Top Source of Traffic & Conversion

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 23 May 2011 14:25:00 GMT

: Email Dominates in Traffic & Conversion :

SeeWhy studied a sampling of 60,000 ecommerce transactions in February 2011 and found that not only is it the primary driver of traffic for Internet retailers, but does pretty well as a driver of conversions too.

Online marketers in all verticals go around and around as to the best source of converting traffic. While the SeeWhy study applies only to merchants (and furthermore only to those user sessions where an item was added into a shopping cart), it does clearly show how important email marketing is to the revenues of merchants - despite its often maligned reputation.

Email was responsible for 56.8 percent of traffic arriving at the shopping cart and 67 percent of the conversions. Compare that to the next largest segment in direct traffic (type-in, bookmark) which accounted for 17.9 percent of traffic and 23.68 percent of the conversions. Search marketing, referrals (presumably affiliates), social media, and display advertising rounded out the list and were collectively responsible for approximately 25% of the traffic and less than ten percent of the conversions. Not a good sign, particuarly with the influx in social media investment.

So Website Magazine reader, which source of your traffic has the best conversion rate? Share with others by commenting below.

Explaining Unexpected Traffic Surges

Administrator — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:11:00 GMT

The Yahoo! Search Marketing blog has a thoughtful post for search marketers on three questions to ask when unexpected traffic surges occur.

1) Have you changed anything in your account recently?
Adding keywords and changing bids can affect traffic, but so can modifying titles and description - especially in a quality score world. Sit back, take a deep breath, and think hard about what's changed within your account.

2) Are you noticing abnormal click activity, or just traffic that’s not converting?
There's a big difference between abnormal click activity and traffic that simply does not convert. Understanding the difference at the outset is crucual. If your ads are appearing on sites that do not mesh your business objectives, be proactive and consider implimenting the myriad of tools available including turning off the content network, blocking domains and geo-targeting.

3) Have you set a daily spending limit?
Setting a daily spending limit will help search advertisers control the amount they spend. If your average spend is one thing and you set the spending cap at a higher amount (what you can spend as opposed to what you are willing to spend) then you can drive traffic without breaking the bank.

'Net Features : web traffic

Top Source of Traffic & Conversion

Explaining Unexpected Traffic Surges