiencies that a tool like ChatGPT brings to your CRO processes are certainly worth exploring.

In a rapidly evolving digital marketing landscape, tools that streamline operations, reduce manual workload, and expedite decision-making are valuable. Here’s how ChatGPT or an equivalent AI tool can have a profound impact:

Content Generation: Consider an ecommerce company dealing with a massive inventory. Writing unique product descriptions for each item could take hundreds of employee hours. ChatGPT can automate the creation of these descriptions, freeing up the marketing team to strategize on larger initiatives. Similarly, a SaaS company could use ChatGPT to generate social media posts promoting their software features, thereby maintaining a consistent online presence.

Data Analysis: A healthcare company may collect patient feedback to improve services. Manually extracting key trends from such data could be daunting. ChatGPT can analyze and identify critical patterns, enabling the company to make informed decisions and adjust their marketing strategy for better CRO outcomes.

Experimentation Speed: A B2B company may want to test different calls to action on their landing page. With ChatGPT, they can quickly ideate, create, and execute A/B tests, gathering insights in real-time. The quicker they discern what resonates with their audience, the faster they can apply winning strategies.

Personalization at Scale: Suppose an online education platform aims to provide personalized experiences for their students. ChatGPT can leverage user data to create tailored marketing campaigns or landing pages, catering to specific student preferences. This personalization, done at scale, can drive traffic and boost conversion rates efficiently.

In essence, the adoption of ChatGPT or another LLM in your CRO workflow can lead to notable gains in operational efficiency. The time saved on activities like content generation, data analysis, and experimentation, coupled with the increased precision of your strategies, can culminate in a higher conversion rate. However, the key lies in integrating these capabilities strategically within your existing marketing framework, to ensure the tool works to your advantage.

Future-Proofing Your CRO Processes with ChatGPT

Looking to the future of digital marketing and conversion rate optimization (CRO), it is clear that AI, and specifically large language models like ChatGPT, will continue to evolve and play a key role in shaping new strategies. It’s not just about staying relevant in the present—it’s about being ready to tackle the future head-on. Here are some ways ChatGPT can help future-proof your CRO processes:

Predictive Personalization: With advancements in AI capabilities, we’re not far from predictive personalization where ChatGPT could generate real-time personalized content based on a user’s activity sequence on a site. Imagine a potential customer browsing a furniture e-commerce site. The AI chatbot, foreseeing their intent based on their browsing pattern, could immediately offer personalized product suggestions or discounts, drastically increasing the chance of conversion.

Integrated Voice Assistants: With more consumers embracing digital assistants, the scope of CRO extends beyond text. Integrating ChatGPT with voice-enabled assistants could pave the way for voice-activated conversions. For instance, a SaaS business could enable users to upgrade their subscriptions or access new features through a voice command, making the conversion process seamless and efficient.

Autonomous CRO Workflows: As AI matures, there’s potential for fully autonomous CRO workflows, where AI handles the entire CRO process, from data collection, analysis, experimentation ideation, to executing experiments and interpreting results. In a B2B scenario, an AI-driven workflow could identify potential conversion points and autonomously launch micro-tests to optimize each point, reducing manual effort and accelerating optimization.

Explainable AI: As AI continues to evolve, so does the demand for transparency in how AI makes decisions. Explainable AI (XAI) models are set to become more prevalent, providing insights into how AI algorithms reach conclusions. In the CRO context, this could mean better understanding the suggestions and insights provided by ChatGPT, fostering trust and ensuring alignment with brand values and strategy.

Beyond Omnichannel – Hyperconnected Experiences: The future will break down silos between different digital channels, creating hyper connected customer experiences. With ChatGPT, you could orchestrate interactions across social media, email, website, and other digital touchpoints, ensuring a consistent, personalized experience that amplifies your conversion rates.

With these future-oriented considerations in mind, leveraging ChatGPT (or other AI technologies) for conversion rate optimization becomes not just a current boon but a long-term strategy, positioning your organization at the forefront of digital marketing innovation.

Conclusion

In conclusion, in the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing, leveraging innovative technologies like ChatGPT for conversion rate optimization has become an essential strategy. By harnessing the power of this large language model, you can revolutionize your CRO processes, from using an AI-driven chatbot for personalized data collection and experimentation, to optimizing your conversion funnel and increasing operational efficiency.

This journey is not just about improving metrics—it’s about creating meaningful experiences that resonate with your target audience and cultivate lasting relationships. By deploying ChatGPT strategically, you can enhance these experiences, driving more conversions and shaping the future of your business’s digital presence.

The post Leveraging ChatGPT for Conversion Rate Optimization appeared first on NoGood™: Growth Marketing Agency.

Arguably one of the latest, most impactful terms in the industry is zero party data (ZPD) — a new tool with a lot of potential. But here’s the thing: everyone’s talking about it and collecting it, but not everyone is using the data in an impactful way. The challenge we all face today is the lack of attribution and rising costs. How can we address that head-on?

Everyone talks about ZPD under the lens of personalization. “With ZPD, you can personalize all of your email flows, your retargeting ads, and so much more!”

While this is true, and it’s not a bad idea, there’s a truth most don’t realize at the very beginning of this process: the resources needed. In order to truly personalize your communication engine based on collected ZPD, you’re going to need a lot of resources around content creation simply just because of the many permutations of types of users you’ll likely be able to create from the combinations of your ZPD.

Even if you keep this personalization “high level”, there is still a need to create more content and some teams simply don’t have the bandwidth to accomplish that in a reasonable amount of time. Throw in there the idea of AB testing + personalization, and you have yourself an immense list of tasks.

To clarify: I’m not saying personalization is a bad move. It’s a great move. It helps create more of a 1:1 relationship with your audience and likely increases the perceived value of the experience of interacting with your brand online. “Hey, they care about my interests. Nice!” I’m just saying it takes a lot of work and smaller teams may not be able to squeeze this orange to the fullest.

But you see, there is a way to squeeze this ZPD orange more efficiently by thinking beyond personalization functions.

The issue that still needs to be addressed is attribution and rising costs.

While there are many attribution solutions out there that will help you understand your paid media landscape much better than just looking at native dashboards, it won’t necessarily bring down rising costs. The best way to do that is to achieve true relevancy with the audience generating the impressions for your ads.

What if we were to put that ZPD to use, not from a personalization perspective, but from an acquisition one. Why not use ZPD to dictate what our ads, landing pages, lead magnets, etc should consist of? Surely it would make a lot of sense to tie this data back to acquisition efforts so that we can achieve a better sense of relevancy across our paid media audiences. It makes complete sense. This is what we’re going to talk about today. A specific way to tie ZPD back to individual campaigns and even ads in order to make your ads more relevant, more clickable, and more importantly, cost-effective.

Zero Party Data Collection Strategy is Broken Down into 3 Steps:

1. Collecting the right data
2. Analyze the data to uncover revenue-based patterns
3. Impact and drive optimization decisions across the buying journey

1. Collecting the Right Data

You’ve probably seen dozens of e-commerce websites do this. You land on their homepage, you get attacked by an instant pop-up shoving a discount offer in your face. Alright, let’s say you bite. You enter your email in order to get the discount. Then, you immediately get asked for your phone number. This is very much a company-first approach to presenting things to a user on a site. Instead, we should think of a customer-first approach.

Do you really want to give out your phone number to a company as soon as you encounter them online? Is that maybe a bit early in the relationship? Do I really want to be presented with a pop-up AS SOON as I land on a site? I won’t go into detail about the company-first journey vs customer-first journey, but you can read more about it from folks like Jon Ivanko over on LinkedIn. He’s spearheading this concept and has a lot to say about it!

Not only is asking for email and SMS, not enough anymore (consumers now expect more personalization in their experiences online than before), but it also doesn’t give you data that allows you to create a better experience for them, nor does it give you anything to feed back into your acquisition efforts.

Sure, you get an email and a phone number, so you can send them communications and you can upload them to FB for lookalike audiences. But, do you know what they care about? Do you know their interests? What pain points stop them from purchasing? This is far more valuable than a phone number if you think about it.

Also, what we’re really trying to collect is data that shows intent. While you could make the argument that the exchange of information for a discount code is showing intent (and we’d agree with that), you’re not tying any important data to that intent signal. This is where things get interesting.

Imagine a pop-up experience that is not annoying (strategic delays) and presents you with an offer that you’re interested in. It asks you for your email address and once you submit it you aren’t asked for your phone number.

Instead, you’re presented with a series of relevant questions about your interests and what is important to you when shopping. Once you answer these simple questions, you are thanked and you’re given what was promised. The answers to these questions will give you far more context than just an email and phone number. We’ll touch on each question specifically later in this piece.

Where would you like this popup? Well, it could be in several places. But the ones that make the most sense are the home page, the product page, the cart page, and on any landing page that you’re driving traffic to.

Homepage

Consider a delay of 10 seconds or something along those lines. The goal here is to not annoy a brand new user with an instant popup. Instead, we give them some time to explore the page and what the brand is all about. A full-screen takeover probably makes the most sense here, as it gives the messaging good exposure and makes it clear to the user that there is an offer available.

Product page

A longer delay here would make sense, as there likely is more detailed information on the product page for a user to consume. Give them the chance to do so before triggering a popup. 20-30 seconds might be good for this. Also, consider using a different format other than the full-screen takeover, as that will feel intrusive if done more than once. You could try a slide-out here which won’t feel like you’re forcing the user out of the experience.

Cart Page

This is meant for the users who have checked the cart page for specific reasons, like looking at all the items that are currently in the cart. This should trigger immediately on page load. Usually, this user may be ready to complete a purchase. You might be thinking, why would we show an offer to this user if he/she is ready to buy? Remember, good data is more valuable than any discount you give out. Also, this eliminates the negative feeling a user might have if they KNOW there is an offer available, but can’t get to it because they closed the earlier popup. Keep in mind we want to create a customer-first journey, not a company-first journey.

Landing Page

Getting the most value out of every click you pay for always makes more sense. So, if you’re sending paid traffic to a landing page, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be capturing ZPD. Consider embedding the offer into the landing page, potentially higher in the page, and then also having a slideout offer that triggers on a percentage of the page scrolling. This way, users who miss the embedded offer toward the top, will see the slideout if they make it to the bottom of the content on the page.

If you assume a 5% sign-up rate, and you get around 10,000 sessions per month and let’s say your experience contains 4 questions, then you’re looking at 500 subscribers per month with 4 powerful data points each. That’s enough to start giving you insights about how your brand should lead in terms of messaging and potentially even products.

It’s important that we take a minute to digest an important concept here. The offer experience always follows this format:

1. Offer + email submit form
2. Questions
3. Reward

It’s critical that we ask for the email upfront. Notice we’re not asking for a phone number. This is because that wouldn’t be a customer-first journey, and a phone number is something we will get anyways once they make a purchase, which is the entire point. Collecting data points early on just to collect them won’t have as much of an impact as collecting the right data and putting it to good use. But the main reason as to why we’re asking for an email upfront before the questions are because we want to tie these answers to purchase intent.

If anyone exchanges their information for, for example, a discount, then that shows a clear sign of purchase intent. Why else would you want a discount? And by asking the questions at that same moment, you’re essentially capturing ZPD at the moment of intent. This is important to understand because this is the main reason why you can trust this data when making acquisition optimization decisions. Purchase intent is the key here.

Now that we’ve thought that through, we can talk about the questions. What exactly are we asking users? This is where things get very interesting. Let’s go one by one and talk about the purpose for each.

Interests

What do you sell? Who do you sell it for? If you’re a jeans brand, “What styles are you interested in?”

People have different reasons for checking out and browsing an online store. By asking this question, we can learn about the user’s interest but more importantly, it narrows what kind of products the user is looking for. We can use this to present relevant content to them throughout their journey.

Benefits

How do people view your product offerings? Would you like to know what people care about the most when shopping online for your product category?

“What matters to you most when shopping for jeans?”

This is a way to ask about the user’s pain points of the problem they’re looking to solve. I’m sure you can see the value in knowing that. Once known, there are several ways in which you can apply this data. For example, you could show social proof that highlights the specific pain point/feature/benefit chosen by the user. As a PPC and email marketing agency we utilize this across email campaigns, retargeting ads, and much more.

Quantity Owned

What quantity would give you the most purchase intent indication? “How many pairs of jeans do you own?”

If someone buys a lot of something or participates a lot in an activity, then this can show us the potential for someone to convert.

If you’ve bought a lot of jeans before, you’re likely to buy more. Also means you’re a potential repeat customer.

Ready to Buy?

Do you know in what stage of the funnel each user is? “When are you looking to buy your next pair of jeans? Today? In a few weeks? In a few months?”

This simply tells us who’s “hot” and “cold”. Someone selecting Today is likely to be more valuable than someone selected In a Few Months.

Of course, you can have more questions that are relevant to your business, but these can be seen as foundational questions that can help you enrich user profiles that have specific purposes and can be used for a number of initiatives.

In terms of data storage, we mainly use Klaviyo. All of these answers pass over to Klaviyo and the result is enriched subscriber profiles with multiple data points for each.

2. Analyze the Data to Uncover Revenue-Based Patterns

Now we’ll talk about what to do once you have data collected. While this wasn’t mentioned before, it is critical that you are able to pass any UTM parameters into Klaviyo for each user that answers the questions. This way, for each profile you’ll have the answers from the questions and source/medium plus any other UTM parameters you are using (we strongly recommend campaign, ad set, and ad names – or IDs if you’re comfortable syncing them up with the actual names via a VLOOKUP). I repeat, this is critical for the analysis, so make sure this is possible when setting up the offer experience.

Ok, let’s continue. In Klaviyo, you export the subscriber data broken down by each question, historical lifetime value, source/medium, campaign, ad set, and ad (based on the UTM system you use).

Once on a spreadsheet, you can create a pivot chart to show each question and the responses visually quantified (we like bar charts), with the ranking metric being Revenue and Selections. So, basically, 2 bar charts per question, one showing revenue by the answer and the other one showing selections by the answer. You should have 8 bar charts if your offer experience contains 4 questions. This alone should already give you some insights into what is happening. And, remember, this data is coming directly from users who are buying your products, so it’s very valuable.

You can also concatenate (Excel formula used to combine elements from various cells into a single cell) all answers into a single cell, then create a pivot chart from that to show (for both Revenue and Selections) the best combination of answers possible. Because of the sheer amount of combinations, a lot of data may appear in this chart. Your attention should be focused on the top combinations of answers that are having the most impact on revenue. Visually speaking, this is very easy to point out.

You now know a lot. You know what users are selecting, and you know which selections are bringing the most revenue. Even better, you know which exact combinations of answers are bringing in the most revenue, which is basically creating a definition of the ideal customer for you – all based on data coming directly from customers.

But that’s not the best part. This is the best part: because of the UTM parameters, all of this data can be broken down by individual campaigns, ad sets, or even specific ads. This means you can clearly see where your most valuable subscribers are coming from down to the single ad, which in turn gives you very clear indications of what optimizations must occur. But this doesn’t just apply to ads, it also applies to landing page content, or website content, overall branding messaging, plus more.

This data has the power to essentially unlock an entire marketing strategy without having to make any guesses or assumptions on things like personas. It’s all based on hard data coming from the best possible segment: your customers.

3. Impact and Drive Optimization Decisions Across the Buying Journey

While I said the true value of this analysis is on the acquisition optimization front (and that has not changed), it is still worth it to point out some very clear initiatives you can work on on the personalization side of things. For example, in Klaviyo, you can create personalized email flows based on responses. But, instead of creating several unique flows based on the sheer number of permutations (which would be a ton of work, frankly… and most startup e-commerce businesses likely won’t have the capacity or resources to pull off that level of content creation efficiently), you can use two very useful features in the Klaviyo email builder.

Show/Hide Content Blocks Based on Dynamic Variables

This allows you to either show or hide a piece of content based on a data point belonging to the profile that is receiving the email. For example, let’s say a subscriber selected Slim Fit as the response to the Interest question (“What style are you interested in?”). This means Slim Fit, as a data point, is attached to this subscriber profile. So imagine we have a content block in the email for each possible response to this question. By using this feature, we can tell Kalviyo to only include the content that makes sense based on the response. This eliminates the need to have unique email flows based on the same response, for example. You can learn more about this here.

Variable Syntax & If-Else Blocks

This is similar to the concept of the one above, but it’s really intended to just be about copy. It’s quite simple. We can create copy blocks and make them conditional, where certain copy will only show based on variables attached to the profile receiving the email. So, for example, using the same example as above, if they selected Slim Fit, then the email would only show copy related to that selection. You can read more about how to set this up here.

You can use these features to quickly (relatively quickly) add personalization to your emails and achieve a higher perceived level of quality from your brand. While this still requires content creation and is by no means an easy thing to accomplish, it is still more doable than creating unique content for every single permutation which is the path some companies decide to take, only to later realize the amount of effort needed does not meet the level of impact. Personalization is always great, and it can have an impact on your customers’ experience, but it likely won’t change your entire business in terms of significant incremental revenue or crazy conversion rate spikes. This is why using ZPD for just personalization is a high effort, low-or-medium yield activity. But when you also use ZPD to impact your acquisition efforts, you’re definitely getting more juice out of your orange!

Going back to acquisition efforts, specifically paid efforts, here’s a list of things that can be optimized based on collected ZPD:

Individual Ads

Let’s say you complete the analysis laid out above and notice that an ad within a specific campaign is generating subscribers that, when broken down and analyzed, show that the best combination in terms of revenue is Slim Fit (interest) and Material Quality (benefit/pain point).

If we know this to be true, then it’s pretty clear what our next creative test should be inside that exact campaign, with that exact audience. We should try an ad showcasing a model wearing Slim Fit jeans with some type of callout about the quality of materials. Or, instead of just testing a new ad, how about testing several ones where the different element is the callout about the quality of the materials. Even though you know this is what they care about, there may be an opportunity to get a deeper layer of knowledge here. And because you have ZPD tied directly to this one ad, you know you will have a very relevant test for this audience.

Landing Page

Similar to the indication of what the creative in ads should focus on, we can apply the same logical thinking framework to landing pages. If we know that an ad that’s driving to a specific landing page is producing some top-ranking combinations in terms of revenue, then we test new versions of the landing page with the relevant content.

So, using the same example above, something to test might be adding a content block that is just about the quality of the materials to the page, or maybe adding some reviews or testimonials that directly speak to that. Maybe it’s making the FAQ section have more questions about the quality of materials.

Homepage

Let’s stick with the same example. The top chosen style is Slim Fit. It may be worth it to make your hero banner be about Slim Fit options. Or maybe showcase it more throughout the homepage.

Product Page

This is where the benefit/pain points question really shines. If you know your ideal or most valuable customer cares about the quality of the materials the most, then you know what information you need to go deep on in your product pages. This is why I love this approach. It tells you exactly what you need to focus on.

Of course, it may not be realistic for you to optimize all of these at once. As a matter of fact, you probably shouldn’t. You should read the data available to you properly and make decisions about where the gaps are and then optimize that.

For example, if you have a high CTR on your ad, a high view count of your offer, but a low sign-up rate, then that tells you that you need to optimize your actual offer or how the experience is set up or presented, or maybe the language in the copy being used. A different scenario: high CTR, low view count, high sign-up rate.

This likely means you need to optimize your landing page. The ad is doing its job because it’s getting people interested enough to click through, and the sign-up rate is high which means people are finding your offer desirable, but the view count of the offer is low, which means people aren’t traversing or consuming your landing page properly in order to even trigger the offer. Maybe test changing your headline, or the hero visual, etc.

The goal is to identify gaps and optimize them with the learnings from ZPD. And because the data is tied to individual campaigns, ad sets, and ads, you can increase the effectiveness of your optimization for each campaign, each ad, each landing page, etc.

It’s Not Bulletproof…

As much as I’d like to say this is groundbreaking, it’s simply not. Will it help you level up your analysis and thinking around ZPD? Absolutely. However, it does have its flaws.

The analysis does not happen in real time. It requires manual export, manual analysis in spreadsheets, and realistically cannot be done very often due to the amount of time it requires.

Using BI tools to essentially automate this process is certainly a better path to take.

A relatively new tool we’ve found that essentially does the above is Formtoro. You can also use platforms like OctaneAI to create the offer experience and easily pass the data over to Klaviyo. Something that could also be helpful in enriching subscribers’ profiles is post-purchase surveys, which can be effortlessly done with a platform like KnoCommerce.

Conclusion

Mostly every business that collects ZPD is using it for personalization. That’s great. There’s nothing negative about that. You should probably find a way to do the same. But you should also use ZPD to boost efficiency in your acquisition efforts, especially around paid media, which makes it valuable and worth collecting. With some basic analysis, you can find which campaigns, audiences, ads, landing pages, etc are generating the best subscribers, which very clearly tells you what your overall marketing strategy should be.

Stop relying on assumptions and put yourself and your business in a position where important decisions are made based on high-quality data. The results will speak for themselves.

The post Zero Party Data Strategy: Optimizing Your Acquisition Funnel appeared first on NoGood™: Growth Marketing Agency.

Some of these recent changes include:

• Changes in privacy laws (GDPR and/or CCPA for example) have made it harder to use third party data for marketing purposes.
• The decline of third party cookies and the push to phase them out had led to a shift towards first party data. This is also highlighting the value first party data always had.
• Consumers are increasingly concerned about data privacy, which has led to a greater demand for transparency and control over data collection and usage.
• Changes in digital advertising, like the rise of ad-blockers, have made it more difficult to target users with personalized ads. This forces marketers to rely more on first party data.

What is first-party data and why is it important?

Data that we directly obtain from our clients, leads, and users is referred to as first-party data. It can be gathered through a variety of means, including websites, apps, social media, surveys, and more. It can be online or offline data. The number of unique visitors to our website, users’ locations, audience demographics, purchase histories, and user interests are a few examples of first-party data. Due to the fact that it poses the fewest privacy risks, this data is the most valuable for businesses.

There are multiple ways marketers can employ in order to collect first party data. Some examples are:

• Website forms: marketers can use forms to gather data from visitors, including names, email addresses, and other contact information.

• Surveys: surveys can be used by marketers to get more specific details about the preferences, wants, and habits of their target audience. Online surveys, email surveys, and other methods of distribution are also available.

• Online and offline transactions: marketers can get information on past purchases, payments, and other factors from both online and offline transactions.

• Customer relationship management (CRM) systems: CRM systems can be used by marketers to store and analyze customer data, such as contact information, past purchases, and other pertinent factors.

• Email marketing: From email marketing campaigns, marketers can gather information about open rates, click-through rates, and other engagement metrics. For example, you could gain insights by learning that a specific product image is clicked on most in an email campaign.

• Mobile apps: marketers can gather information about usage trends, preferences, and other things.

• Customer service interactions: customer service engagements, including calls, emails, and live chats, can provide marketers with rich data. This might shed light on the demands and preferences of customers.

First-party data is becoming more prevalent, which may worry some less seasoned marketers, but is a good thing for those of us who recognize its value. We can better understand our audience and shape our strategies for maximum impact by concentrating on first-party data. Let’s embrace this change and utilize first-party data to its full potential!

You may have heard the term “zero-party data” floating around lately and you might be wondering what it is and how it differs from first-party data. First-party data, on one hand hand, is information that we obtain directly from our clients, prospects, and users. The information that our clients and prospects voluntarily share with us, on the other hand, such as their preferences, intentions, and behaviors, is known as zero-party data. First-party data is valuable because it poses few privacy risks, whereas zero-party data is valuable because it can give us insight into what customers want and need. In other words, first-party data refers to information we gather directly from customers, whereas zero-party data refers to information they share with us. Got it? Great!

Here are some tools you can start using to collect first-party data and level up your game!

HubSpot Forms

HubSpot Forms is a tool designed for marketers that offers a range of customizable templates and integrations with the HubSpot CRM. One of the major pros of using HubSpot Forms is its integration with other HubSpot tools, which allows users to seamlessly incorporate their lead capture forms into their broader marketing strategy. The tool also offers the ability to track and analyze form submissions, giving users valuable insights into the performance of their forms. However, there are also some potential cons to using HubSpot Forms, such as its limited design options and the potential for a steep learning curve for new users. Overall, HubSpot Forms is a useful tool for marketers looking to integrate their lead capture efforts with their broader marketing strategy.

Formstack

Formstack is a useful tool for marketers looking to create customizable lead capture forms. The tool offers a range of advanced customization options, allowing users to create forms that fit their brand and target audience. It also offers a wide range of integrations with third-party tools, such as email marketing platforms and CRM systems. However, it may not be suitable for users with large volumes of form submissions, as its pricing can be steep for high volume users. Additionally, it lacks built-in analytics features, which may be frustrating for users who want to track and analyze their form submissions.

ConvertKit

ConvertKit is a powerful tool for capturing and managing leads. It offers a range of user-friendly templates and design options, making it easy for users to create professional-looking lead capture forms without any coding or design knowledge. Another key feature of ConvertKit is its ability to automatically segment leads based on their responses and interests. This allows users to target specific groups of leads with relevant content, improving their chances of converting them into customers. However, there are some potential drawbacks to using ConvertKit, including its cost and limited integrations with other marketing tools.

Gravity Forms

Gravity Forms is a tool that allows marketers to create customizable lead capture forms and integrate them with email marketing platforms. The tool offers a range of options for customizing forms, including the ability to add conditional logic and integrate with popular email marketing tools. This enables marketers to create forms that are tailored to their audience and brand, and to easily add their leads to their email lists for targeted campaigns.

LeadSquared

LeadSquared is a tool that offers a range of features for capturing and managing leads. It allows users to create customizable forms and track lead activity, providing valuable insights into their audience. The tool also offers comprehensive lead management capabilities, such as the ability to segment and nurture leads based on their interests and behavior. Additionally, LeadSquared integrates with popular CRM tools, allowing users to easily manage and track their leads

If you are looking for something simpler and maybe just need to trigger pop ups to collect first party data, then these tools should help you get there!

OptinMonster

This tool allows users to create customizable pop-up forms and display them on their website or app. It offers a range of templates and design options, as well as the ability to trigger pop-ups based on specific user behaviors, such as when they are about to leave the site.

SumoMe

This tool offers a range of tools for capturing and converting leads, including customizable pop-up forms. It allows users to target specific groups of visitors with personalized offers and messages, and track their performance.

Icegram

This tool allows users to create and display a range of pop-up forms on their website or app, including exit-intent pop-ups, timed pop-ups, and scroll-triggered pop-ups. It offers a range of templates and design options, as well as the ability to A/B test different forms to optimize their performance.

Privy

This tool offers a range of tools for capturing and converting leads, including customizable pop-up forms. It allows users to segment their leads and target them with personalized offers and messages, and track their performance.

ConvertFlow

This tool allows users to create and display customizable pop-up forms on their website or app. It offers a range of templates and design options, as well as the ability to trigger pop-ups based on specific user behaviors, such as when they visit a specific page or spend a certain amount of time on the site.

Conclusion

In conclusion, first-party data is becoming increasingly important as marketers look for ways to collect data without violating privacy laws. By focusing on first-party data, marketers can gain valuable insights into their audience and shape their strategies for maximum impact. There are a range of tools available to help marketers collect first-party data, including HubSpot Forms, Formstack, ConvertKit, and Gravity Forms. While each of these tools offers unique features and capabilities, they all allow users to create customizable lead capture forms and integrate them with other marketing tools. By using these tools, marketers can collect valuable first-party data and improve their overall marketing strategy.

The post 10 Tools For First-Party Data Collection Every Marketer Needs appeared first on NoGood™: Growth Marketing Agency.

This is why the concept of “warming up traffic” is so important. Essentially, this approach filters out the traffic with no purchase intent and only lets those who have a potential interest in your product enter your website. Of course, this is not a rule set in stone (plenty of businesses do great by just driving directly to their website), but it is a hard thing to achieve.

eCommerce funnels facilitate this. They act as bridges from the traffic source to the website that ideally filter out traffic with no purchase intent. They are very common and they are used widely. Some are better than others, but they all serve the same purpose: warm up the traffic for conversion.

Below, we’ll explore some funnels that you may not be using today, but that could make a significant impact on your conversion rate. Let’s get started!

Advertorial Funnel

The advertorial funnel has been used for a long, long time. It’s certainly nothing new, but it’s something modern marketers may have missed considering the “easy” advertising approach tech companies like Facebook and Google provided in the past decade or so. That luxury, as we’re sure everyone knows now, is no longer something to rely on.

With the changes and irregularities in performance caused by iOS14 and on, marketers need to find solutions outside of just driving traffic to home pages or product pages. This is no longer converting the way it used to, but a business can’t just stop marketing — especially if you’re in growth mode.

Enter the advertorial funnel. You’ve probably seen this before. Have you ever clicked on an ad or a link that was about an interesting topic? Then, after clicking, you’re redirected to a page that basically looks like a news article, or just content (doesn’t have to be in the style of a news article necessarily)? If you paid close attention, you may have noticed the page links to a product or products. This is usually the case. The page is being used as a bridge between the ad and the product page. The ad grabs the attention of the user by promising interesting content. The advertorial delivers on such promise by providing interesting content and, within it, promotes some type of product or offer, which, of course, is clickable.

This works great with Facebook Ads traffic, which has suffered a big hit on performance due to its impacted targeting features. This is a good point to make, as the majority of growing eCommerce businesses are currently using Facebook for, likely, the majority of their paid traffic. If this applies to your business, give the advertorial funnel a try. You may be surprised by the results.

Keep in mind, in order to have a successful advertorial funnel, you’ll need a few things:

• First and foremost, you need a quality copywriter. We cannot emphasize this enough. The copy is ultimately what makes or breaks the advertorial. It’s the most important element and you should not cut any corners here. They can be expensive pieces of content to put out, but it has the potential to open up an entire new stream of traffic you weren’t exposed to before.
• Second, you need to design the actual page. This does not need to be a fancy design. As a matter of fact, we’ve seen extremely simple article pages perform fine. As long as you have a landing page builder and someone who feels comfortable with the software, you’ll be fine.
• Finally, and this is the obvious part, you need a traffic source. However, because this piece of content is built to entertain first and promote second, it can work well with any type of traffic source: organic, social, etc.

Lead Gen Funnel

You may have heard the term “first-party data” a lot in the past year. While first-party data has always been key, it has certainly become a buzzword in the marketing world. The lead gen funnel, like the advertorial funnel, is not new. However, it shines now more than ever with the very real need to capture first-party data.

You want to get the most value out of every visit to your eCommerce website . This funnels helps you get closer to achieving that goal. Let’s break it down so you see how simple, yet powerful it can be.

This funnel consists of a landing page with a form and some type of offer, which, upon completion, redirects the user to the final destination: (usually) the eCommerce website. The landing page acts as a door. And the only way to gain admission is to complete the form, which usually asks for an email address or a phone number. That’s it. It’s that simple.

But… Why does this deserve its own highlight? Mainly because of what it means to now hold that email address or phone number… or data… or first-party data!

Let’s use an example. The landing page says “Get Early Access & Unlock 40% Off NOW”. Below that is a two-step form asking for an email & phone. The user fills it out, gets the 40% off discount and is sent to the website. Great, but now what? Well, you have 2 data points on this user. You can put them on an automated email flow, you can send them SMS broadcasts, or you can put them on retargeting audiences. You’ve now created at least 3 more opportunities to communicate with this user that you wouldn’t have had if you didn’t generate any first-party data. There are many things you can do beyond that point, but the main takeaway is that you’re maximizing how much juice you’re getting out of every visit you get, which likely has a cost associated with it.

Let’s say you’re spending $2 for every visit you generate via ads. If you’re not collecting any data, all you’re getting for your $2 is a visit. But with the lead gen funnel, you’re now getting an email address and a phone number for some of those visits, which allow you to remarket them in the future, thus stretching your dollar longer.

Quiz Funnel

Quiz funnels became extremely popular in Facebook Ads in the past few years. Want to know why? Because they work.

This is a take on the lead gen funnel with a fun twist. It gamifies the concept by asking the user to take a quiz, answer a few questions, and to enter his/her email (or other data point) in order to get access to the quiz result.

You may have seen those “What 19th century artist are you?” type of links in Facebook. These are quiz funnels. Their ultimate goal is to warm up a lead, collect data, and generate the conversion.

The answers each user selects are also data points that get collected and can help you in multiple ways. The first obvious one is that it helps you pick the most appropriate quiz result, which can increase your overall conversion rate. Another way it can help is by simply creating segments of users based on responses. You can then analyze which quiz result (which is based on answer combinations) produces the highest value user or lead.

If you want to see examples of types of quiz funnels, you can see 7 proposed ones here by Sleeknote.

Zero-Party Data Funnel

Here’s another buzzword in the current marketing world: zero-party data!

What is it? Zero-party data is data that your customers intentionally share with you. This can include purchase intentions, personal context, communication preferences, and how the individual wants the brand to recognize them. It goes beyond just a phone number or an email address.

How is this a funnel you can use for eCommerce? One way to try this is by using an offer pop up.

Consider the following scenario. An user is presented with a pop-up on your site. It offers a free $5 gift card. It has a form asking for an email address. However, once they enter their email and click submit, instead of just giving away the gift card, a multi-step display proceeds, each screen with a unique question that gives you an insight on the type of customer the user can be. For example, if you’re a clothing store, you could ask: “What are you interested in most? Shirts, Pants, Hats.” Or maybe “When are you looking to buy? Today, tomorrow, in a week, in a month.” Once the user completes all the questions, they then get redirected to the checkout page with the free gift card already in it. They must complete checkout as if they were buying any regular product (keep in mind they’re not spending any money).

Let’s analyze what we’ve done here. For a $5 offer, we’ve been able to collect:

• An email address (at the beginning)
• Multiple answers to key questions
• A phone number (at checkout)
• First and last name (at checkout)
• Physical address (at checkout)

That’s a lot of data you wouldn’t have with a regular lead capture. You can now set up various retargeting campaigns on paid channels, you can put them in email campaigns or SMS, you can even set up direct mail campaigns.

But the best part is the question-answers data you’ve collected. You can aggregate this data and from it pull the most optimal “profile” of user. So you can basically learn which combinations of answers produce the best results, and now you can tailor your marketing campaigns and overall messaging around those learnings.

Using zero party data properly to create better relationships in your marketing efforts has immense potential. We encourage you to play with this idea or even give it your own twist. But definitely go out there and collect that data!

eCommerce funnels are something every eCommerce business should experiment with. And when you start to think in terms of CRO, that’s when things can really take off.

Keep in mind that the funnels mentioned above are not the only ones. There are many. And unique combinations can be created that fit the needs of your business. The sky’s the limit! To get even more insights on eCommerce funnels and email marketing, contact us!

Using eCommerce funnels allows you to significantly increase the number of opportunities for experimentation and testing. Even if you don’t see a big impact in terms of conversion rates, there are always learnings to be collected and applied. For example, you may not increase conversion rate, but you may learn that the funnel with a different type of messaging results in more clicks through to the site. That may tell you something about the copywriting.

It is never a bad idea to create a machine that constantly pumps out business-related learnings. So go out there, create some funnels, and test them out!

The post Effective eCommerce Funnels: Use Them for Your Brand in 2024 appeared first on NoGood™: Growth Marketing Agency.