When it comes to digital marketing, is there anything worse than something not working and not knowing what it is?
I know it’s been a huge frustration I’ve felt more than I’d like to admit.
It’s so hard to figure out those things that you don’t even know about that are causing your online sales funnel to fail.
So how do you know if your funnel is working or not?
There are some basic benchmarks that have been found to be common across the whole spectrum when it comes to measuring the success of your online sales funnel:
- 20% of traffic opts in to your squeeze page or lead magnet
- 1-5% of those people buy your initial offer
- 20-40% grab your order bump
- 3-10% grab your OTO upsell offer
How do I know if my funnel is working?
You’ve probably heard the quote somewhere that “what gets measured gets improved.”
At least that’s the theory.
In reality, when you measure something you have the opportunity to improve it because you know one crucial truth:
You have a clear picture of what’s happening.
This is not one of those areas where you want to be caught not knowing what you don’t know.
“You need to know your numbers” is what my sales managers from years past used to beat into my head.
Knowing your numbers is vital because you know what’s working, what’s not and where you can look to make improvements.
But how do you know what standards you should be shooting for?
Are there any industry specific benchmarks that you should be shooting for?
Numbers will vary by industry but the good people at ClickFunnels, having built, launched and surveyed thousands of funnels have provided us with some actionable information, and more importantly, what to do with it, to be able to tell if your online sales funnel is working or not.
What kind of conversion rate should I look for on my opt-in page?
Your opt-in page is the place where your dream customers first get the chance to see if you know what you’re talking about.
Will Rogers pointed out that “you never get a second chance to make a first impression” and it’s true.
So right out the gate, once someone lands on your opt-in page you need to blow them away with your messaging and your ability to communicate that you know how to solve their problem.
The number you’re looking for here is to convert the visitors to your sales page at roughly 20%.
It can be higher – even a lot higher – but if it’s lower, then there may be a problem but we’ll talk about that in a minute.
In the basic kind of sales funnel that most people get started with, the next step for someone coming into your world will be a tripwire offer where the person who just opted into your lead magnet will have their first chance to buy something from you.
What kind of conversion rate should I look for on my sales page?
After your new visitor has entered your world by grabbing your lead magnet it’s time to take them by the hand and introduce them to the next thing they’re going to need to get the desired result they’re looking for faster and easier.
Your sales page, just like your opt-in squeeze page is done right – you’ve done your homework with your copy and page design and you’ve got an irresistible offer set up for them so it’s a no-brainer for them to pull out their credit card and grab this exclusive offer.
This is a simple product designed to make the lead the thing they learn about in the lead magnet faster and easier.
So out of that 20% of your visitors that you’ve won onto your list with your lead magnet, you’re looking to see a conversion rate somewhere between 1-5%.
Remember – that 1-5% of people is solely composed of the 20% who opted in on the previous step, not your gross traffic number.
What kind of conversion rate should I look for on my order bump?
Russell Brunson talks about an order bump being the digital equivalent of the chewing gum or other low-ticket items you see when you’re checking out at the grocery store.
Grocery stores and all kinds of other retail establishments will virtually always have a variety of things you can buy as you’re getting ready to check out to increase your total sale value.
An order bump in your online sales funnel serves the same purpose.
This is a low-ticket item that complements the main offer. Things you’ll see in order bumps are detailed checklists, guides, recordings – all kinds of stuff that makes getting to the end result faster and easier.
The conversion rate you’re looking for here is a good bit higher than the sales page as a whole.
Conversion rates you should see here are anywhere between 20-40+%
What kind of conversion rate should I look for on my OTO Upsell offer?
An OTO Upsell offer is a special “One Time Offer” that’s only available to the customers who landed on this page after making a purchase on the previous page.
Your OTO upsell offer is something that accentuates and makes the initial offer even better, faster and easier.
A lot of times the kinds of things you’ll see in these OTO upsells are things like a group coaching opportunity with limited seats, or a complementary product that is one of the next things a customer will need as they work to solve the problem.
The sales you’ll see from here are much rarer, but these sales are incredibly valuable because of the quality of customers they bring into your world.
The sales you’ll see here will be around 3-10%.
So what does this look like in practical terms?
Online Sales Funnel traffic example
Let’s say you’ve got a funnel that brings in 10,000 visitors.
If your funnel is performing the way it should, you should see somewhere around 20% of the visitors to that page opt in to your lead magnet.
That gives us a total of 2000 people.
Of those 200 people who opt in, you should see somewhere between 1-5% of those people buy your initial offer.
In this case, let’s shoot right for the low side, and say we convert 2% of those people to buying customers.
So of those 2000 people who saw your sales page you now have 40 sales.
Of those 40 people who bought on your sales page, let’s say 30% buy your order bump.
That means that you should be seeing 12 people who buy your order bump.
From there, according to the benchmarks we’re talking about, you’ll see 3-10% of your customers who bought your offer will buy your OTO upsell offer.
So in this scenario, you should be looking to see maybe 2-3 people if you convert at a 7% rate.
Makes sense, right?
Here’s a real world example
My very first funnel was a super simple funnel that only consisted of a lead magnet, a sales page and an order bump.
I didn’t even have an OTO upsell offer.
But here’s what I saw over the course of two months so you can get an idea.
My opt-in page saw a total of 1075 visitors.
The goal for my opt-in was around 20% but my landing page actually converted much better at 34.5%!
Those who opted in went to my sales page and I was looking to convert somewhere between 1-5%. My sales page converted at 1.9%.
And of those who saw my sales page, my order bump converted at a whopping 71%!
This information gave me actionable data that I could use to figure out where my problems where, and that’s what we’re going to talk about next.
What do you do if your sales funnels numbers are off?
Here’s something I learned from Russell Brunson a while back: it’s always the hook, the story, or the offer.
When you’re looking at your sales funnels and one aspect isn’t around the benchmarks we’ve talked about here, it’s time to take a look and see what you can do to improve.
So if your opt-in page isn’t converting, it’s the hook that you’re using to get visitors to the page – maybe it’s not aligned with your messaging or your targeting is off.
If your sales page isn’t converting then it could very easily be the messaging on the page. In that real-world example I used above, that’s where I went to work because I was at the low end of the target range there.
But it could also be that the offer itself just isn’t as appealing as it should be.
If your order bump isn’t converting right, then it could be that that item just doesn’t work with the main offer.
Same thing goes for the OTO – if it’s not converting, then you need to figure out whether its’ the hook that grabs their attention, the story you’re telling that’s used to sell it, or the thing itself.
Because it’s always the hook, the story, or the offer.
Can I recover that lost traffic?
Picture this:
If you’re converting even at the top of the range on your opt-in page, that means even in a best case scenario you’re converting around 30% of the people that land on your opt-in page.
That means that 70% are bouncing.
Seventy percent.
So what can you do about that?
Here’s what happens.
A portion of those people aren’t convinced that your offer isn’t worth giving you their email address in order to get it.
Some people just aren’t ever going to be satisfied – nothing you can do about that.
But there’s a large portion of those people who are thinking, “not yet”.
It’s not a “no”.
It’s not a “yes” either.
It’s a “not yet”.
And that means that they’re likely to go and google your name to find out what you’re all about and whether they should even listen to you or not.
And what do they find?
If you’re convinced that “websites are dead” then a couple things are going to happen.
First and foremost – they’re NOT going to find you.
Because you didn’t think you needed a website.
Because you were convinced that all you needed was a sales funnel and the customers and leads would just come pouring in.
And you found out you were wrong.
But whatever the case may be, they didn’t find you, so they’re gone forever at this point.
But here’s something that’s worse:
They find your competitors.
People in your space that are occupying your digital space and appearing in search results when YOU should be showing up.
How does that feel?
Think about it for a minute – you’ve spent all this time and effort to drive traffic to your funnel.
You may have even bought ads to do it.
So now you’re spending money for traffic, and when they bounce from your funnel, then search for you, they’re finding your competitors, and quite likely going and opting in (at the very least) with them and buying stuff from them.
And you paid for the honor of doing that.
Ouch.
To say the least!
So what do you need to do?
Platform funnels to the rescue
I don’t have a better name right now, so I’m sticking with Platform Funnels. Russell Brunson calls them “Funnel Hubs” in Traffic Secrets.
A Platform Funnel, like an online sales funnel, is a website, but it’s not an ordinary website.
It’s not a blog, but it has a blog.
It’s not a brochure, but people can go and learn more about you and what you offer there.
It’s a central hub online that you control where all your marketing efforts come together in one place, that’s optimized for your name, and your offers where your dream customers are able to find you easily.
Next Steps
If you want to learn more about digital marketing and this whole online business thing I want you to come join me in my private Facebook group, Home Office Hacks. This is a new, small group of other business owners and entrepreneurs of all kinds, who are working hard to build their businesses online.
Join my brand new free private Facebook group, Home Office Hacks!
