What Sort of Metrics Should You Be Expecting In Your Online Marketing Funnels...

In this article, I want to talk to you about what sort of metrics you should be expecting in your online marketing funnels.

I know how frustrating it can be to put something together, to put many, many days and hours of work into something and then to launch it and then not know what's working, because we don't know what we should be expecting. I'm going to take you through a simple value ladder and to tell you what sort of metrics you should be looking at on each stage.

Opt-In

So the first part of your value ladder is obviously your opt-in. This is where people are opting in to get something of value from you that's free or very cheap. For now, let's talk about the free. So you're offering them a free PDF, or a free training or, in one of my businesses it's a free fiction book that I created. What sort of opt-in rates should we be getting?

Well, we should be getting at least 20%. 20% to 40% is really good. 40% is good and anything over 40% is great. So if you're getting less than 20%, then you need to look at two things.

Either your offer is not enticing enough to get them to give over their email, or your opt-in page isn't good enough. It's not letting them know what you're giving and it's not making them sign up.

For instance, I'm working with a client at the moment who was offering something for free, and our first two opt-in forms, both were not good, but heaps of people are coming to them from Facebook ads so I could see that through my tracking. But one of them was a really long form, and then a short form. And I thought the long form would outperform the short form. But the long form was only actually converting at about 6%, which is pretty sad.

Whereas the short form was converting at about 12%. It's still not great, but we know now that the short form that we were offering was doing better than the long one so we can scrap the long form and now we can make a different type of short form and start split testing them against each other.

Split-Testing Opt-Ins

So when you're split testing your opt-ins, make sure you initially test two totally different things against each other and see which is working better. And then you can zone in on that one type and then start making changes to that.

Remember with your split testing that you should just change one thing. Because you need to know what is working. So you might do two identically looking forms against each other, and then you might have a different color and headline. And then, you won't know why one is performing better. Was it the color that was more attractive or was it the headline that was better?

Make sure you're only changing one thing at a time and give a time for plenty of people to go through it to make sure that you know what is working and what isn't.

Don't just give it a day or two, okay? You need to have a solid number of people going through so that you can actually have a look at the metrics properly.

Okay, so we want 20 to 40%. Now, obviously the higher the perceived value, but also a warmer market, a market that already knows you, already likes you, already trusts you, you're going to convert higher, as well. So for instance, I give away the first book in one of my series, and I also give away the second book in that series.

My first book still converts really well, at around 50%. But the second one converts higher, closer to 90%. You can see that because they've read my first book, they know they like it, they know they want it, and then they go and get the second book. And so people who are coming into the second book are people who've bought the first book and also people who've got that book for free, so they're then getting the second one.

So that's why you need to put yourself out there as an expert in blogs, Linked In, on YouTube, on social media.

The machine that Steph and I teach in Boomers, our online marketing mentorship, that whole system there is not only about bringing people into your funnel, but also increasing your conversions within the funnel because if people see you everywhere, people see what you're doing, if you're doing it properly then you're going to get better conversions, opt-ins, and more sales coming through.

The First Thing You Are Selling

The next one that you need to pay attention to is the first thing that you're selling. Believe it or not, you're only really expecting a 1% to 5% on this first sales page. If people are opting in and then they're coming to your order form and you're not getting a 1% to 5% on that sales page, then you need to look at your order form. And once again, at what you are selling. Is it congruent with the opt-in?

You might have an opt-in on one thing and then it doesn't quite work with what the next thing is. Therefore, you need to be looking at a group of people coming in who have a need, and you need to be walking them along the pathway of that need and offering them things in the progression of what they need.

You don't want to offer them something for free and then try and sell the same thing to them.

That's not going to work because, one, they're going to be pretty pissed off if you try and sell it to them when they just got it for free. Or two, they're going to think, "Well, why do I want that when I've already got it?" So you need to think about what they might want and then what they want next.

If you're not converting 1% to 5%, then it might be because of what you're selling. Maybe you need to change the opt-in to make the next thing more desirable. Maybe your order form isn't working. There's something offensive on the order form. Maybe you need to add a video to the order form, or you need to take the video out. Maybe you need a longer order form, or you need a shorter order form.

So, obviously, the higher the expense of your item, maybe the longer order form you need to try and convince people to buy from you. So these are all things that you need to split test. But once you get to that 1 to 5% rate, you know that you're doing it right and then you can just keep tweaking and try to make it better.

Order Bump

Now, after that, you really want an order bump on your sales page. An order bump is the one that you see when you go into a page and then there's a little box, it says, "Yes, I also want the free cheat sheet." I'd like the free cheat sheet. It's just the tick, but the thing is, if someone's already committed to buying, then they're more likely to buy the next thing.

And that thing, once again, has to be congruent and it has to be different to what you are selling.

For instance, when I have people coming through my funnel and they get the book and then straight away, I throw them into an offer for a box set. And so they buy the box set of the Cozy Mysteries series, but then there's an order bump on that page offering them my entire fantasy trilogy for free. And they may or may not like fantasy, but they've just bought Cozy Mysteries series, they're more likely to buy that bump, and they do.

Most people who come through and buy the first box set actually go ahead and buy the bump. So 20% to 40% of the people coming through from that 1% to 5%, will go ahead and buy that bump.

It's kind of money for nothing, right? They're on the order form anyway, so you really want to make sure that you have an order bump to sell them.

Now after that, you're probably going to take them to the one thing that you actually wanted to sell them anyway, something that's higher in value.

Something that's at least a few hundred dollars. Now, 3% to 10% of the people coming through the funnel are going to buy this.

And once again, if they're not, it's because maybe what you have isn't congruent. They're not wanting it enough. Maybe if that is the one thing that you're selling, you need to look downstream again at your value ladder, at these other two things, and make sure that they're all pointing like big arrows towards this.

You may need videos along the way to get them to know they can trust you and to add that value.

Now, so let's have a look at some figures.

So just say we had four thousand people coming into your funnel. If we had a 20% conversion, or 25% conversion, that's going to be one thousand people opting in. Now, of that one thousand people who are coming in, you want at least 10 to 50 people to be buying that first little trip wire, the first small object that you've got. And then of them, 10% to 20% will buy the bump. SO that's only 10 to 20 people who will buy the bump. From there, only 0.3 to 5 people, so obviously one to five people will buy your one time offer.

Now, that's a bit depressing when you're thinking about how you've put four thousand people in, and then you're looking at a maximum of five people actually buying your offer.

But, knowing these metrics will allow you to look at your advertising and to plan that. Because now you will be able to work out what you can afford to spend on bringing a lead into your funnel.

You also really need as many organic people coming in freely into your funnel.

You want as many people coming in as possible, that you're not having to pay to come in.

Make sure you're ads are congruent and that you're targeting the right audiences. All these things to keep your costs down, to bring people in, so you're actually making money through the funnels.

Email Follow-Up

You also want to make sure that you've got good email follow-up because a lot of people don't actually make money in their funnel. They don't even breakeven. They make a loss on their initial funnel, through that value ladder.

People need to be shown something quite a few times before they will buy it. You also need to be putting scarcity into it, and creating a real fear of missing out as well, to try and increase their desire to buy.

That all needs to be happening in the funnel. But then, you take them into an email series. You need a NES, which is a nurture, excite and sell series, where you try to sell off the back end.

Coaching

You probably want something even bigger, so you might be offering more coaching, more one-on-one, things like that at the back end. With these people who are actually then coming through as customers, you want to be feeding them into separate email campaigns and email funnels to people who didn't buy.

You also need to be really working with them, because they're your ideal customers. Have a look at who they are and go searching for more of them.

Remember to split test, one thing at a time, but these are your metrics to work towards:

20% to 40% coming in the opt-in

1% to 5% will buy

20% to 40% of those 1-5% will take the roder bump.

3% to 10% of those will purchase the upsell

I hope those metrics have helped.

If you'd like to have a chat about your business and how you can improve your marketing I'd love to jump on a Strategy Call with you. Use this link to choose a time to chat on my calendar - https://go.oncehub.com/DonnaJoy