How Quality Traffic Improves Conversions

Quality traffic means more conversions, more sales, and a better digital marketing strategy overall.

Here, you’ll find:

• Tips for shifting to a “quality over quantity” mindset
• What metrics to look at to determine quality
• How attracting quality traffic can improve sales
• Why knowing lifetime value is key

Many people think that website traffic is a good indicator of a digital marketing program’s success. 

It makes sense. More traffic should equal more sales, right? But that’s not necessarily the case.

Think of it this way: Someone puts out a sign that says “80% off sale!” with an arrow pointing towards a store around a corner that can’t be seen. The sign doesn’t tell people the kind of store or products connected to the sale.

Sure, the store may get a lot of people driving their way and even going inside to browse, but if they’re not the right market for those products, that traffic likely won’t result in the sales numbers the store wants.

Once you shift your mindset to focus on quality traffic, you may want to shift your marketing strategy to match it. (Image via Unsplash)

When it comes to traffic, it’s not simply about how much you drive — but about how much of the right kind you drive. Wondering how to do it right? Read on.

Shift your mindset — and (potentially) your strategy

Digital marketing is a numbers game. Naturally, you want your traffic numbers to grow. But while traffic itself matters, it shouldn’t be your main focus.

Once you shift your mindset to focus on quality traffic, you may want to shift your marketing strategy to match it. That means getting serious about other elements like your:

• lead scoring
• analytics
• UTM tracking
• target audience
• buyer’s journey
• landing pages and ad copy
• content marketing

All of these avenues make up a well-rounded, well-thought-out digital marketing strategy that’s poised to stand up to the test of time.

Focus on driving qualified traffic

Once you’ve decided to focus on quality over quantity, it’s time to work on implementing this strategy. 

You can start by looking at your current campaigns. As MarTech Today notes, in-depth details about your funnels help you identify the campaigns that are truly worth spending your marketing budget on.

Look at which paid search campaigns drove the most traffic. Next, look at the ones with the highest conversion rates. 

You can do the same thing for your social channels and email campaigns as long as you’ve got tracking in place for these as well. (And you should!)

Connecting your campaigns to a CRM tool helps paint a clearer picture of what’s driving the most revenue. (Image via Unsplash)

Make sure you’re capturing data thoroughly

Speaking of tracking, organizing all of your ad campaign data in a customer relationship management (CRM) tool is one of the most beneficial steps you can take to determine which avenues are bringing you the best quality traffic.

Ideally, this data will include things like:

• which campaign drove each lead
• which keyword drove each lead
• the lead’s location
• the leads device data

The larger point of connecting your campaigns to a CRM is to paint a clearer picture of what’s driving these conversions and, ultimately, the most revenue.

All this traffic talk got you feeling overwhelmed? We can help with that.

Analyze the numbers and iterate accordingly

Once you’ve got the data at your fingertips, it would be a crime not to leverage it to your benefit. After you’ve identified the campaigns driving the most conversions, dig into what it is about them that likely made them so successful.

Maybe it was the clean landing page, the targeted ad copy, the client testimonial, or the eye-grabbing CTA. These are the elements you want in your campaigns moving forward.

From there, you can perform consistent A/B tests to see which strategies and components yielded the best results. That way, you can keep improving performance.

Focus on lifetime value (LTV)

Quality traffic doesn’t just mean more leads. It’s about the customer lifetime value (also called CLV or LTV) of the lead. 

LTV isn’t just about one sale, it’s about the overall impact that one sale can have on your business throughout the entire customer relationship.

LTV encompasses whether or not they’re likely to be a returning customer, refer others to your business, and purchase add-ons or additional products or services in the future. 

Another important reason to focus on LTV is that it prioritizes customer longevity and long-term value over simply closing a deal (which could end with the client returning the purchase or not being a good fit and leaving).

As we’ve mentioned before, lead scoring is a crucial element of campaign tracking because it helps you understand the value of each lead along the sales cycle. LTV can give you a more accurate look at your true cost per lead as well.

Get rid of what’s not working

Now that you know what is working, you can move forward and scrap what isn’t. Allocate more of your marketing budget to those campaigns bringing in the highest LTV and conversion, and let go of what’s underperforming.

For example, maybe it’s a specific keyword or ad group that’s worth more of your budget. Or perhaps you’re seeing more LTV coming from mobile PPC leads than through desktop.

All of this info will help you hone your strategies and campaigns to create ones that target exactly who you’re speaking to at exactly the right time.

Focus on quality visitors so you can spend your time (and budget) more on what matters. (Image via Unsplash)

The takeaway

All the proper puzzle pieces have to fit together to drive quality traffic.

Those pieces include capturing your audience’s attention, properly retargeting to get them to return and drive conversions, connecting all the data points together, getting visibility into what drives your highest quality leads, and leveraging this info to inform all of your digital marketing channels and budget allocation.

Don’t waste your time merely driving any ol’ traffic to your site. By focusing on quality visitors and growing conversions, you can spend your time (and budget) more on what matters.

ConversionIQ is HawkSEM’s unique solution to this common issue: it’s our smart way of marketing to drive more conversions and revenue. Want to learn more about how it can drive quality traffic your way? Let’s talk.

This post has been updated and was originally published in December 2019.