Best Lead Generation Tips and Tricks from Conversion Experts https://optinmonster.com Wed, 11 Sep 2024 21:52:18 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.3 https://optinmonster.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/cropped-archie-1-32x32.png Best Lead Generation Tips and Tricks from Conversion Experts https://optinmonster.com 32 32 9+ Best ClickFunnels Alternatives: Top Tools For Building Better Sales Funnels https://optinmonster.com/best-clickfunnels-alternatives-for-wordpress/ https://optinmonster.com/best-clickfunnels-alternatives-for-wordpress/#comments Wed, 11 Sep 2024 17:30:00 +0000 https://optinmonster.com/?p=170999 Do you want to move more leads through your sales funnel but don’t know if ClickFunnels is right for you? Thankfully, there are plenty of ClickFunnels alternatives on the market, and I’ll help you choose the best one for your business with this article. ClickFunnels is a sales funnel builder. It’s a tool for collecting …

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Do you want to move more leads through your sales funnel but don’t know if ClickFunnels is right for you? Thankfully, there are plenty of ClickFunnels alternatives on the market, and I’ll help you choose the best one for your business with this article.

ClickFunnels is a sales funnel builder. It’s a tool for collecting leads on your website and converting them into customers. However, it’s not for everyone. It’s more expensive than most of its competitors, and many small businesses don’t need a lot of its features.

In this article, you’ll find the best ClickFunnels alternatives for creating a sales funnel. My list includes tools that have various combinations of ClickFunnels’ features, so you can find the software that has exactly what you need. And that fits your budget.

Should You Use a ClickFunnels Alternative?

What is ClickFunnels?

ClickFunnels homepage

ClickFunnels is a popular sales funnel builder. It helps you create landing pages, generate leads, grow email lists, and make product sales. ClickFunnels is a hosted solution, meaning that you don’t need an existing website to use it. All your landing pages, signup forms, and sales pages live on the ClickFunnels servers.

Pros and Cons of ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels is popular for a reason. It has a drag-and-drop builder that’s easy to use. You can A/B test different elements of your sales funnel to see what converts best. And ClickFunnels works with many different payment gateways to sell your products.

But ClickFunnels isn’t for everyone. It costs $81/month for its Startup plan, and $248/month for its Pro plan, when billed annually. That’s relatively expensive compared to many other funnel builders. While the website builder is user-friendly, that also means limited customization options. As a hosted solution, you are stuck paying for all the features even if you only use a few. And you can’t add other sales or marketing tools very easily.

You might consider finding an alternative to ClickFunnels if:

  • You run an online startup or small business. ClickFunnels can be too expensive for startups and entrepreneurs with limited budgets.
  • You don’t need all of ClickFunnels’ functionality. ClickFunnels’ higher price comes with robust features, such as website-building, email marketing, online course management, and membership management. If you don’t need all these features, then there’s no need to pay the premium for them.
  • You already have a WordPress site. There are many ClickFunnels alternatives for WordPress that you can build right into your existing website.

Top Features in a ClickFunnels Alternative

When choosing the best ClickFunnels alternative for your business, consider the following factors:

  • Pricing: How much does it cost per month and year compared to how much revenue you expect to generate?
  • Support: Sales funnels are complex and breaking a single piece can cost you lots of sales. How easy is it to get help in fixing your funnel?
  • Personalization: Can you match your funnel to your branding or are you stuck using the same landing page templates as everyone else?
  • Integration: Does your sales funnel builder work with other marketing software in your tech stack, such as your email service provider (ESP), payment processor, or webinar software?
  • Offers: What type of product or service are you selling? Some ClickFunnels competitors are better than others for particular types of offers.

With that in mind, we found some funnel builders with similar features to ClickFunnels. Let’s take a look!

Best ClickFunnels Alternatives in 2024

ClickFunnels AlternativeThis software is best for:Pricing
1. FunnelKitWordPress sites, robust funnels & automationsStarts at $99/year
2. LeadPagesSmall businesses, focus on landing pagesStarts at $37/month
3. SeedProdWordPress sites, 350+ landing page templatesStarts at $31.60/year
4. InstapageLarge businesses, landing pages for PPC adsStarts at $79/month
5. ThriveCartSelling digital products & tracking affiliatesStarts at $495/lifetime access
6. SamCartOnline business beginnersStarts at $59/month
7. KartraExperienced marketers & business ownersStarts at $99/month
8. KajabiCourses, coaching, memberships, & podcastsStarts at $55/month
9. Thrive SuitesExperienced marketers using WordPress$299/year

1. FunnelKit vs. ClickFunnels

FunnelKit homepage - one of the best  ClickFunnels alternatives for WordPress

Best for: WordPress users who need a robust tool for funnels & automations

FunnelKit (formerly WooFunnels) is the best ClickFunnels alternative for WordPress. It has everything you need to supercharge your WooCommerce store with optimized checkouts, order bumps, upsells, opt-in pages, abandoned cart recovery, landing pages, and more. A/B testing is built into the plugin, so you can easily determine which copy, headlines, and CTAs yield the best conversion rates.

You can use FunnelKit with any WordPress builder, from Elementor to Divi. FunnelKit also integrates with any other WordPress plugins you might use to build online courses, memberships, or other offers. Their support team is highly responsive so you can get up and running quickly.

In my research, I was particularly impressed by FunnelKit’s template library, which includes:

You can get a year of FunnelKit for about what ClickFunnels costs each month. Plus, FunnelKit’s tiered pricing plans let you pay only for the features you need, making it much more cost-effective than ClickFunnels.

Pricing: Starts at $99/year, if you just need store checkout and thank you pages. For full funnel functionality, plans start at $179/year.

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2. LeadPages vs. ClickFunnels

LeadPages homepage

Best for: Small businesses who need a simple way to sell products online

LeadPages is a great ClickFunnels replacement if your main focus is on landing pages, lead generation forms, and sales pages. LeadPages emphasizes these page-building tools over sales tactics like ClickFunnel’s upsell and membership features.

Nevertheless, if you’re looking for an easy way to build a webpage that sells your products or services, LeadPages is a viable alternative to ClickFunnels. If I were starting a small business focused on just a few products or services, LeadPages would be just right for getting my company off the ground.

LeadPages offers both chat and email support on its basic plan, while ClickFunnels only offers email support on its entry-level plan.

LeadPages has over 200 great-looking landing page templates, as well as templates for full websites.

Pricing: Starts at $37/month for 5 landing pages and 1 custom domain. For unlimited landing pages, plans start at $74/month.

3. SeedProd

Homepage for SeedProd, a ClickFunnels WordPress alternative

SeedProd is best for: WordPress users who want to build beautiful landing pages in minutes.

If you want an easy way to build landing and sales pages but aren’t ready for in-depth funnels, check out SeedProd. This WordPress website builder makes it easy to create all the essential pages for your business. Although SeedProd started as just a landing page builder, you can now use it to build complete websites.

The drag-and-drop editor is super easy to use even if you have no coding experience. SeedProd integrates easily with WooCommerce so you can create your own checkout page, cart, and product pages. You can even use SeedProd to build your own WordPress theme! Read our full SeedProd review for more details.

SeedProd offers even more templates than LeadPages, with over 350+ theme and landing page templates to customize for your business. SeedProd is also much cheaper than LeadPages, so it’s a great choice if you already use WordPress.

Pricing: Starts at $31.60/year. You’ll need the $159.60/year Pro plan to access all templates.

4. Instapage vs. ClickFunnels

Instapage homepage

Instapage is best for: Large businesses that need a lot of landing pages for various PPC add campaigns.

Instapage is another ClickFunnels substitute that focuses on building high-converting landing pages, particularly for ad campaigns. The AdMap® feature allows you to connect ads to relevant post-click landing pages, and the page speed on mobile and desktop can’t be beat.

Instapage is designed with collaboration in mind with real-time editing and feedback features. Be aware that it doesn’t have any sort of checkout functionality built in. Instapage is meant to catch ad traffic and drive it toward your eCommerce or booking pages.

I don’t recommend Instapage for small businesses, startups, or anyone needing full funnels from a single tool. It’s also more expensive than the other landing page-focused tools on this list. However, if you run a ton of ads, Instapage may be the best option for creating customized landing pages for all your campaigns.

Pricing: Starts at $79/month when billed annually. However, you’ll need a custom-priced Convert plan for features like AdMap® and heatmaps.

5. ThriveCart

ThriveCart homepage

ThriveCart is best for: Entrepreneurs who want an effective way to sell digital products, plus affiliate tracking).

ThriveCart is a ClickFunnels competitor focused on selling digital products. With ThriveCart, you can create high-converting shopping cart and sales pages, upsell funnels, bump offers, trials, subscriptions, courses, and more. You can embed the cart anywhere, which means you can use it on your existing website instead of rebuilding everything. ThriveCart also has a built-in affiliate program so you can recruit and pay affiliates to sell your products for you.

ThriveCart’s pricing structure is different than the other tools on this list. They only offer lifetime plans for a one-time payment. That means you have a bigger upfront investment, but you’ll never have to worry about monthly payments or price increases.

Pricing: Get lifetime access for $495. For features like the affiliate center and custom domain name, upgrade to Pro for an extra $195 one-time fee, making the total price for Pro $690.

6. SamCart vs. ClickFunnels

SamCart homepage

SamCart is best for: Online business beginners who aren’t ready to invest in ThriveCart’s lifetime plan.

Samcart is an online marketing solution similar to ThriveCart, making it another alternative to ClickFunnels. You can use Samcart to sell digital products like online courses, eBooks, memberships, coaching, consulting, and more. Samcart features pre-built product page templates that are 100% mobile responsive and a course builder on all plans. Premium features include one-click upsells, downsells, and order bumps, as well as automated abandoned cart recovery.

Samcart also offers affiliate tracking, but it’s not as robust as ThriveCart’s The reporting and pixel tracking features provide accurate revenue attribution, so you know how well your marketing efforts and ads are working.

Pricing: Paid plans start at $59/month when billed annually.

7. Kartra vs. ClickFunnels

Homepage for Kartra, one of the best ClickFunnels alternatives for larger businesses.

Kartra is best for: Experienced marketers & business owners who want even more features than ClickFunnels.

Kartra is an online business platform that features a funnel builder like ClickFunnels. In fact, Kartra may be the alternative that is most similar to ClickFunnels. It’s a non-WordPress tool that offers landing pages, email marketing, memberships, courses, and more, all in a single platform.

Kartra, however, offers a few features that even ClickFunnels doesn’t have. For example, you can create native surveys and quizzes, integrate your SMS marketing, manage a customer affiliate program, and offer Helpdesk support and live chat. You aren’t limited to hosting with Kartra, either. You can use custom domains with Kartra so your hosting page URLs are branded appropriately, or you can embed your Kartra pages onto other websites using HTML or Javascript.

Kartra’s price is comparable to ClickFunnels, so it’s worth signing up for their 30-day free trial to decide if it’s the best choice for your business.

Pricing: Starts at $99/month when billed annually.

8. Kajabi vs. ClickFunnels

Kahabi homepage

Kajabi is best for: Content creators who sell courses, coaching, memberships, and podcast subscriptions.

Kajabi is a ClickFunnels alternative geared toward digital information products. Coaches, trainers, and consultants can use Kajabi to create and sell online courses, podcasts, membership sites, coaching programs, and more. Like ClickFunnels, Kajabi can build websites, landing pages, email campaigns, and marketing funnels to sell your information products. One special feature is the ability to let customers access your courses and products on the Kajabi mobile app. Their Growth and Pro plans also include an affiliate program.

Pricing: The limited Kickstarter plan is $55/month when billed annually. The basic plan starts at $119/month.

9. Thrive Suite

Thrive Suite homepage

Thrive Suite is best for: Experienced marketers who want a full suite of WordPress plugins.

Thrive Suite is a pack of plugins that, combined, offer a decent ClickFunnels alternative for WordPress. The plugins in the suite include:

  • Thrive Architect, a drag-and-drop landing page builder with template sets for upsell, confirmation, download, and other important funnel pages
  • Thrive Leads, a lead generation plugin for creating targeted optin forms
  • Thrive Ultimatum, a scarcity marketing plugin you can use to create limited time promotions, recurring campaigns, and evergreen campaigns
  • Thrive Apprentice, an online course platform
  • Thrive Quiz Builder, a quiz plugin to help generate leads
  • and more

You’ll have to stitch together your own sales funnel, as you don’t get premade funnel workflows with Thrive Suite. But if you know what you’re doing, Thrive Suite offers a powerful set of digital marketing automation features to build your own custom funnel.

Pricing: $299/year

Honorable Mentions:

Many other funnel marketing solutions didn’t make my list but are still worth researching. Most focus on a few of the functionalities that ClickFunnels integrates into one platform.

  • Hubspot: All-in-one marketing and sales solution
  • Brevo (formerly Sendinblue): Email marketing platform with sales pipeline management
  • OptimizePress: WordPress plugin for landing pages optimized for SEO & conversions
  • CartFlows: WordPress plugin for funnel building
  • Unbounce: Landing page builder with AI optimization
  • Landingi: Landing page builder with micro-conversion tracking

What Is the Best ClickFunnel Alternative?

The best funnel-building tool for your business will depend on your specific needs. Every tool on this list will be the best choice for some businesses.

For WordPress users, I recommend FunnelKit for a comprehensive solution to funnel building. If your focus is more on landing pages, then SeedProd is an easy-to-use and affordable choice.

For non-WordPress sites, I recommend LeadPages if you’re a small business. If you’re a large business and need all of ClickFunnels’ features and more, then you should take a close look at Kartra.

Hopefully, this article has helped you find the perfect ClickFunnels alternative for your business.

Don’t forget, you can also use OptinMonster to turn any page or blog post into a lead generating machine with popups, alert bars, slide-ins, and inline optin forms. Check out our list of lead generation ideas that you can promote using OptinMonster.

Related Resources:

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32 Best Lead Generation Software and Tools for 2024 https://optinmonster.com/best-lead-generation-tools/ https://optinmonster.com/best-lead-generation-tools/#comments Tue, 10 Sep 2024 01:00:00 +0000 https://optinmonster.com/?p=129272 Are you looking for the best lead generation tools to grow your business? Lead generation is more than just getting people to visit your site. It’s also about collecting their information so you can drive communication and turn casual traffic into loyal customers. And just like any tough job, lead generation requires the right tools, …

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Are you looking for the best lead generation tools to grow your business?

Lead generation is more than just getting people to visit your site. It’s also about collecting their information so you can drive communication and turn casual traffic into loyal customers.

And just like any tough job, lead generation requires the right tools, even for professional marketers.

In this post, I’ll share my top picks for the best lead generational tools to help you nail every aspect of web-based lead generation. That way, you can choose which tools suit your company, and you’ll soon be generating more leads and making more sales.

Best Lead Generation Tools

Overview of the Best Lead Generation Tools

CategoryToolFeatures
On-Page Lead Generation Tools & Email MarketingOptinMonsterOn-site lead generation campaigns, drag-and-drop editor, personalized display rules
Email Address FindersHunterEmail verifier, Gmail integration, browser extension
Prospecting and Outreach ToolsD&B HooversFilter prospects, real-time alerts, dynamic lists
CRM ToolsHubSpotEmail templates, live chat, engagement tracking
Sales Lead Generation ToolsSalesforceIndustry-specific tools, multi-device support, customer service features
Communication ToolsDriftConversational marketing, chatbot for lead qualification, personalized experiences
Advertising Tools Google AdsCustomizable copy, broad audience reach, pay-per-click pricing model

What Is a Lead Generation Tool?

A lead generation tool, also known as lead generation software or lead generator, helps a website convert visitors into potential customers by capturing their contact information. These tools are vital to obtaining essential user information, paving the way for effective sales and marketing campaigns.

What Types of Lead Generation Tools and Software Are There?

Lead generation isn’t a “one size fits all” process. There are many different ways (and tools) to generate leads. They include:

  • On-page Lead Generation: Drives leads directly from your website through optin forms and campaigns
  • Email Marketing: Nurture those leads with campaigns to keep them engaged with your brand
  • Email Address Finders: Connect with people who aren’t on your email list
  • Prospecting and Outreach: Collect contact on anonymous visitors and reach out to potential leads
  • Customer Relationship Management Tools: Connect and track leads throughout the sales funnel
  • Sales Tools: Turn leads into paying customers while also staying in touch with existing customers
  • Communication Tools: People love to chat and communicate. Use this to your business’ benefit to help generate leads
  • Advertising Tools: Drive traffic to your site from places like social media and through paid ads

I know it’s a lot. But you don’t have to use all of them to have a successful lead generation campaign.

It all comes down to the tools that make sense for you and the type of campaigns you want to run.

Before I get to the list, I wanted to quickly give you some tips on how to choose the best lead generation tool for your unique needs:

What to Look for in a Lead Generation Tool

There is no shortage of tools for lead generation. So, how do you decide?

Here are the qualities you should look for in a lead generation tool:

  • Easy To Use: The important thing here is that the lead generation tool is easy and that every person in your organization knows how to use it. Otherwise, it’s just another piece of software sitting unused.
  • Accessibility: The best lead generation tools are cloud-based, meaning you can access your lead generation campaigns and data through any internet connection. This makes it easier for the entire organization to get involved with lead generation.
  • Affordability: No one wants to spend money on something they’re not sure will work for them. You also don’t want to overspend on a solution that doesn’t give you all of the lead generation tools you need.
  • Solid Support: Make sure that any issues you run into are dealt with quickly and professionally. There’s nothing worse than spending money on a tool and then having it go unused because there’s no support when questions arise.
  • Targets Your Ideal Audience: You need to ensure that your software lets you reach the people you want to reach with your lead generation campaigns.

So, are you ready to get started? Let’s dive straight into our list.

On-Page Lead Generation Tools and Email Marketing

You can’t beat on-page lead generation and email marketing for online lead generation.

If visitors are already looking at your website, they’re already interested in your services or products. So, strike while they’re on your site and collect that lead!

The stats show that most people welcome emails (even cold emails if they’re done right and follow the rules) from the companies they admire.

That makes the combination of on-page lead generation and email marketing software the best lead generation duo. Here are some tools I recommend.

Finally, let’s jump to my list of the 32 lead generation tools I have carefully reviewed for your help.

1. OptinMonster – The Best Lead Generation Software

OptinMonster Home Page 2023

OptinMonster is the best lead generation software for easily converting your visitors into leads and customers.

OptinMonster, a SaaS, lets you create on-site lead generation campaigns like popups, slide-in toasters, floating bars, spin-to-win wheels and more.

optinmonster campaign examples

Even better? You can do it without needing a coder or graphic designer using our drag-and-drop editor and one of 500+ templates. Or, design it yourself using our Canvas templates.

But just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s not powerful.

OptinMonster’s personalization and targeting display rules put your campaigns in front of the right people at the right time. We have almost 100 different ways to choose where, when and for whom your campaigns will appear.

I’m most fond of our query-parameter condition because it lets you align your PPC campaigns with your onsite lead generation. Another feature I appreciate about OptinMonster is our Playbooks. Playbooks are fully pre-configured campaigns, eliminating the guesswork involved in launching a lead generation campaign.

OptinMonster is how AtHoc increased sales qualified leads by 141%, and how SnackNation adds 1200 segmented leads every week. And it’s not just these two companies who have seen success with our lead generation tool. OptinMonster has published dozens of lead generation case studies that prove we deserve to be #1 on this list.

Key Features:

  • Reduces cart abandonment: Offer abandoning visitors a custom-tailored offer before they leave your site with Exit-Intent® Technology.
  • Increases conversions and sales: Create upsell, downsell, and cross-sell offers to boost your customers’ average order value (AOV).
  • Improves lead quality: Increase the number of qualified leads by collecting more than just name, phone and email.
  • Shows targeted promotions: Show free shipping bars, share discount codes, promote flash sales, and more based on referral source, geo-location, previous on-site behavior, user’s device, and more.
  • Targets offers: Use what you already know about your visitors to run OnSite Retargeting® campaigns and improve conversions.
  • Automates growing your email list: Every major email marketing platform, CRM platform (customer relationship management tool) and content management system integrates with OptinMonster.

Pricing: OptinMonster pricing starts at $9/month for our Basic plan, $19/month for Plus, $29/month for Pro (our most popular plan), and $49/month for Growth.

Get Started With OptinMonster Today!
BONUS: Done-For-You Campaign Setup ($297 value) Our conversion experts will design 1 free campaign for you to get maximum results – absolutely FREE! Click here to get started →

2. TrustPulse

trustpulse new homepage updated

TrustPulse is the best social proof notification plugin.

Without social proof, I think you’ll find it hard to generate new leads.

TrustPulse shows proof of the purchase activities taken by the real visitors and buyers on your site, like viewing or buying products, signing up for newsletters, and more.

I think adding social proof notifications is one of the most effective lead generation marketing tactics that requires the least amount of effort.

The thing I like MOST about TrustPulse is that they don’t even provide a way for their users to fake activity or purchases. Your website visitors will never be able to accuse you of faking reviews or purchases when you use TrustPulse. Every alternative to TrustPulse does, which puts you at risk.

Key Features:

  • Real-time event tracking
  • Smart targeting to boost conversions using advanced targeting rules and timing control
  • Flexible design options to match your site’s branding
  • Actionable analytics to get the stats you need to increase conversions
  • Google Analytics 4 integration
  • Easy setup on any website with no coding needed
  • Honesty

Pricing: The pricing plans start at $5/month for up to 2,500 sessions!

3. SeedProd

SeedProd landing page builder home_

SeedProd makes the list of lead generation tools because of it’s easy Landing Page solution.

SeedProd comes with a beginner-friendly drag-and-drop builder which can create beautiful landing pages for your site to capture leads. Whether it’s for sales, maintenance, webinar, or optin campaigns, SeedProd has your back. With 150+ landing page templates, you don’t even need to worry about designing responsive and mobile-ready pages. All the hard work is already done for you.

SeedProd strong-arms the conversion game by integrating with many email service providers and protecting your pages from spam, bots, and other fraudulent entries.

Key Features:

  • Edit content in real-time and preview your website exactly as your visitors would with its live preview
  • Put your website into coming soon, 404, or maintenance mode and go live whenever you’re ready, all with one click
  • Compatible with any WordPress theme and helps you ensure your website matches your branding

Pricing: SeedProd’s yearly pricing starts at $39.50 for the Basic package, $89.55 for the Plus package, and $159.60 for the Pro package.

4. WPForms

wpforms homepage

WPForms is an easy-to-use form builder that adds simple lead-generation forms to your website.

With 300+ pre-built templates, you can get the proper form on your site in just a few clicks.

While forms are limited in targeting rules as opposed to tools like OptinMonster’s popups, they’re still an excellent and reliable lead generation tool.

Key Features:

  • Drag-and-drop builder to make customization easy
  • Mobile-friendly forms let you collect leads from any visitor
  • Instant notifications allow you quickly respond to leads
  • Smart conditional logic guides you through creating high-performing forms

Pricing: WPForm’s pricing starts at $49.50 for the Basic package, $99.50 for the Plus package, $199.50 for the Pro package, and $299.50 for the Elite package.

5. Thrive Leads

Thrive Leads is a lead generation tool that helps you grow your email list and increase conversions on your website. It’s a powerful plugin for WordPress that offers a range of features to help you capture leads and build your email list.

Key Features:

  • A variety of opt-in forms, including 2-step opt-ins, lightbox forms, and slide-in forms
  • Lead groups, which allow you to segment your list based on specific criteria
  • A/B testing
  • Dynamic text replacement
  • A lead shortcode that lets you add opt-in forms anywhere on your site

Pricing: You can purchase Thrive Leads individually for $99/year. Thrive Leads is also available as part of the Thrive Suite for $299/year for use on up to 5 sites. The Thrive Suite includes 9 WordPress plugins you can use to build your online business.

6. Constant Contact

constant contact email marketing service

If you have a more extensive contact list or prefer a MailChimp alternative, try Constant Contact. It’s a fantastic email marketing platform that will help you stay connected with your leads.

Constant Contact has an incredibly easy-to-use and lightweight interface. And as one of the largest email marketing services globally, Constant Contact can offer great deliverability rates.

Their drag-and-drop editor and email newsletter templates give your emails a polished and professional look, impressing your leads.

Key Features:

  • Integrates with other lead generating tools, so you start emailing leads right away
  • Marketing automation sends pre-designed emails to increase engagement and drive sales
  • Easy-to-read reports track email success in real-time
  • Simple contact management tools give you the power to sort, add, and manage your email contacts

Pricing: Constant Contact’s email marketing pricing ranges from $20/month for Email to $45/month for Email Plus. They do offer a free trial.

7. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)

Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is a complete marketing automation platform that combines email marketing services and SMS messages. In addition, they offer a drag & drop builder that you can use to create highly-engaging emails, build automated workflows, and segment users.

Brevo can be your home for almost anything email marketing. From automation, segmentation, and email design tools, Brevo has it all.

It also offers builders for Facebook ads, landing pages, and signup forms.

Key Features:

  • Customizable dashboard based on your business
  • All-in-one marketing suite
  • Email heat maps so you can visualize how your contacts engage with your email
  • A/B testing so you can test different emails to see which resonates best with your contacts

Pricing: Brevo offers a free plan for unlimited contacts and up to 300 emails daily. Their paid plans range from $25/month for their Lite package to $65/month for the Premium package.

Email Address Finders

Sometimes you need to connect with people who aren’t on your email list. That means finding their email address and contact details. This next batch of tools will help with that.

8. Hunter

hunter - best growth hacks

If you want to do a quick email search, Hunter is a valuable lead generation software. Just type in the domain, and it’ll find the email address pattern.

Hunter also includes a confidence rating so you know if the email is likely to be correct.

That makes Hunter one of the best email finder tools on the market.

Key Features:

  • Email verifier checks the validity of any professional email address in bulk
  • Browser and Google Sheets extensions
  • Gmail integration to send cold email campaigns

Pricing: Hunter’s pricing depends on the number of requests you make. It’s free for up to 25 searches and 50 verifications per month. Paid plans start at $49/month and range to $399/month for the Enterprise plan.

9. AeroLeads

aeroleads home page

AeroLeads is a B2B sales lead generator which provides a Google Chrome extension to help you search various professional websites like LinkedIn for sales leads.

All you have to do is add a name and company to your AeroLeads account. The tool will then find their business email addresses and other contact details.

AeroLeads will add these leads to your email marketing lists, so you can start working on those leads right away.

Key Features:

  • Chrome extension makes searching simple
  • Export data to a CSV file or transfer to email marketing tools
  • Verified business emails also come with job titles, company, website, location, and LinkedIn URL

Pricing: AeroLeads offers a limited free plan to help you get going. Their lowest tier is Take Off, which is $49/month for 2000 records. After that, plans go up to Enterprise, priced by special quote.

Prospecting and Outreach Tools

Want to turn more of those contacts into leads and sales? These (mostly) automated lead gen tools will help with that process.

10. D&B Hoovers

hoovers home page

D&B Hoovers claims to have the world’s most comprehensive business database. You can use it to build targeted B2B leads of new prospects.

Hoovers’ database includes company information to help you have more relevant conversations with those prospects. That aids you in turning more prospects into leads and sales.

This information can help guide your marketing decisions to deliver more relevant communication with your leads.

Key Features:

  • Filter prospects to engage the most promising leads
  • Send leads directly to your CRM tools
  • Real-time trigger alerts
  • Dynamic lists constantly update your contacts, so you always have valid contact information

Pricing: You can try Hoovers for free though you’ll need to contact their sales team for more pricing information.

11. Datanyze

datanyze home page

Datanyze is another popular and easy-to-use B2B lead generation tools in the market. With their Google Chrome extension, you can get a plethora of contact information, including email, direct dial, and mobile numbers, all without leaving your browser.

Then, you can export those to your CRM software for management and follow up.

You can use Datanyze stress-free as they promise refunds for any inaccuracies within their database.

Key Features:

  • CCPA and GDPR compliant
  • Target specific industries for B2B leads
  • Capture contact information while you browse business websites and LinkedIn
  • Icebreakers help you start meaningful conversations

Pricing: You can start with a free demo of their software. After that, you’ll need to contact their sales team for a pricing plan.

12. Lead Forensics

lead generation marketing tools - lead forensics

Sometimes you can miss out on good sales leads because you don’t know everyone who visits your site.

Lead Forensics aims to solve that problem by getting contact details for anonymous website visitors. You can also use lead scoring to spend time on those most likely to convert.

You’ll also receive contact data of key contacts that match your target profile to help continue to grow your leads list.

Key Features:

  • Uncovers the identity of anonymous website visitors and turns them into leads
  • Provides complete contact information, including business names, identities of key decision-makers, and more
  • Integrates with many of the top CRMs

Pricing: You can begin with a free trial of Lead Forensics. After that, you’ll need to work with their sales team to get the right package and pricing plan for your business.

13. Growbots

use growbots for automated lead generation

Know the market you want to target? Just tell Growbots, and it will choose your best prospects from a database of more than 200 million contacts separated by industry.

With Growbots, you can quickly contact the right decision-makers and follow up automatically.

Growbots also includes testing so you can check which approaches are most effective.

Key Features:

  • Access to over 100 million contacts
  • Only pay for the leads that fit your business
  • Self-updating database
  • Email marketing capabilities, including automation

Pricing: Growbots’ pricing starts at $49/month for their Outreach plan and goes up to $199/month for the All-in-One package.

CRM Tools

You can’t do a roundup of lead generation software without including tools for customer relationship management (CRM). These tools help you connect and keep track of prospects and sales leads throughout the sales pipeline. Here are my picks.

14. HubSpot

hubspot email homepage

HubSpot is one of the world’s top CRMs available. While they offer a wide variety of tools, one of the top uses of HubSpot is its email marketing services.

With HubSpot, you can create stunning conversion-ready emails while learning valuable insights and reports into how your emails perform with your customers.

HubSpot can be one of your best assets regarding SEO, sales, marketing, and inbound and outbound lead generation.

Key Features:

  • Easy-to-use platform
  • Separate hubs let your focus on the areas your business needs, all in one tool
  • Live chat functionality
  • Email template, scheduling, tracking, and engagement tools

Pricing: HubSpot offers a free CRM with valuable tools. Their paid plans are for their marketing, sales, customer service, CMS, and operations hubs, which start at $45/month.

15. Pardot

pardot lead generation software

Pardot is one of the many popular B2B lead generation tools that helps you manage and qualify sales leads. By qualifying leads, you can rest assured that you’re always talking to the best leads.

Pardot includes fine-grained segmentation and marketing automation for better communication with your future customers.

There are also tools within Pardot to help you with landing page design, embedding forms, and email management.

Key Features:

  • Lead nurturing and qualification tools help you find the best potential customers
  • Detailed data that lets you customize the user experience
  • Separate tools based on industry

Pricing: Pardot’s pricing ranges from $1,250/month for their Growth plan, $2,500 for their Plus plan, and $4,000 for their Advanced package.

16. SharpSpring

SharpSpring home page

In addition to its built-in CRM, SharpSpring integrates with all the top CRM lead management tools. That allows you to manage lead data across multiple platforms.

SharpSpring includes custom deal stages, a helpful pipeline overview, and other marketing strategy tools.

Key Features:

  • Marketing and email automation all in one tool
  • Integration with many of the top marketing apps and tools
  • Detailed analytics on every interaction with your leads

Pricing: For small businesses, SharpSpring’s pricing ranges from $399/month for 1,000 contacts, $899/month for 10,000 contacts, and $1,299/month for 20,000 contacts.

17. Keap

keap home page

Keap helps you keep your customers’ information and conversations neatly organized, all in one place.

From lead capture to emails to invoicing, Keap makes essential business tasks easier to handle.

Like other CRMs, Keap also has automation tools to help you streamline marketing and lead generation efforts.

Key Features:

  • Desktop and mobile apps so you can stay connected on the go
  • Marketing automation to nurture your leads
  • Migration tools to make importing your data from email providers fast and straightforward
  • Includes a business phone line that works on your existing iPhone and Android phones (US and Canada only)

Pricing: Keap’s pricing starts at $79/month for the Lite plan, $169/month for the Pro plan, and $199/month for the Max plan.

18. Adobe Marketo Engage

adobe marketo engage home page

Adobe Marketo Engage uses behavior tracking to help you identify prime customers for engagement.

With a cross-channel engagement feature, you can coordinate 1 to 1 communication with your leads across online and offline platforms.

Plus, Adobe Marketo Engage personalizes the customer experience on your site, even for anonymous users. This makes it an effective sales lead generator ensuring high quality sales leads.

Key Features:

  • Marketing Automation rules to engage and attract more leads
  • Revenue tracking to track different marketing channels impact your bottom line
  • Works across different teams so other departments can help foster the sales process and grow your leads

Pricing: Marketo has different pricing and packaging plans. You’ll need to contact their sales department for more details on monthly costs, as pricing varies based on your database size.

19. OnePageCRM

OnePageCRM home page

Looking for another simple piece of lead generation software? OnePageCRM grabs leads from Gmail, social media sites, and business networking sites to integrate them into your CRM.

This software focuses on “next action sales,” so making sales is as simple as checking off your to-do list.

OnePageCRM is a super simple and efficient CRM, so you only focus on the actions that drive leads and sales.

Key Features:

  • Email management features, so you keep everything in one place
  • Lead Clipper feature grabs lead from any website with one click
  • Drag-and-drop sales pipeline management
  • Integrates with a variety of programs like Google, Chrome, Zapier, Dropbox, and more

Pricing: OnePageCRM is $9.95/month for a Professional account and $19.95/month for a Business account.

Sales Lead Generation Tools

For businesses, the goal of using lead generation tools is turning those leads into sales. And since the best source of repeat business is existing customers, it makes sense to use tools that both make sales and nurture your customers. Here are some B2B lead generation tools to help with sales lead generation.

20. Salesforce

salesforce home page

Salesforce is among the world’s top sales and lead generation management software focusing on the work smarter, not harder mantra.

With tools to generate leads, manage customers, sales teams, and more, Salesforce is one of the top sales lead generation tools.

Plus, it integrates with a wide range of sales and marketing software to help businesses sell more and deliver better customer service.

Key Features:

  • Separate tools specific to your industry to give you an edge over your competition
  • Support functions like a customized help center, chatbots, and field service tracking
  • Guided setup to get you on the platform in minutes
  • Multi-device support so you can work your business on the go

Pricing: Salesforce’s pricing for Small Business Solutions ranges from $25/month per user to $1,250/month for up to 10,000 contacts, with a few options in between depending on your company’s needs.

21. HubSpot Sales

hubspot sales page

While I already discussed HubSpot earlier in this post, I need to highlight their Sales Hub in particular.

Sales is part of HubSpot’s suite of tools for small businesses, which tracks lead activity as it passes through the sales funnel. It helps you save time generating leads with a sales CRM, engagement tools, quote functionality, and more.

HubSpot Sales includes tools and templates for email outreach and follow-up to interact more efficiently with prospective customers.

Key Features:

  • Integration with over 940 tools in the HubSpot App Marketplace
  • Meeting scheduler keeps your calendar organized
  • Live chat to connect with your leads easily
  • Free plan to get you started

Pricing: HubSpot Sales has a free plan with some limited functions. Paid plans start at $45/month for their Starter plan, $450/month for their Professional program, and $1,200/month for their Enterprise plan.

22. LinkedIn Sales Navigator

LinkedIn Sales Navigator home page

To the surprise of no one, the professional networking site LinkedIn has increasingly made a name for itself in the world of lead generation tools, mainly due to the vast amounts of company information in its databases. You can gain access to that info via LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

This lead generation and sales tool gives you the necessary knowledge to reach and engage the right people.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator provides advanced lead searches, recommendations, CRM integrations, and sales updates.

Key Features:

  • LinkedIn InMail Messages access
  • Access to LinkedIn subscription features like Job Seeker and LinkedIn Learning access
  • Customized lead suggestions
  • Integrate with other sales tools

Pricing: LinkedIn Sales Navigator’s pricing ranges from $79.99/month to $108.99/month. Enterprises with more extensive needs can contact their sales team for custom quotes.

23. Pipedrive

pipedrive lead generation software

Pipedrive prides itself on simplicity, and it’s easy to use.

This automatic B2B lead generation software tracks all interactions with leads quickly. Then you can see all the data in one unified dashboard whenever you check in.

It also makes it easy to know what action to take next.

Key Features:

  • Design sales pipelines from scratch or by using one of Pipedrive’s templates
  • Coaching to help you meet your sales targets and goals
  • Security dashboard so you can monitor how, when, where, and by whom your company data is being accessed
  • Integrates with over 250 other tools

Pricing: Pipedrive’s Essential plan is $12.50/month, with the Advanced package being $24.90/month. Their Professional level is $49.90/month.

Communication Tools

It’s a bit of a cliche, but it rings true, especially in business: Communication is key. Simply talking to people who land on your site can help you win them as customers.

Of course, that applies to sales leads, too. This next batch of lead generation software tools will help with communication.

First, let’s look at a few live chat tools.

24. Drift

Drift home page

Drift helps you deliver helpful and personal service to customers by conversing with them.

This tool runs off the cornerstones of “Conversational Marketing” and “Conversational Sales.”

Drift allows you to talk with your website visitors instead of just asking them to fill out forms and wait for follow-ups.

Key Features:

  • Integration with other sales and marketing platforms that personalize each person’s experience based on their history with your business
  • Chatbot to qualify and guide your leads
  • Eliminate back-and-forth communication with leads and connect with them in real time on your website

Pricing: Drift has a free version to get started. To get pricing, you’ll need to speak with a sales rep.

25. Intercom

intercom gives you a totally customizable messaging suite

Need a modern messaging service to engage site visitors fully? Intercom could be the answer.

A messenger app connects you with your customers to give them higher satisfaction and loyalty to your business.

Bots, live chat, and other communication-based apps within Intercom can help your leads and customers whenever they need.

Key Features:

  • Self-service chat and help features to free up your time without sacrificing customer service
  • Connects with 300+ other tools so you can talk with confidence
  • Collects information from customers so you can follow up later

Pricing: Intercom starts at $67/month for their Starter plan for small businesses. Otherwise, pricing is based on your plan’s number of employees and site visitors.

26. CallPage

CallPage home page

CallPage is a lead generating tool that creates call-based leads for your business.

With the help of a button on your site, potential leads will enter their phone number. Then, within 28 seconds, they’ll receive an automatic callback, no matter where they’re located. Of course, you can set business hours only to receive calls.

With lead qualification and sales, speed is key to communication. CallPage helps you bridge that gap.

Key Features:

  • Targeting rules, so the callback button only appears when leads are the hottest
  • Fully customizable popups
  • Call analytics dashboard to give you insight into your calls

Pricing: CallPage’s Basic plan is free, covering 15 leads a month. From there, it’s $159/month for their Professional plan and $379/month for their Premium package.

Advertising Tools

A lead generation platform is vital if you intend to convert your website traffic into leads. However, you’ll first need traffic.

There are two common ways business drive traffic to their websites:

  1. Organic: You can drive free organic traffic by optimizing your website for SEO. The only downside is that it can take a long time.
  2. Paid ads: Paid ads can be the more expensive, but it allows you to generate traffic instantly and test your lead-generation funnel right away.

This section shares three paid advertising tools to help you generate high-quality, targeted leads.

27. Google Ads

adwords content marketing

Google Ads puts ads in front of people searching for related terms. It’s also one of the most popular lead generation tools.

That way, your ads are relevant and will increase people’s chances to visit your website or call your business.

One great feature is that setting up campaigns is free. You only pay for advertising when people click your ad.

Key Features:

  • Customizable copy based on your advertising and marketing goals
  • Reach a broad audience of relevant potential leads
  • Select where your ad appears so you only reach your target audience

Pricing: Google Ads lets you set up your budget and remains a flexible option in terms of pricing.

28. AdRoll

ad roll home page

AdRoll puts your business in front of the eyes of potential leads as they browse the web, use social media, and look at their inboxes.

This lead generation tool combines the power of display ads, social ads, and email to promote your business effectively. It includes automation and rich insights so you can tweak campaigns for more growth.

Key Features:

  • Audience targeting rules make sure your ads are being placed in front of the best quality leads for your business
  • Compliant with worldwide privacy requirements
  • Insights on your campaigns so you can tweak them if needed

Pricing: AdRoll’s Starter plan is free. To remove AdRoll branding and unlock all features, you’ll need to upgrade to the Growth plan, starting at $19/month.

29. AdEspresso

AdEspresso home page

Hootsuite’s AdEspresso is an optimization tool for Facebook, Instagram, and Google ads.

With this lead generation advertising tool, you can create and test multiple ad variants with only a few clicks.

You can also run ads with various audiences and measure what’s most effective with in-depth analytics.

Key Features:

  • Create and manage all your ads with one dashboard
  • Optimize your campaigns using daily in-app tips
  • AdEspresso University offers courses and live webinars to learn more about marketing and campaigns

Pricing: AdEspresso starts at $49/month for their Starter Plan and goes up to $259/month for Enterprise. This is just the fee to use their platform. The individual platforms will bill any money spent on ads.

Other Lead Generation Software & Tools

Finally, let’s complete this roundup with a few other lead gen tools.

30. RafflePress

rafflepress home page

RafflePress is not your typical lead generation tool; it’s a viral giveaway plugin for WordPress.

So, why is it here?

Online contests and giveaways are some of the quickest and easiest ways to increase traffic to your website, grow your email list, and boost engagement. It sure sounds like a fantastic lead generation tool to us!

Key Features:

  • Create different entry options for all major social networks
  • Drag-and-drop giveaway builder
  • Marketing and CRM integrations
  • Success tracking and retargeting
  • Fraud protection

Pricing: RafflePress pricing is only $39.20/month to get started. From there, prices go up depending on your specific needs. For example, the Pro package is $79.20, the Growth package is $159.20, and the Ultimate package is $359.20.

31. ReferralCandy

referral candy lead gen tools

ReferralCandy is a lead generation tool for eCommerce stores that offer customers discounts for referring new businesses.

You can easily customize a referral program for your business and collect data on how well the program is working.

ReferralCandy also integrates with other marketing tools to track referral traffic, retarget leads, and send newsletters.

Key Features:

  • Fraud detection to protect your program and increase your ROI
  • Automated rewards payouts
  • Customizable rewards options

Pricing: ReferralCandy gives you a free 30-day trial to get started. After that, it costs $49/month plus commission to continue.

32. Zapier

zapier lead generation software

If you’re wondering what Zapier‘s doing on a list of lead generation tools, the answer’s simple. Zapier’s here because it lets you connect multiple business services, including some lead generation software, in this roundup.

In fact, they have an OptinMonster lead trigger that makes it super easy to connect OptinMonster, the #1 lead generation software in the world, with the other business services you use.

Key Features:

  • Connect different software and tools to automate your workflow
  • Simple connections make automating your workflow easy
  • Works with over 3,000 apps
  • Pre-made templates make connecting tasks a breeze

That’s it! These were the 32 of the best lead generators to get your list popping, conversions increasing, and your sales soaring.

Which Is The Best Lead Generation Tool?

In summary, for businesses seeking an effective and versatile lead generation tool, OptinMonster stands out as a top choice.

Its user-friendly interface, customizable opt-in forms, and advanced targeting options make it a powerful asset in converting website visitors into leads and customers.

With features like conversion analytics and A/B testing, OptinMonster helps you fine-tune your strategies for maximum conversion.

Here are just two examples of how other online businesses used OptinMonster to increase leads and revenue:

If you’re looking to boost your email list, reduce cart abandonment, or drive sales, OptinMonster offers a tailored solution to meet and exceed your lead generation goals.

Ready to generate more targeted leads? Get started with OptinMonster today.

More on Lead Generation:

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Which Is the Best Call to Action Button Color for Your Website? https://optinmonster.com/which-color-button-converts-best/ https://optinmonster.com/which-color-button-converts-best/#comments Sun, 08 Sep 2024 15:00:00 +0000 https://optinmonster.com/?p=93468 Are you looking for the best call to action button color to increase your CTR? Color definitely matters to online users. In one survey of 500 consumers, 39% said that color is the most important visual element of a business’s website. But when it comes to the best colors for click here buttons, that’s a …

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Are you looking for the best call to action button color to increase your CTR?

Color definitely matters to online users. In one survey of 500 consumers, 39% said that color is the most important visual element of a business’s website. But when it comes to the best colors for click here buttons, that’s a highly debated topic.

Can certain CTA colors increase your conversion rate?

In this article, I’ll talk about the best call to action button color for websites and emails, based on research.

*Throughout the article, “call to action” and “CTA” will be used interchangeably.

What Do Experts Say About Call to Action Button Color?

Color psychology wheel to help choose CTA button color. Red for Action and Passion. Orange for optimism and enthusiasm. Yellow for joy and warmth. Green for nature, luck, and prosperity. Blue for Trust, power, and loyalty. Purple for mystery, fantasy, and royalty. Pink for femininity and creativity.

You may have heard conflicting advice surrounding conversion optimization, especially when it comes to color.

Digital marketers agree on some of the most important strategies for conversions:

But color? That’s a tricky one.

You might have come across marketers who claim that they have found the “secret” to color optimization. Generally, you’ll see these people belonging to one of three camps:

  1. The Generalizers: This type of conversion rate optimizer will religiously commit to following general, broad best practices. However, they won’t dig deep into the psychology of their own customers to fine-tune their campaigns.
  2. The Pigeonholers: This second type swears by very specific strategies. They will tell you that there are certain “secrets” that are guaranteed to increase your conversion rate. They’ll tell you that a certain color, font, or layout is the way to guarantee your success.
  3. The Perpetual Testers: The third type won’t commit to any strategy. These optimizers have experimented enough to know that some strategies don’t necessarily work for everyone. Instead, they’ll tell you to test out different things, almost at random, until you find something that works.

When faced with the question of which is the best call to action button color, each camp will have a different answer:

  • The Generalizers will tell you that there are some general truths about color. Some colors work well for certain industries, and there are some colors that you should never use.
  • The Pigeonholers will swear by one color that converts better than any of the others.
  • The Perpetual Testers will say that color might make a difference, but not in any consistent or predictable way.

Clearly, they can’t all be right.

Perhaps color doesn’t play a significant role in conversions as we thought. Or perhaps there is something more subtle going on here?

Before we discuss how to choose your website button colors, let’s go over the basics of color psychology

The Basics of Color Psychology (and Why It’s Complicated for Businesses)

For decades, brands have applied the power of color psychology to their logos and marketing.

Infographic showing how the colors of various corporate logos correspond with the emotions associated with that color.

The above infographic shows how major companies have chosen brand colors that bring forth certain emotions.

Here are a few takeaways from how top brands choose their logo color to fit their brand personality:

  • Orange is often used to show cheerfulness and vibrance, such as the Nickelodeon logo. And of course, to illustrate that the product is orange-flavored.
  • Red is the color of choice for bold logos that are immediately recognizable, such as Coca-Cola and Target.
  • Blue is used by brands that want you to trust them as part of your daily lives. Or to trust them with very important tasks like home repair or making your medicine. That’s why you see blue in the logos for Walmart, Lowe’s, and Pfizer.
  • Green evokes nature, health, and peace. It’s often used to represent fresh food, like the Whole Foods and Publix logos.

Psychologically, there’s no doubt that color can have a profound effect on people. But it’s not as simple as some colors always being better than others.

Here are a few research-backed examples of the power of color. These examples also show that the psychology of color is complex.

What should you take away from this information? That color affects how people feel, but there are many factors at play.

For instance, gender and culture play important roles, and some effects of color may not be very significant.

So how are marketers supposed to make sense of all this? How can you use color to get people to click on the buttons on your web page and in your emails?

Does CTA Color Really Matter?

It may seem theoretically possible to choose a “perfect” color: one that’s culturally and demographically appropriate for your buyer persona, and your brand. But that color choice is most important in your overall visual brand, not just your button colors.

Yes, it’s a good idea to consider the emotional meaning of your call to action button color. You should also run A/B testing to optimize your website popups and email campaigns.

But let’s say you change the color of your call-to-action from blue to red, and you see an increase in conversions. Does this mean that red always converts better than blue?

Not necessarily.

You see, there is more at play here than just the color of the button itself.

The variables include not only your brand and audience but also the surrounding design. It’s nearly impossible to isolate all of the variables and definitively prove which color converts best.

So does call-to-action button color really matter? Button color is an important factor in getting users to click your links. However, it’s not a matter of some colors always being better than others.

Big corporations have the time and money to do in-depth studies on how consumers react to every single color in their web design.

But thankfully, it’s actually very simple to use button color to increase your conversions.

We’re here to show you how to choose the right color that works best for your business.

3 Tips to Finding the Best Call to Action Button Color

So what really is the best call to action button color? The best color is the one that works best in the context of your visual brand and the design of your website and email campaigns.

Below, we’ll share 3 simple ways to improve your CTA colors.

1. Your CTA Color Needs to Pop (Contrast Is Vital!)

We know that a more prominent, eye-catching call-to-action results in more conversions. Therefore, any color change that increases the visibility of your call to action button should increase your conversions.

You should focus on two forms of color contract when creating a call to action button:

  • Contrast between the button color and the background
  • Contrast between the button text and button color

If, for example, your button color is low-contrast against your background color, visibility will be poor.

illustration of high medium and low contrast colors

But, increase the contrast, and boom! Your conversions will go up.

You don’t have to do an in-depth study about the emotional effects of your website colors.

Just make your buttons stand out.

Here’s an example of an attention-grabbing call to action button with high contrast:

TEDx webpage. Backgroud is a black and white photograph, and there is a bright red CTA button that says "Register"

The other factor to consider is the overall color scheme of your page. If one color dominates your page, and that color is also being used for your call-to-action, it won’t stand out. To make your call-to-action really pop, again choose a contrasting color. If you have a white background, a bright color or even black is great for catching users’ attention.

In one well-known A/B test from 2011, HubSpot found that red buttons worked better than green buttons. In fact, the red button got 21% more clicks than the green.

But let’s look at the context of those red and green buttons. Quite possibly, the reason red converted better than green was that green was the dominant color on the page. Therefore, red created more contrast:

Hubspot A/B test comparing green and red call to action buttons.

As you can see, the green button blends in more. The brand’s logo is also green, and there is a lot of green in the screenshot on the right. Plus, the most prominent icon in the features list is also green.

On the other hand, there is very little red on the page. So the red stands out, while still making fitting the page’s color scheme.

In fact, some testing has shown that brands can increase sales by over 35% by making sure their CTA color stands out.

To get the most contrast, pick a complementary color: one that is opposite to your dominant color on the color wheel.

Another high-contrast color is a triadic color: one that is a third of the way around the color wheel from your dominant color.

Complementary and triadic color wheels. Example of complementary colors is green and red. Example of triadic colors is blue, yellow, and red.

2. Your Colors Need to Be On-Brand

Your brand identity is another important factor in choosing your CTA colors. If you have a consistent color scheme for your logo, website, popups, and email marketing, your buttons should always fit into that color palette.

For instance, IPSY is a makeup subscription service. Pink is the primary color for the brand. They even use pink padded envelopes to mail their products.

The color scheme of their website and app is pink, cream, and black.

Customers use their app to choose their products each month, and they know to expect these colors from the brand.

IPSY wisely stays consistent with that color scheme in their promotional emails, and the CTAs within them.

Promo email from IPSY. Pink header at the top says "Limited Time Only." Photo of a woman applying lipstick. Body text says "Read our lips: 50%70% off lip products" The black call to action button says "Shop Now"

Above, the black call to action button stands out from the pink and cream background.

At the bottom of each email, there is a bright pink call to action button to promote their SMS marketing list:

The bottom of an promo email from Ipsy. There is a bright pink call to action button that says "Receive Texts"

Notice that the color of this button is extremely bold while still matching the brand’s color scheme.

What can you learn from IPSY? Make sure you have a brand color palette and not just a single color. That way,

3. Your Colors Need to Be Consistent

Marketers also use color to make it easier for users and subscribers to find the CTAs they’re looking for.

For instance, you already know that blue text usually denotes a hyperlink. This consistency makes it easy for internet users around the world to recognize hyperlinks. People know that if the text on a page is blue, you can probably click on it.

The same is true for call-to-action buttons. When you consistently use the same color for your click here buttons, then you are training your users to be able to quickly spot that color.

For instance, you might always make your CTAs the same shade of orange. This helps your users to easily spot your orange buttons, even when they’re just quickly scanning your content.

Don’t confuse your users by using the same color for non-action items, such as headings that aren’t clickable.

Similarly, don’t confuse your users by using a lot of different call-to-action colors on the same page.

Should all call to action buttons be the same color? Not necessarily. Feel free to choose a different color for certain buttons, so you can control which buttons stand out more.

OptinMonster consistently uses green for all of our primary call-to-action buttons. Less important buttons (such as the “Subscribe” button in the footer) use a low-contrast blue. This way, it is perfectly clear what the user should do: click on the “Get OptinMonster Now” button.

OptinMonster website screenshot. Near the top of the page, there is a bright green CTA button that says "Get OptinMonster Now." The green CTA is against a black background (very high contrast). Lower on the page, there is a "Subscribe" CTA. It is a darker blue on a lighter blue background (lower contrast)

Consistency creates a good website user experience, which is critical for conversion rate optimization.

The Bottom Line on Best Call to Action Button Color

It’s pretty much impossible to prove that one specific color is best for persuading an audience. There are just too many variables and too much conflicting evidence to come to any universal conclusion.

So instead of trying to find the “perfect” color, go for the color that increases the visibility of your call-to-action. With this simple and proven approach, you can virtually guarantee an increase in conversions.

If you’re looking for a surefire way to increase your conversion rate, a practical solution like OptinMonster is just the ticket. Rather than making guesses in the dark, OptinMonster will help you improve your conversion rates with clearer analytics and easy A/B split testing.

Click here to try OptinMonster and dramatically increase your website’s conversions.

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Best Affiliate Marketing Tools: Top 15 Tools Every Affiliate Needs https://optinmonster.com/best-affiliate-marketing-tools/ https://optinmonster.com/best-affiliate-marketing-tools/#comments Fri, 06 Sep 2024 13:30:00 +0000 https://optinmonster.com/?p=178789 Which affiliate marketing tools are worth the hype? While the affiliate marketing model looks relatively simple, it is an incredibly competitive industry. It’s no longer enough to join an affiliate program and occasionally post some good content. But there is no better and easier way to gain a competitive edge than having the best affiliate marketing …

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Which affiliate marketing tools are worth the hype?

While the affiliate marketing model looks relatively simple, it is an incredibly competitive industry. It’s no longer enough to join an affiliate program and occasionally post some good content.

But there is no better and easier way to gain a competitive edge than having the best affiliate marketing tools at your disposal.

Choosing the right affiliate tools can be overwhelming, with so many options available. But don’t worry! I’ve done the hard work for you. After extensive research and testing, I’ve compiled a list of must-have affiliate tools that every affiliate marketer should consider.

How We Do Reviews at OptinMonster

OptinMonster reviews are based on in-depth testing and unbiased analysis. Our experts thoroughly evaluate plugins for features, usability, and performance. We value transparency and trust, so our recommendations are impartial and reflect the author’s experience.

Best Affiliate Marketing Tools

Here are the top affiliate marketing tools for supercharging your campaigns:

1. OptinMonster: Email List Tool

Screenshot of OptinMonster's campaign builder dashboard. A website popup to sign up for an email newsletter is being edited, its simplicity making OptinMonster one of the best affiliate marketing tools.

OptinMonster is the best list-building tool for affiliate marketers. Your email list is an essential part of your affiliate marketing strategy because it’s the easiest way to reach your website visitors directly. You can even run an affiliate marketing business entirely through an email newsletter.

With OptinMonster, you can create email signup forms in minutes. Once subscribers join your list, you can share affiliate offers in your email newsletters.

OptinMonster has 700+ pre-made templates for multiple campaign types you can use to grow your email list:

  • Lightbox popups
  • Floating bars
  • Slide-ins
  • Fullscreen campaigns
  • Coupon wheels
  • Inline campaigns
  • Content lockers
  • and more!

You can also use A/B testing to find which campaign designs and copy give you the best conversion rates. OptinMonster won’t slow down your affiliate site and works with all major website platforms.

OptinMonster integrates with a wide range of email service providers, including Constant Contact, Brevo (formerly Sendinblue), Aweber, Mailchimp, and more. This makes it easy to sync your email list and automate your email marketing campaigns.

Overall, OptinMonster is a versatile and powerful tool that can help affiliate marketers grow their email list and generate more leads and sales. With its user-friendly interface and extensive customization options, it’s easy to create engaging and effective campaigns that drive results. These robust features make OptinMonster one of the best affiliate marketing tools for beginners and experts alike.

Pricing: OptinMonster plans start at just $59.60/year

2. Constant Contact: Email Marketing Tool

Screenshot of Constant Contact's email editor. It shows an email that says "Shop My Top Book Picks" with links to different books, making Constant Contact a great affiliate marketing tool.

Constant Contact is an excellent email service provider for sending email campaigns to promote your content and affiliate products. It also has a wide variety of other digital marketing tools including SMS and CRM features.

Constant Contact offers a drag-and-drop email builder that allows you to create professional-looking emails quickly and easily. You can customize your email template with your brand colors and logo, and choose from a variety of pre-designed templates to get started.

Constant Contact’s email segmentation and marketing automation features allow you to target specific groups of subscribers. You can create personalized campaigns based on subscriber behavior, such as past purchases or website activity, to increase engagement and conversion rates.

Constant Contact also offers social media management features that allow you to schedule and publish posts to multiple social media platforms from one place. This can save you time and help you maintain a consistent brand presence across all your social channels.

As a bonus, Constant Contact integrates easily with OptinMonster so you can grow your affiliate marketing email list quickly.

Pricing: Constant Contact plans start at $12/month based on the number of contacts

3. Google Analytics: Website Traffic Tool

Google Analytics is a treasure trove of information about your website traffic. The more you understand your web performance, the better you can optimize your content and improve lead generation.

Google Analytics event tracking can show you who’s clicking on your affiliate links. You can also see how much time your visitors are spending on your site and which posts are generating the most traffic. With this data in hand, you can try different campaign strategies to see what works best.

Google Analytics can also help you optimize your website for search engines by providing data on keywords that visitors are using to find your site. This can help you identify opportunities to improve your search engine optimization (SEO) and drive more organic traffic to your site.

Pricing: Google Analytics is free to use

4. ShareASale: Affiliate Network

Dashboard for the affiliate marketing tool ShareaSale.

ShareASale is an affiliate marketing platform you can use to search for new partnerships. You need to promote a wide variety of affiliate products to keep your audience engaged and keep commissions flowing. That’s why most affiliate marketers participate in more than one affiliate marketing program. ShareA Sale’s database of merchants makes it one of the best affiliate marketing resources available.

The ShareASale network is easy for bloggers and influencers to use. The platform offers a range of tools to help affiliate marketers find and promote products, including a searchable merchant database, customizable product links and banners, and deep linking options that allow you to link directly to specific pages on a merchant’s site.

ShareASale also handles payouts for you so you don’t have to set up accounts with too many different merchants. You can use ShareASale’s advanced reporting and analytics features to track your earnings and commissions, monitor clicks and conversions, and optimize your campaigns for better performance. This comprehensive functionality makes ShareASale one of the best affiliate tools available.

Pricing: ShareASale is free to join for affiliates but you may need to pay transaction fees and taxes on your commissions

ShareASale Alternatives: CJ Affiliate, Amazon Associates, Rakuten Advertising

5. Semrush: Keyword Research Tool

Screenshot of the dashboard for Semrush, one of the best affiliate marketing tools.  It shows a webpage's organic traffic, organic keywords, country distribution, and more.

Semrush is one of the top SEO tools in the industry. To do well with affiliate marketing, you will need to boost your traffic and search engine rankings. You can use Semrush to improve your search engine performance through:

  • Keyword research: Find the best words to use in your content
  • Backlink profile: Check how many other websites are linking to your site
  • Competitor analysis: See what terms your competitors are ranking for
  • Site audit: Find and fix problems with your website

Semrush provides insights into how well your content is doing and identifies opportunities for growth. You can also manage your social media profiles by scheduling posts, tracking engagement, and monitoring mentions of your brand. Another way to use SEMRush is to research competitors’ ads to get ideas for your own campaigns.

Pricing: Semrush plans start at $117.33/month when paid annually

SEMRush Alternatives: Ahrefs

6. All-in-One SEO (AIOSEO): On-Page SEO Tool

All in One SEO (AIOSEO) homepage

All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is a helpful SEO plugin for WordPress websites. With AIOSEO, you can make sure your content is easy to find on search engines like Google. This can help more people find your website, which can lead to more sales for your affiliate marketing business.

With AIOSEO, you can quickly check your website to see if there are any problems that need to be fixed. Then, you can use the plugin’s On-Page SEO checker to make sure your content has the right keywords and phrases that people might search for on Google.

AIOSEO also has a feature called Link Assistant that helps you find opportunities to add links to your content. These links can be internal links to other pages on your website or affiliate links that lead to products you’re promoting. By tracking the performance of these links, you can see what’s working and what’s not, and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Overall, AIOSEO is a great affiliate tool for optimizing your website and improving your affiliate marketing strategy. You can read our full AIOSEO review for more info.

Pricing: AIOSEO starts at $49.60/year

AIOSEO Alternatives: RankMath, Yoast

7. ThirstyAffiliates: Affiliate Link Cloaking Tool

ThirstyAffiliate's dashboard in WordPress. It shows a list of cloaked affiliate links, a vital tool for affiliate marketers.

ThirstyAffiliates is a useful link management plugin for WordPress. Affiliate links can be long and difficult to remember, so ThirstyAffiliates lets you create short, easy-to-remember links. This process is called link cloaking, which helps protect your affiliate links from hacking and ensures that you get the commissions you earned.

ThirstyAffiliates also provides enhanced redirect features to make sure your links work correctly. You can also use ThirstyAffiliates to insert affiliate links into your posts or pages without any coding knowledge. The plugin also offers automatic keyword linking and geolocation-based link redirects to help your audience find the right products.

Additionally, ThirstyAffiliates integrates with popular link-shortening services like bit.ly and goo.gl to make sharing your links on social media easier. This plugin is very beginner-friendly and requires no coding knowledge at all. If you ever have any questions or issues, ThirstyAffiliates’ support team is available to help within 48 hours.

Pricing: ThirstyAffiliates starts at $99.60/year.

prettylinks affiliate link tracking

Pretty Links is a useful WordPress plugin for affiliate marketers who want to make their links more readable and easier to share. When you promote affiliate offers, it’s important to share links that look professional and match your brand.

With Pretty Links, you can create customized links that are easy to remember, read, say, and type. You can also manage all your links in one place from your WordPress dashboard, which makes it easy to keep track of all your promotions.

In addition to shortening your links, Pretty Links can help you automate your affiliate marketing efforts. You can set up rules for when and where your links should appear, and the plugin will do the rest. For example, you can set up Pretty Links to automatically add affiliate links to specific keywords or phrases in your content.

Pretty Links also has several redirection options. This means that if a link you’ve shared changes or becomes outdated, you can quickly redirect it to a new link without breaking the connection. Overall, Pretty Links is an excellent affiliate tool that can help you streamline your affiliate marketing efforts and increase your conversion rates.

Pricing: Pretty Links starts at $99.60/year

9. AffJet: Affiliate Dashboard Tool

AffJet is an affiliate network dashboard that combines data from hundreds of affiliate networks. If you’re part of multiple affiliate networks, AffJet is a must for tracking your campaign performance.

AffJet is great for tracking your earnings and providing insights into your campaigns. You can use it to see how your campaigns are performing across different networks and analyze your top-performing campaigns to optimize your affiliate marketing strategy.

Additionally, AffJet lets you create custom reports based on your preferred metrics. With this feature, you can quickly generate reports that show the information you need to make informed decisions about your affiliate campaigns.

AffJet also provides robust analytics, including tracking for clicks, impressions, conversions, and earnings. These analytics help you to understand the performance of your campaigns and identify areas for improvement.

Pricing: AffJet has a free plan limited to 75 transactions per month, and paid plans start at £5/month.

10. Voluum: Affiliate Ad Tracking Tool

Voluum is an advanced affiliate marketing tool that lets you track, optimize, and automate your ad campaigns. With its powerful tracking capabilities, you can monitor every aspect of your campaigns, including clicks, conversions, and revenue.

Voluum also provides a wide range of reporting and analysis features, giving you insights into the performance of your ads, keywords, and landing pages. The platform’s Automizer tool allows you to set up automated rules that adjust your campaigns based on their performance, saving you time and effort.

Additionally, Voluum supports integration with many popular ad networks, such as Google Ads and Facebook Ads, as well as with third-party tools like Zapier and WordPress. Its intuitive user interface and customizable dashboards make it easy to use and navigate, even for beginners.

Pricing: Voluum has individual and business plans starting at $149/month

11. AdEspresso: Affiliate Ad Campaign Builder

If you’re running Facebook or Google Ads for your affiliate products, you definitely need AdEspresso. From the makers of Hootsuite social media scheduler, this affiliate marketing tool puts all your ad creation and management in one place.

One of the most useful features of AdEspresso is its ad creation tool. With this tool, you can quickly and easily create high-quality ads that are optimized for the Facebook, Instagram, and Google ad networks. AdEspresso also provides a library of pre-built templates and ad images, making it easy to create professional-looking ads without any design experience.

You can also set up automatic post promotion, campaign cancellation, and budget allocation. If you use a customer relationship management (CRM) software or email marketing tool, you can sync your leads, contacts, and audiences automatically. These integrations make AdEspresso a convenient affiliate tool.

In addition, AdEspresso offers detailed reporting and analysis features that allow you to see how your campaigns are performing. You can view metrics such as clicks, impressions, conversions, and ROI, and use this data to make informed decisions about your advertising strategy.

Pricing: AdEspresso plans start at $49/month

12. SeedProd: Landing Page Builder

coming soon page

SeedProd is the best WordPress landing page builder plugin for affiliate marketers who need to create landing pages. These landing pages receive traffic from search, social media, email newsletters, ads, or other sources. Then they drive clicks and conversions on affiliate links.

SeedProd is super easy to use with its drag-and-drop page builder, premade blocks, and extensive template library. You can preview changes to the site in real-time on desktop and mobile. There’s even a no-code theme builder you can use to create custom headers, footers, sidebars, and other WordPress elements.

In addition to its user-friendly interface, SeedProd also offers powerful features that can help increase conversions. You can add lead capture forms, countdown timers, and social proof to your landing pages. You can also integrate your pages with popular email marketing services like Mailchimp and Constant Contact.

With SeedProd, you don’t need to worry about your landing pages slowing down your affiliate website. Its code is optimized for fast loading times and it’s fully compatible with popular caching plugins like W3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache. And if you ever run into any issues, SeedProd’s friendly customer support team is always ready to help.

Our complete SeedProd review has more details if you want them!

Pricing: SeedProd plans start at $39.50/year

13. Buffer: Social Media Marketing Tool


Buffer helps you grow a social media audience to share your affiliate links with. It has a dashboard for social media posts that lets you plan and publish all in one spot.

Buffer also has an AI functionality that can brainstorm ideas, rewrite copy in different styles, and repurpose existing content. You can engage with comments from your audience and even set up smart alerts to prioritize important conversations.

In addition to scheduling and publishing social media posts, Buffer also has analytics features that help you understand how your posts are performing. You can see which posts are getting the most engagement and use that data to inform your social media strategy.

Buffer also has a feature called “Buffer Reply,” which lets you manage all your social media conversations in one place. This includes comments, direct messages, and mentions across multiple platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Pricing: Buffer offers a free plan for limited scheduling. Paid plans that start at $5/month per channel.

14. CoSchedule: Marketing Calendar Tool

CoSchedule helps serious affiliate marketers manage their full publishing workflows. Manage your email marketing and social media campaigns from one streamlined calendar.

Key features of CoSchedule include:

  • Customizable color coding
  • Project tagging
  • Calendar views and filters
  • Integrations with popular marketing tools
  • Task management

There’s also an email subject line tester, social message scheduling and analytics, and team member access.

Pricing: CoSchedule offers a free plan with basic functionality. Paid plans start at $19/month.

15. Grammarly: Spelling and Grammar Checker Tool

Grammarly makes it easy to create high-quality content free from mistakes and typos. Affiliate marketing relies on your credibility as a creator, so you don’t want to undermine yourself with basic errors.

Whether you’re writing social media posts, email campaigns, or blogs, Grammarly can help you communicate with your audience better. In addition to checking grammar, punctuation, and spelling, Grammarly’s paid plans also offer content suggestions about inconsistencies, unclear wording, readability, and more.

All these features make Grammarly an important affiliate marketing tool in your arsenal.

Pricing: Grammarly has a free plan that gives basic writing suggestions. Paid plans with full rewrites and other suggestions start at $12/month

Conclusion: Best Tools to Boost Your Affiliate Marketing Efforts

We hope this list gave you some ideas for growing your affiliate marketing business. To recap, here are the best affiliate marketing tools we recommend for experienced and new affiliates alike:

To grow your affiliate marketing email list, get started with OptinMonster risk-free today!

Affiliate Marketing Resources

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What Is Bounce Rate and How You Can Improve It https://optinmonster.com/12-tips-to-reduce-bounce-rate-and-boost-your-conversions/ https://optinmonster.com/12-tips-to-reduce-bounce-rate-and-boost-your-conversions/#comments Sun, 01 Sep 2024 16:00:00 +0000 https://optinmonster.com/?p=89548 Ever felt like you’re pouring your heart and soul into your website, but visitors just aren’t sticking around? A high bounce rate might be the culprit. In this guide, we’ll break down what bounce rate is and why it matters. We’ll also equip you with actionable strategies to keep visitors engaged and lower that bounce …

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Ever felt like you’re pouring your heart and soul into your website, but visitors just aren’t sticking around? A high bounce rate might be the culprit.

In this guide, we’ll break down what bounce rate is and why it matters. We’ll also equip you with actionable strategies to keep visitors engaged and lower that bounce rate.

Plus, we’ll show you exactly where to find bounce rate in the new world of Google Analytics 4 (GA4). Let’s get those visitors sticking around and exploring all your website has to offer!

Table of Contents

What is Bounce Rate?

A bounce is when a visitor lands on your website, checks out a single page, and then disappears. In Google Analytics terms, a bounce is a visit where someone only triggers one request to the system. This basically means they viewed one page and didn’t click anything else or navigate further before leaving.

A bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who check out a single page and then leave, without clicking anything or exploring further. These quick visits are counted as sessions lasting zero seconds because there’s no additional activity for Google Analytics to track.

Bounce rate is a key metric for understanding your website’s effectiveness, and here’s why:

  1. Conversions: High bounce rates often mean missed opportunities. When visitors leave after just one page, they’re not converting into leads or sales. By lowering your bounce rate, you can increase conversions and get more value from your website traffic.
  2. Search Engine Love (Maybe): While the exact impact is debated, some studies suggest search engines like Google might favor websites with lower bounce rates. This means bounce rate could be an SEO ranking factor and better bounce rate could potentially boost your search ranking.
  3. Website Health Check: A high bounce rate can be a red flag for issues with your website. It might indicate confusing content, poor user experience, or unclear calls to action. By analyzing bounce rate, you can identify areas for improvement and make your website more engaging for visitors.

Does a high bounce rate mean trouble? Not always!

Bounce rate matters when your website thrives on visitors exploring multiple pages. Think news sites with in-depth articles or eCommerce stores with product categories. If people are bouncing from your homepage, it might indicate that you are missing the mark.

Bounce rate is less concerning when your website is designed for single-page engagement. This applies to blogs with self-contained articles or landing pages with clear calls to action. In these cases, a high bounce rate is simply visitors finding what they need quickly.

What is a Good Bounce Rate?

You may be wondering what a good bounce rate is, which is a valid question. Here’s a baseline to start:

  • 26-40% is optimal
  • 40-70% is average
  • 70-90% is poor
  • 90%+ is very poor
  • 80%+ is very bad

Don’t get too excited if your bounce rate is lower than 20%. This is likely because of an error like duplicate analytics code, incorrect implementation of events tracking, or third-party addons such as live chat plugins.

While the above metrics are good starting points, bounce rate varies across industries, your content type, and even the device used. These bounce rate patterns give us a clue about why visitors bounce and what, if anything, to do about it.

Average Bounce Rate by Industry & Website Type

Take a look at the chart below to see an average bounce rate by industry:

Retail and eCommerce sites have the lowest bounce rates because there are so many webpages on a typical shopping site. Most shoppers will visit one page, then see another product that interests them and click there. Or they’ll purchase that item, which will take them to the checkout page. There’s a clear pathway for visitors to follow.

On the other hand, landing pages, dictionaries, portals, and blogs typically have much higher bounce rates. But this doesn’t mean all these websites aren’t converting. It just means that they serve a specific purpose that is usually filled in a single page.

Someone looking for the definition of a word will leave as soon as they’ve found that definition. Portal websites, by definition, link to content on other sites, so visitors likely only spend one session on the portal itself. And landing pages are often specifically designed without navigation or internal links so that visitors don’t get distracted from the one desired conversion event.

Average Bounce Rate by Channel

Next, let’s look at the average bounce rate by channel or traffic source:

As you can see, display and social have the highest bounce rates. That’s because visitors from those channels are likely to just be clicking casually on a banner ad or social media link, and then leaving to get back to their originally intended action.

On the other hand, referral and email tend to have the lowest bounce rates. Visitors coming in through a link from a similar website are more likely to already be interested in your content. Email subscribers are even more invested in your business, since they opted into your email list. As you’re thinking about how to reduce the bounce rate on your site, make sure to look at which channels bring in most of your traffic.

Average Bounce Rate by Device

Finally, another factor that affects bounce rate is device. Unfortunately, you don’t have any control over what devices your visitors are using, but you can still use this data to improve bounce rate.

As you can see, mobile users have a higher bounce rate across all industries. This makes sense, since people browse on their phones while waiting in line, riding the bus, and doing other things that might pull their attention away at any time. If you get a lot of mobile users, your bounce rate may appear higher than a site with mostly desktop users. This is just good to keep in mind as you work to reduce your bounce rate.

So the definition of a good bounce rate is complicated. Perhaps more important than comparing your bounce rate to other websites is monitoring your own bounce rate over time. If you have a content-heavy site like a blog, your bounce rate may always be higher than your neighbor’s eCommerce site. That’s okay! Bounce rate is not the only metric of how well your site is converting, and it’s definitely not the most important one.

How to Find Bounce Rate on Google Analytics (GA4)

GA4 redefines bounce rate by focusing on engagement. It considers a variety of factors beyond mere page interaction.

A session in GA4 is considered engaged if it:

  1. Lasts longer than 10 seconds,
  2. Triggers a conversion event,
  3. Generates at least two page views or screen views.

In GA4, the bounce rate is essentially the inverse of the engagement rate. A lower bounce rate in GA4 indicates higher engagement, meaning more sessions meet the engagement criteria.

This approach provides a more comprehensive understanding of how users interact with a site. It acknowledges that engagement can take many forms, not just clicking through to another page.

Here’s how to find bounce rate on  Google Analytics 4 (GA4):

Step 1: Navigate to Engagement » Pages and screens

Step 2: Click the pencil icon in the upper right of your screen; a sidebar will open

Step 3: Click on Metrics

Step 4: Click on the bottom Add metric option, then type “bounce” to find and select Bounce rate

Step 5: Once it’s been selected, you’ll see Bounce rate added to the list of Metrics. Click Apply.

Step 6: Click the Save button. A dropdown will appear – choose Save changes to current report.

Step 7: A popup will appear asking if you’re sure you want to save your changes. Click Save

Why Do People Bounce?

Website visitors bounce for a variety of reasons, but some of the most common reasons are:

  • Unrelevant Content: If the content on your page doesn’t match what the visitor was searching for, they’ll likely bounce to find a better fit.
  • Poor User Experience (UX): A confusing or cluttered website layout, slow loading times, or difficult navigation can frustrate visitors and lead them to bounce.
  • Mobile Unfriendliness: In today’s mobile-first world, a website that’s not optimized for smartphones and tablets will quickly lose visitors.
  • Technical Issues: Broken links, error messages, or website crashes will send visitors scrambling for the exit button.
  • Misleading Headlines and Descriptions: If your page title and meta description don’t accurately reflect the content, visitors might feel deceived and bounce.
  • Slow Page Speed: People are impatient! If your website takes too long to load, visitors will likely bounce before they even see your content.
  • Hidden Costs or Unexpected Information: If visitors discover surprise charges or unexpected requirements after clicking through, they might bounce out of frustration.

How to Reduce Bounce Rate

  1. Suggest Other Content
  2. Show Targeted Content to Engaged Users
  3. Give Users Something Else to Do
  4. Display External Media Onsite
  5. Optimize Content for Search Intent
  6. Improve Your Site Speed
  7. Optimize Your Site for Mobile Users
  8. Make Your Text Readable
  9. Split Test Headlines and Page Design
  10. Help Visitors Find Their Way
  11. Match CTA to Intent
  12. Optimize Call to Action Placement

1. Suggest Other Content

Perhaps the content on a particular webpage really wasn’t what the visitor was looking for. Rather than just shrug your shoulders and let them go, you can use OptinMonster’s signature Exit-Intent® Technology to help them find what they need before they leave your site.

You can use a related post plugin to suggest other posts that might be more helpful. And because WordPress shortcodes work beautifully in OptinMonster, you could even create an exit intent popup showing related posts.

relatedpostpopup

You can also use exit popups to offer a content upgrade, discount, or free shipping code. OptinMonster’s gamified campaigns are a great way to recapture wandering attention.

discount wheel popup demo
Reduce Your Bounce Rate With OptinMonster Today!
BONUS: Done-For-You Campaign Setup ($297 value) Our conversion experts will design 1 free campaign for you to get maximum results – absolutely FREE! Click here to get started →

2. Show Targeted Content to Engaged Users

Remember, not all bounces are bad. A user may read your article, find exactly what they wanted, and then leave. This is normal and very common for blog posts and resource sections.

But that doesn’t help your bounce rate or conversions. In this case, you want to show these users with the most relevant offer.

For example, if a user lands on a blog post about cooking, then your offer should be a recipe book instead of fashion items.

Using OptinMonster’s page-level targeting, you can show visitors customized offers based on the pages they visit, traffic source, and more. You can even specify that a campaign only displays to visitors who have scrolled a certain distance down the page or spent a specified amount of time on the page.

Showing targeted content will help you reduce your website’s bounce rate, boost engagement, and conversions.

3. Give Users Something Else to Do

Every page on your website should have a clear call to action (CTA).

Some CTAs include purchasing a digital or physical product, opt into your email list, share your article, or fill out a contact form.

OptinMonster can serve all kinds of CTA campaigns to precisely targeted audiences.

For example, you could use WPForms to create a survey that displays right before visitors exit.

4. Display External Media Onsite

Many businesses embed feeds of their own social media or video content as a way to show the latest updates.

But this can unintentionally create too many opportunities for visitors to bounce. They might see an interesting image from your Instagram feed and click on it. If this was the only page on your site they visited, this counts as a bounce even though they’re going to your social media.

You can use Smash Balloon plugins to build beautiful social media feeds right on your site. With Smash Balloon, visitors can click on an image or video to see the caption, description, and comments, all without leaving your site.

Another major cause of bouncing is from search engine result pages (SERPs). When a visitor clicks on a search result, they’re looking for something specific. If they don’t find the answer or solution quickly, they’ll bounce.

MonsterInsights can help you understand what visitors are searching for.

Then you can use a premium SEO plugin like AIOSEO to optimize your content for the most-searched keywords.

6. Improve Your Site Speed

One of the easiest ways to improve bounce rate is to improve your site speed.

Users are in a hurry and decide whether to stay on a site within the first few seconds. If your site doesn’t load quickly, they might assume it’s broken, or simply run out of patience and leave.

You can measure your site speed with tools like Pingdom and Google Page Speed. These tools also give you recommendations for boosting your site speed.

Use speed tests like Pingdom to help reduce the bounce rate on your website

To speed up your site, you should optimize your images, use a Content Delivery Network (CDN), add better caching, and consider switching to a faster hosting provider like Bluehost.

One of the quickest and easiest ways to keep your website speedy is by using a CDN. Find the right one for you on our list of the best CDN providers to speed up your website.

7. Optimize Your Site for Mobile Users

Many users are browsing on mobile devices while on the go. If they see a full desktop site squashed into a tiny screen, they won’t stick around trying to figure out a way to access your site.

Make sure your site is easy to use on a smartphone. Consider creating mobile-only landing pages or using click-to-call and click-to-scroll buttons to make the mobile user experience better. You can read other best practices for mobile landing pages here.

8. Make Your Text Readable

While images and video capture the attention, most of the important information on a website is still communicated with text. Don’t pay so much attention to pretty visuals and fancy design that you ignore basic readability.

For example, this site looks nice but is very difficult to read. The navigation links are low contrast and lightweight. There is even a banner that says the site is best viewed on desktop, and that banner itself is low contrast and hard to read. This all creates a poor user experience, especially for mobile users!

You need to make sure that the text on your website is easily readable on all devices. It shouldn’t be too small or else users will have to squint or zoom in to read it. Use font sizes that are large enough on smaller screens.

Choose fonts that are clear and easy to read. Cursive or handwritten accent fonts are fine when used sparingly. Use contrasting colors and enough line spacing, font weight, padding, and margin for the text to be clearly readable. This example does a good job balancing high contrast body fonts with accent fonts, and also uses a high contrast button call to action.

Another important point to consider is the language and style you choose to use on your website. Use easy-to-understand language in a normal conversational tone.

9. Split Test Headlines and Page Design

It’s possible that your content does match the visitor’s intent, but the headline or call-to-action doesn’t make that clear.

That’s why A/B testing different elements on your site is important. A/B split testing is when you create 2 versions of the same page with different headlines, copy, imagery, social proof, or CTAs. Then you see which version performs better.

You can also create different landing pages targeting different audiences, regions, or keywords. If you are serving an international audience, then you can detect a user’s location and show them a localized landing page. Showing users content in their own language, currency, and cultural background greatly improves user experience and can help improve page bounce rate.

10. Help Visitors Find Their Way

Your webpage may actually be exactly what your visitor is looking for, but if they have to scroll 80% of the way down the page to find it, chances are they’ll bounce.

Make sure your content answers the question or gets to the point quickly. If your blog post or webpage has multiple sections, consider adding a table of contents or button that jumps to the most interesting part.

For example, many recipe blogs include a long explanation of the recipe development process along with step by step photos. Some visitors may find that content interesting, but many just want the recipe to cook from. Recipe bloggers often place a Jump to Recipe button on all their posts. This lets the visitor who needs something to cook right now find the most helpful part of the post.

11. Match CTA to Intent

You always want make sure that your CTAs are clear and that they match the intent of the visitor.

User intent can fall into 4 categories:

  • Informational: they want a specific answer or general information
  • Navigational: they’re looking for a specific website or webpage
  • Commercial: they’re investigating products or brands with future intent to purchase
  • Transactional: they’re intending to purchase or complete an action

A user wondering how to clean sneakers is unlikely to appreciate an intrusive popup selling new shoes. Instead, perhaps at the end of your sneaker-cleaning tutorial, you could link to your post reviewing a brand of machine-washable sneakers. On the other hand, someone searching for that same review might be interested in your affiliate coupon for that brand. It all comes back to understanding your visitor’s intention and making sure all your content aligns with that intent.

12. Optimize Call to Action Placement

Most users decide whether or not they like a website in the first couple of seconds. So the content in the very first part of your webpage is important. You can optimize this area to immediately describe what you are selling and include a prominently visible call to action.

Make your call to action clear and honest. Misleading users will create a bad user experience which is the number one reason for high bounce rate and low conversions.

There you have it, our favorite ways to reduce website’s bounce rate. When you match your content with the visitor’s intent, you can keep your visitors happy and your bounce rate low.

If you’re looking for other ways to capture more traffic and boost your conversions, check out this article on how to Create a Promotional Strategy for Higher Conversions.

What are you waiting for? Start increasing pageviews with OptinMonster.

More on Conversion Rate Optimization:

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What Is a Good CTR for Google Ads + How to Improve Yours https://optinmonster.com/ctr-google-ads/ https://optinmonster.com/ctr-google-ads/#comments Sat, 31 Aug 2024 01:00:00 +0000 https://optinmonster.com/?p=135651 What is a good CTR for Google Ads? Are your ads measuring up? PPC ads are a vital part of any eCommerce digital marketing strategy. However, it can be disheartening to spend time and money on Google Ads, only to find they’re not generating the traffic or sales you expected them to. If you want …

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What is a good CTR for Google Ads? Are your ads measuring up?

PPC ads are a vital part of any eCommerce digital marketing strategy. However, it can be disheartening to spend time and money on Google Ads, only to find they’re not generating the traffic or sales you expected them to.

If you want to see better results from your Google Ads, you need to improve your CTR (click-through rate). But first, it helps to know what a good click-through rate is so you can accurately evaluate the performance of your ads.

In this article, we’ll share what is a good CTR rate for Google Ads. Plus, if you find your Google Ads CTR to be on the low side, we’ll share tips on how to improve it.

Before we find out what click-through rate you should be aiming for, let’s start with the basics.

What Is a Click-Through Rate?

Click-through rate (CTR) is simply the ratio of people who click on your Google Ad when they see it.

You can calculate your CTR by taking the number of clicks that your Google Ad gets and dividing it by the number of times your ad is shown, like this:

ad click-through rate formula

For example, if your ad gets 5 clicks and 100 impressions, then your CTR would be 5%.

Related Content: How to Boost the ROI of PPC Campaigns With Targeted Optins

Figuring out your CTR is important because it lets you see how well your ads are performing. If your CTR is good, it shows that your Google Ads are helpful and relevant. But, if your click-through rates are low, then your time, money, and efforts are going to waste.

Here’s how to link Google Ads to Google Analytics to track your ad campaigns better.

Your CTR will vary depending on which networks you use to place your ads. There are 2 Google networks you can use to place ads. This article is going to mostly focus on ads for the Search Network, but I’ll briefly go over both.

The Search Network

With the Search Network, your ad shows when a user searches for terms related to your keywords.

For instance, if a user searches Google for “hiking boots,” ads with those keywords will display at the top of search results with a “Sponsored” label above each one:

Google search results page for "hiking boots." It shows two sponsored results above the organic results.

Click-through rates for the Search Network are typically higher because your ads are relevant to what the user is searching for.

Related Content: Remarketing Lists for Search Ads: Custom Campaigns and Tailored Bids

The Display Network

On the other hand, with the Display Network, you can show ads on websites or apps that users are browsing, like in the image below.

Google Adsense Display Ad on a blog post

These Display Ads can appear on any of the millions of websites that use Google AdSense for revenue. Users might see your ad on a particular website because the content is relevant to your keywords or because you’re retargeting previous visitors to your website.

Since these users aren’t actively searching for your keywords on the web, they’re less likely to click on a Display Network ad. Therefore, CTR is generally lower for the Display Network, as you’ll see below.

Related Content: Google Display Retargeting Ads: A Budget-Friendly Google Ads Option

Now that you’re more familiar with click-through rates for Google Ads, let’s find out what a good CTR rate is.

What Is a Good CTR for Google Ads?

A good click-through rate (CTR) for Google Ads typically ranges from 7% to 9%, depending on your industry. Let’s take a closer look.

According to WordStream/LocaliQ’s 2023 Google Ads Benchmarks (PDF) report, the average click-through rate for Google search ads is 6.11% across all industries.

The current CTR for Google display ads is more difficult to find, as LocaliQ no longer tracks that metric. Their 2018 data showed an average CTR of 0.46% for Google display ads, compared to 3.17% for search ads during that same year.

We can pull 2 important conclusions from this data:

  • The CTR for Google search ads has increased drastically over the last 6 years.
  • The CTR for Google display ads is much lower than for search ads.

What defines a good CTR for your industry? Here’s a breakdown of search ad CTR for 23 different industries in 2023:

A bar graph from WordStream.com titled Search Advertising Benchmarks 2023: Average Click Rate by Industry. Here is the data: Animals & Pets: 11.78%, Apparel/Fashion & Jewelry: 8.12%, Arts & Entertainment: 6.46%, Attorneys & Legal Services: 4.76%, Automotive – For Sale: 8.77%, Automotive – Repair, Service & Parts: 5.91%, Beauty & Personal Care: 6.87%, Business Services: 5.11%, Career & Employment: 6.67%, Dentists & Dental Services: 5.34%, Education & Instruction: 6.41%, Finance & Insurance: 6.18%, Furniture: 6.19%, Health & Fitness: 6.44%, Home & Home Improvement: 4.80%, Industrial & Commercial: 5.57%, Personal Services: 7.54%, Physicians & Surgeons: 6.73%, Real Estate: 9.09%, Restaurants & Food: 8.65%, Shopping, Collectibles & Gifts: 6.39%, Sports & Recreation: 10.53%, Travel: 10.03%.

The average CTR varies from 4.76% for Attorneys & Legal Services all the way to 11.78% for Arts & Entertainment.

However, different studies also show very different CTR averages. For instance, 2024 data from FirstPageSage says the average CTR for a #1-ranking search ad is 2-6%. They also list the average display ad CTR as 0.089%.

So, what is a good CTR for Google Ads? It’s complicated. If your click-through rate is well below the industry average, you have plenty of room for improvement.

And, even if you’re meeting industry standards, you can still take steps to get a higher CTR to generate even more leads and sales.

Want to boost your lead generation the quick and easy way? Sign up for OptinMonster today!

Before trying to improve click-through rate, let’s talk about the factors that affect it.

Factors That Affect Your Click-Through Rate

Your click-through rate isn’t up to chance. Instead, a number of elements help determine whether your ad gets a lot of clicks or whether it’s ignored.

Here are some of the factors that can affect it:

Ad Position

When a user searches on Google for their keywords, the search results will potentially include several relevant ads at the top of each page.

Since the #1 spot is the first ad that users see, it gets the most clicks out of them all. 2024 Google Ad data from FirstPageSage shows that the higher your ad is ranked in search engine results, the higher your CTR:

FirstPageSage's chart for clickt-through rates (CTR) for ranking of Google Ads and organic search results. Ad Position 1: 2.1%. Ad Position 2: 1.4%. Ad Position 3: 1.3%. Ad Position 4: 1.2%. Search Position 1: 39.8%. Search Position 2: 18.7%.

Headline and Copy

Your CTR also depends on the effectiveness of the messaging in your Google Ad. Your ad headline and copy need to stand out and encourage users to click.

Related Content: 21 Viral Headline Examples and How You Can Copy Their Success

To provide an example, I did a quick Google for “bridesmaid dresses” The top-ranking ad was from the bridal apparel company Azazie:

Sponsored Google search result showing a listing for Azazie Bridesmaid Dresses. The ad mentions that the business is verified and highlights their 'Try-Before-You-Buy' service, with bridesmaid dresses starting at $79. The ad also includes an image of a woman wearing a long, blush-colored bridesmaid dress

Their headline focuses on the affordability of their bridesmaid dresses, which start at $79. The descriptive text highlights their try-before-you-buy service and the 500+ styles available. Their ad also includes a photo of one of their dresses.

When you give users solid information about why they should choose your company, they’ll be more likely to click on your ad.

Ad Relevance

Users are more likely to click on an ad that’s relevant to their search queries and interests.

If you want your ad to reach users who are interested in your products, then you need to include relevant keywords in your ad.

An ad that has the users’ relevant keywords within the headline and copy will get more clicks than a generic ad.

How to Improve Click-Through Rate for Google Ads

If your click-through rate leaves something to be desired, check out these tips for getting a high CTR for your Google Ads.

1. Include a Special Deal in Your Headline

People are drawn to great deals like moths to a flame. So, if you want to improve a low CTR, add a special deal in your headline.

For instance, check out this Google Ad from Bed Bath & Beyond.

Sponsored Google search ad from Bed Bath & Beyond. The heading says "Living Room Furniture Sale - 70% Off 1000s of Items*"

Users will be more likely to click on this ad that offers 70% off versus a similar ad that doesn’t offer any savings.

2. Write Higher-Converting Ad Copy

Now it’s time to bust out your writing skills. You need to start writing higher-converting ad copy to improve your CTR. Thankfully, you don’t have to be an expert writer. Instead, you just need to practice these simple tips.

Add a Strong Call-to-Action

You need to persuade users to click your ad by adding strong calls-to-action (CTAs) like “Buy Now,” “Learn More,” “Get Started,” etc.

Use Power Words:

Power words like “You,” “Now,” “Best,” and “Find” are good at convincing users to engage with your business.

Solve Customers’ Problems:

Think about the user’s point of view. When they search for your keywords, what problems are they hoping to solve? Clearly state how you can solve those problems, like Neutrogena does in this Google Ad:

Google search ad for Neutrogena showcasing their acne treatment products. The ad headline reads 'Tackle Your Acne Concerns' with a subtext about reducing acne marks and uneven skin tone in 1 week.

I got this ad after searching for “acne treatment.” The ad uses phrases like “Tackle Your Acne Concerns” and “Less Acne Marks in 1 Week” to explicitly promise to address the customer’s problems.

3. Link Ads to Relevant Landing Pages

This tip can not only boost CTR but can also improve your conversion rates after users click your ad.

When someone clicks on your Google Ad, they should be taken to a page on your website that matches what they’re looking for.

Earlier, I showed you a Google Ad from Azazie. The ad was for their bridesmaid dresses, so when I clicked the link, I was taken specifically to the bridesmaid dress section of their site:

A page on Azazie website displaying a selection of bridesmaid dresses"

Azazie also sells wedding dresses, shoes, accessories, and other formal apparel. But this ad was targeted to people searching for “bridesmaid dresses.” Therefore, the ad needed to link to that section of their site, rather than just their homepage.

So, make sure your Google Ad leads to a relevant landing page, sales page, or product page, so youre target audience finds the exact products they’re seeking.

4. Use Detailed Audience Targeting

If your ad isn’t being seen by your target audience, it’s not going to get any clicks. That’s why it’s important to use detailed audience targeting for your Google Ads campaigns.

Detailed audience targeting lets you be more accurate when choosing who sees your ads. With Google Ads, you can target remarketing lists, custom combination lists, life events, and interest categories.

target the right audience with your ad

For instance, if you want to create a Google Ad for your personal training business, you can target users who are interested in fitness.

You can dramatically increase your CTR by putting your ads in front of the users that are most likely to buy from you.

6. Take Advantage of Ad Extensions

Google Ads are quite small, which means you don’t have a lot of space to try and sell your business. But, with Ad extensions, you can increase the size of your Google Ads and give yourself more room to work with. This means you can make your ads more relevant to users, and they’ll stand out from the crowd.

There are a number of different types of Ad extensions you can take advantage of, here are a few examples:

Location Extension:

The location extension lets you add an extra line at the bottom of your Google Ad that displays your business’s physical address.

Did you knowYou can target visitors to your site using OptinMonster’s geo-location targeting feature. Our customer Skates.co.uk increased daily sales by £2000 just by using geotargeting. Check it out!

Call Extensions:

With call extensions, you can show your business phone number on your Google Ad. On mobile, users can simply click on your ad to make a call to you.

Sitelink Extensions:

Sitelink extensions let you link people to other specific pages of your website. This lets you show the user more of what you offer, making the ad more relevant to their needs.

In the Zoho ad below, the company links to pages for their Forever Free Plan, their Features, and their Integrations:

Google Ad for Zoho. Headline reads "Email Marketing Solution - Budget-Friendly Software." Below, there are prominent links for 3 pages on their site: Forever Free Plan, Features, & Integrations.

Sitelinks are a great option if there are multiple pages that are relevant to the search query.

7. A/B Test Your Ads

You may have heard about A/B testing, also known as split testing, for websites and email marketing. These tests let you try out 2 or more different versions of a webpage or email campaign to see which version performs better.

In Google Ads, split tests are called custom experiments.

With these testing features, you can determine which headlines, copy, images, and extensions get the highest CTR. Then, you can end your experiment and run the most effective version of your ad.

8. Improve Your Quality Score

In your Google Ads account, you can view the Quality Score of your ad groups. Ultimately, this score plays a huge role in how your ad ranks.

If you’ve implemented all of the tips above, you should have a solid score. However, continue to refine and tweak your ads to see if you can bring it up even more.

Make the Most of Your Google Ad Traffic

What is a good CTR for Google Ads? A good Google Ads CTR is one that matches up with your industry’s benchmarks and succeeds in driving new leads to your website.

Of course, paid ads aren’t the only way to reach your target audience. You also need to focus on your website’s SEO (search engine optimization). Here are a few resources to help:

Once you have all this new traffic coming to your site, you need to take advantage of it.

OptinMonster is the best tool available to convert your website traffic into leads and sales.

With our popups, floating bars, inline forms, and other onsite marketing campaigns, you can:

And that’s just the beginning!

Shockbyte doubled their sales with a single, extremely simple exit popup from OptinMonster:

Shockbyte's exit-intent popup that says "WOAH, HOLD ON THERE. We've just launched our brand new web experience! To celebrate, we're offering 50% off for a limited time." It then asks for an email address to claim the discount.

And PodBike converted 18.22% of visitors into email subscribers with geotargeted campaigns.

If you want to see these kinds of results for your business, try OptinMonster!

Get Started With OptinMonster Today!
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10 Creative Examples of Testimonials to Win Customers + Tips and Best Practices https://optinmonster.com/9-customer-testimonial-examples-that-you-can-use-on-your-website/ https://optinmonster.com/9-customer-testimonial-examples-that-you-can-use-on-your-website/#comments Fri, 30 Aug 2024 15:00:00 +0000 https://optinmonster.com/?p=91755 Testimonials are a beacon of trust and credibility. They are not just customer reviews; they are stories of experiences, a powerful tool in shaping consumer decisions. Customer testimonials are a powerful tool that every marketer should have in their arsenal. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the different types of testimonials – from crafting them …

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Testimonials are a beacon of trust and credibility. They are not just customer reviews; they are stories of experiences, a powerful tool in shaping consumer decisions.

Customer testimonials are a powerful tool that every marketer should have in their arsenal.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the different types of testimonials – from crafting them effectively to designing impactful testimonial pages.

What Is a Testimonial?

Testimonials are authentic endorsements from satisfied customers, sharing their personal experiences with a product or service. They provide valuable social proof, helping potential customers make informed decisions by showcasing the real-world benefits and outcomes achieved.

When searching for the answer, shoppers almost always turn to other shoppers. This phenomenon is known as social proof: a psychological mechanism where people tend to follow the actions and behaviors of other people in an attempt to make the “right” choices.

Why Customer Testimonials Are So Effective?

Customer testimonials work like magic for several compelling reasons, deeply rooted in psychology and consumer behavior. Here are reasons why they are so effective:

Trust and Credibility

In a world flooded with marketing messages, consumers often view testimonials as more genuine and trustworthy than traditional advertising. Hearing or reading about someone else’s positive experience with a product or service reduces doubt and builds credibility.

Social Proof

Psychologically, people tend to do what they see others doing. This concept is known as social proof. Testimonials prove that others have not only purchased your product or service but are satisfied customers, encouraging prospective customers to follow suit.

Relatability and Empathy

Testimonials often include personal stories or specific scenarios in which a product or service has made a difference. This relatability allows potential customers to see themselves in the testimonial, creating an emotional connection and making the product or service more appealing.

Risk Reduction

Purchasing a product or service often comes with perceived risk, especially in online and high-value transactions. Testimonials help mitigate this risk by assuring others who have already made the purchase and are happy with their decision.

Real-World Proof

Unlike theoretical benefits listed in a sales pitch, testimonials offer real-world proof of a product’s or service’s effectiveness. They often include practical examples of how a product has solved a problem or improved someone’s life, which is more convincing than abstract claims.

Variety of Perspectives

Testimonials can offer a range of perspectives and experiences, catering to a diverse customer base. Different testimonials (written, video, or case studies) appeal to different people, making the overall content marketing strategy more inclusive and effective.

Enhanced Engagement

Testimonials are often more engaging than standard marketing copy, especially in video or story format. They can capture attention and maintain interest more effectively, leading to higher engagement rates.

SEO Benefits

From an online marketing perspective, testimonials can improve SEO (Search Engine Optimization). They often include relevant keywords and phrases that potential customers might use in search queries.

Building a Community

Testimonials can contribute to a sense of community around a brand. When customers see others praising a product or service, they feel part of a group of like-minded individuals, which can foster brand loyalty.

Feedback Loop

Testimonials attract new customers and provide valuable feedback for businesses. They can highlight strengths and areas for improvement, guiding future product development and marketing strategies.

In summary, customer testimonials work like magic because they leverage trust, social proof, emotional connection, and real customers evidence to influence consumer behavior, making them a potent tool in any marketing arsenal.

How To Write a Testimonial

Here’s a guide to copywriting a testimonial that’s both impactful and genuine:

1. Be Genuine

  • Authenticity is Key: Your testimonial should reflect your experience. Authentic testimonials resonate more with the audience.
  • Honest Feedback: Share what you genuinely liked about the product or service. If there were any downsides, it’s okay to mention them, as this adds to the credibility.

2. Be Specific

  • Detail Your Experience: Instead of vague statements like “great product,” explain what made it great. Was it the customer service, the efficiency of the product, or something else?
  • Highlight Unique Features: Mention specific features or aspects of the service that stood out to you and why they were important.

3. Keep it Concise

  • Brevity is Effective: A concise testimonial is more likely to be read and remembered. Aim to deliver your message in a few impactful sentences.
  • Focus on Key Points: Stick to the most critical aspects of your experience. Avoid going off on tangents.

4. Personal Touch

  • Share Your Story: If the product or service significantly impacted you, share that success story. Did it solve a problem for you? How did it improve your life or work?
  • Relatable Scenarios: Mention specific scenarios where the product or service made a tangible difference. This helps potential customers relate to your experience.

5. Clear Endorsement

  • Recommend Confidently: If you’re happy with the product or service, clarify it. A straightforward endorsement can be very persuasive.
  • Why You Recommend: Briefly state why you would recommend this product or service to others. Is it because of its quality, reliability, or something else?

Example of a Well-Written Testimonial:

“I recently purchased the XYZ software, which has transformed how I manage my business. The user-friendly interface and powerful analytics tools have saved me hours of work each week. What impressed me most was the customer support team, who were always available to help with my queries. I highly recommend XYZ for any small business owner looking for an efficient and reliable management tool.”

The best testimonial is the one that is compelling because it’s genuine, specific, concise, includes the customer’s story, and ends with an explicit endorsement. Remember, a well-crafted testimonial helps others make better choices and strengthens the credibility of the product or service you endorse.

Testimonial Design Best Practices

Brands tend to display their best testimonials on the homepage. But it is also recommended to have a dedicated testimonial landing page.

Creating a testimonial landing page that effectively showcases customer endorsements requires thoughtful design. Here are some best practices to ensure your testimonial page is as impactful as the testimonials themselves:

Layout and Visuals

  • Clean and Engaging Design: Opt for an uncluttered and visually appealing layout. A well-organized page helps in drawing attention to the testimonials themselves.
  • Visual Hierarchy: Use design elements like font size, color, and spacing to create a hierarchy, making the most important parts (like the testimonial text) stand out.
  • Consistent Theme: Ensure the design theme is consistent with the rest of your website for a cohesive user experience.

Use of Multimedia

  • Diverse Formats: Incorporate a mix of text, video, and audio testimonials. Testimonial videos can be engaging, showing real people and their emotions.
  • Quality Matters: Ensure that all multimedia elements are of high quality. Poor-quality images or videos can detract from the credibility of the testimonials.
  • Subtitles and Transcripts: For video and audio testimonials, provide subtitles or transcripts not only for accessibility but also for those who might browse in sound-sensitive environments.

Readability

  • Clear Fonts: Choose fonts that are easy to read. Avoid overly stylized fonts that might be difficult to decipher.
  • Contrast and Color: Ensure sufficient contrast between the text and the background. Poor contrast can make reading difficult.
  • Bite-Sized Chunks: Break up longer testimonials into shorter paragraphs or bullet points for easier consumption.

Branding

  • Brand Alignment: The design of your testimonial page should align with your overall brand identity. This includes using your brand’s color scheme, fonts, and tone.
  • Consistent Messaging: How testimonials are presented should reflect your brand’s voice and messaging. It should be consistent across the page, whether professional, casual, or playful.
  • Brand Imagery: Use elements or imagery that resonate with your brand’s ethos. This could be anything from your logo to specific graphics or icons that are part of your brand’s visual language.

Additional Tips

  • Navigation and Accessibility: Ensure the testimonial page is easy to navigate and accessible to all users, including those with disabilities.
  • Call to Action: Consider including a call-to-action (CTA) encouraging visitors to learn more about your products or services or to submit their own testimonials.
  • Regular Updates: Keep the testimonial page updated with fresh content to show that those who use your product or service are happy customers.

A well-designed testimonial page showcases customer satisfaction and reinforces your brand’s credibility and trustworthiness. By following these best practices, you can create an effective testimonial page that supports your marketing efforts and resonates with your target audience.

10 Examples of Testimonials

The following are the 10 different types of customer testimonials examples that you can use on your website:

  1. Quotes
  2. Social Media Posts
  3. Case Studies
  4. Video Testimonials
  5. Interview testimonials
  6. Influencer Testimonials
  7. Press Reviews
  8. Peer Reviews
  9. Image Testimonials 
  10. Blog Testimonials/Reviews

1. Quotes

Quote testimonials are the most popular form of testimonials. They’re powerful, they’re credible, and, most importantly, they’re effective.

As the name suggests, these are testimonials simply pull a quote directly from a customer.

Here’s an example of using a customer quote from one of OptinMonster’s campaigns:

Review with OptinMonster campaign

This example is highly effective for 2 reasons:

  • It uses a testimonial with a photo to build credibility
  • It’s displayed on a popup campaign

Popups have been proven to increase conversions. Especially when you add custom triggers to the campaign to attract visitors based on their behavior.

In fact, a simple popup with an exit-intent trigger is how Crossrope increased its email list by 900%.

Adding a customer quote only increases your chances of converting your site’s traffic. If you can, add a high-quality image of the customer providing the quote.

This adds extra credibility to your campaign and will boost your conversion rates for signups, pre-orders, revenue, and more!

Want to see more conversions on your site?

Get Started With OptinMonster Today!
BONUS: Done-For-You Campaign Setup ($297 value) Our conversion experts will design 1 free campaign for you to get maximum results – absolutely FREE! Click here to get started →

2. Social Media Posts

With the popularity of social media, getting customer testimonials is extremely convenient.

All you have to do is pull screenshots from a Facebook post or a Twitter update, and you have instant proof that your customers love your products.

No one questions the authenticity of these screenshot testimonials. Many of these social media posts are public, so if someone wants to check it out for themselves, they can usually do so.

Here’s an example of a very good testimonial pulled from Facebook:

rsz_facebook-review-sushi

To get social media testimonials like these, keep your customers engaged with your social media accounts by posting regularly yourself, and encourage them to tell you about their experience with your products.

And instead of taking screenshots, you can keep your website automatically updated with social media testimonials using a plugin like Smash Balloon.

smash ballon social media feeds plugin

With Smash Balloon, you can easily create a feed of tweets that mention your account or use your branded hashtag. Or, you can embed a feed of Facebook reviews on your website.

Here’s an example of a Twitter testimonials feed:

display twitter hashtag feed with smash balloon

Setting up a feed is super simple, you can design the feed to match your brand, and you can control exactly what content is displayed in your feed.

3. Case Studies

Case studies can also serve as great testimonials when you take small sections of them.

For instance, you could take a full-blown case study and break it down into brief, digestible tidbits. Then, showcase these tidbits on a product page.

You can link back to the full case study so users can conduct a further investigation if they desire.

Here is an example of a case study for one of our customers, DealDoktor:

dealdoktor-case-study (1)

We used the full case study as a blog post and used just a small quote from it on our Testimonials page. Then we linked back to the full case study.

Here’s what that testimonial looks like:

Case Study Link

4. Video Testimonials

Video testimonials have quickly gained popularity in recent years, and it’s become easier than ever to create and publish videos on your website.

The great thing about video testimonials is that they really stand out and make a big impression. There’s just something about seeing a talking head and hearing an actual voice that establishes likability and trust.

Timothy Sykes features his top student front and center in a lengthy video on his “Testimonials” page:

timothy sikes video testimonial

In fact, the entire page is filled with video testimonials.

5. Interview Testimonials

Interviews are especially effective because they help to get more details about the customer experience, painting a vivid picture in the minds of your prospects.

To get a great interview, make sure you ask questions that elicit a story about how and why your customer came to buy your product.

Here are some examples of questions to ask your customer in an interview (suggested by Sean D’Souza):

  • What was the obstacle that would have prevented you from buying this product?
  • Would you recommend this product? If so, why?
  • What did you find as a result of buying this product?
  • Is there a specific feature you liked most about this product?
  • What would be three other benefits of this product?
  • Is there anything you’d like to add?

6. Influencer Testimonials

Influencer testimonials are a powerful form of endorsement, leveraging the credibility and reach of influencers to promote products or services. These testimonials are particularly effective due to the influencer’s established trust and rapport with their audience.

One example is the YouTube sensation from Karachi, Pakistan, Irfan Junejo. Irfan often uploads testimonials as reels, videos, or posts. Brands then repurpose the testimonials in their marketing collaterals.

In the video above, he can be seen talking about the pizza place Famous O’s.

People tend to place a higher value on something when an authority figure approves of it. So if one or more of your customers are well-known or authorities, make sure to feature those people on your website.

These customers could be celebrities, well-known professionals in your industry, or people who have certain qualifications that make them authorities.

On our Testimonials page, we showcase our customers Michael Stelzner, Joost de Valk, Chris Brogan, Neil Patel, and many other high-profile authorities.

OptinMonster Testimonials

If you can’t get an actual testimonial, simply drop the names of your high profile customers.

Or, display the logos of high profile companies you’ve served like Neil Patel does on his “Consulting” page:

Neil Patel Logos

7. Press Reviews

Press reviews are persuasive because they come from sources who are professionally qualified to speak on the topic.

For example, new restaurants often try to get reviews from local restaurant critics. Here’s an example from the LA Times:

Restaurant-Review

The key to getting press reviews is making real relationships with the right people.

Press reviews aren’t easy to come by, but when you do land one, it can make your brand popular in an instant!

8. Peer Reviews

Remember what we said about how people are influenced by the behaviors of other people like them? That’s why peer reviews–especially from people who resemble your customer profile–are so powerful.

Yelp is a great place to get peer reviews. You can use a screenshot to place these reviews on your website.

Yelp-Review

But there are a lot of other review sites and apps besides just Yelp. Here are a few:

9. Image Testimonials

You may have seen this type of testimonial in the past, and it’s usually limited to healthcare/fitness niches. That said, you can use these if your business has any kind of “Before/After” effect on your customers.

Here’s an example from the skincare company Bioclarity:

bioclarity-testimonial-page-example

This can be one of the most powerful types of customer testimonials. It doesn’t require any commentary from the actual customers.

Instead, the images show the radical transformation your product or services can have.

It’s like they say, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

10. Blog Testimonials and Reviews

Finally, you might be lucky enough to have customers write blog posts or reviews about your products.

These can be incredibly effective at showcasing your product or services from a neutral point of view. Plus, these are fairly common types of posts.

You’ll see product reviews across most websites, including our own. Here’s an example of an OptinMonster review from the WPForms blog:

wpforms optinmonster review example

These are excellent resources for sharing across social media, using for social proof in your own blog posts, sending to your mailing list, and much more.

The customer testimonial examples shared above can be used in a variety of ways. You can add them to your website, embed them in blog posts, reshare them on social media, and much more.

We highly recommend trying to get each type of customer testimonial and leveraging this social proof to grow your business faster.

Now that we’ve seen customer testimonial examples, let’s quickly look at 3 ways you can increase your testimonials/reviews.

How to Boost Customer Testimonials

1. Leverage Social Proof Notifications

If you’re serious about getting more customer testimonials, then you’ll definitely want to add social proof notifications to your website.

These are small, non-intrusive messages that show your site’s traffic how others are engaging with your brand.

As a result, your site’s visitors get hit with a dose of FOMO (“fear of missing out”), and they’re more likely to take the same actions as others.

That means you can quickly create a notification for when someone leaves a review or testimonial on your site. And this will motivate more of your customers to do the same.

But how do you create customer testimonial notifications if you’re not a professional coder?

The easiest way is with a tool like TrustPulse:

trustpulse new homepage updated

TrustPulse is the BEST social proof software on the market and the easiest way to increase customer testimonials FAST.

That’s because TrustPulse gives you everything you need to create your notifications without requiring any technical skills.

Instead, you can design these notifications to suit your exact needs. That means you can change the image, text, link, and layout of your notification to match your brand’s unique style.

Then you can create a trigger to make the notification display, like when someone leaves you a review on Google My Business or Yelp.

So let’s say you want your site’s traffic to see when someone leaves your business a review on Google.

You create your notification and sync it with your Google My Business account through the TrustPulse Zapier integration.

Then when someone leaves you a review, the following message appears on your website:

trustpulse demo-min

When users click on the notification, they’ll be redirected to your Google review. As a result, they’ll be more likely to leave their own customer testimonial on your behalf.

You can even tailor the message to ask customers to leave a review, depending on where they are in their customer journey.

Social proof notifications are one of the easiest ways to get more customer testimonials in less time. And TrustPulse users have been shown to see an instant boost in sales by up to 15%.

Want to see it in action for yourself? Try out TrustPulse today 100% risk-free!

2. Reward Customers for Sharing Their Experiences

Offering a discount, coupon code, or extra product as an incentive to review your business’s products is one of the most effective ways to increase the number of reviews you receive.

Add an incentive at the checkout page to get the most reviews. If you can capture customers at the moment of their purchase, your brand will be fresh on their minds, and excitement for their new product will be high.

This is the perfect time to get them talking about your business through a review.

Or you can send an email thanking customers for their purchase and offering them an exclusive discount or coupon code for writing a review on your company.

This also gives users a chance to test your product before they leave a review, which sometimes might be necessary.

That said, the longer you wait to ask for a customer testimonial, the harder it will be to get users to give you one.

3. Segment Your Emails

Audience segmentation is the process of dividing a larger group into smaller groups (or “segments”) based on their similarities.

It’s a way to organize and categorize your audience, so you can target them more easily and know the types of content that will appeal to each of those groups.

Take this example: You’re a marketing manager for a popular food company, which makes and sells orange-flavored dog biscuits. Your job is to increase the number of sales from your current customer base by getting more online reviews.

First, you want to figure out which online groups of people are most likely to buy your product—let’s call these people your “market segments.”

So how do you go about doing this?

The first thing to do is look at who you already sell to. If the customers who have given a review tend to be older than those who haven’t, you might want to create a segment of your audience who are seniors.

If another segment is more likely to buy products directly from Amazon rather than from your company’s website, there may be a significant opportunity to build sales around that group specifically and drive them back to your business.

There are many ways you can segment your audience, but the most effective method is to figure out which parts of your audience have similarities in demographics and online behavior.

This will help you to determine what content they might respond to and increase your chances of getting more customer testimonials.

Looking for even more ways to increase customer testimonials? We’ve written an ultimate guide on how to ask for a testimonial including 7 tips from industry experts as well as templates.

Remember: testimonials are critical for making sales, so don’t delay. Choose one of the types of testimonials above and implement it on your website today!

And that’s all for today. These have been 10 types of customer testimonial examples, along with 3 concrete strategies for getting more.

We hope you enjoyed this post. If you did, you’ll definitely want to check out the following:

These articles will have everything you need to improve social proof on your site so you can start generating higher sales today!

Harnessing the Power of Customer Testimonials with OptinMonster

From showcasing real-life experiences to leveraging the influential power of social proof, testimonials can dramatically transform how potential customers perceive your products or services.

But how do you effectively gather, manage, and display these powerful testimonials? This is where OptinMonster steps in.

OptinMonster isn’t just about creating stunning pop-ups and engaging lead forms; it’s a comprehensive tool that can help you harness the full potential of customer testimonials.

With OptinMonster, you can easily collect testimonials through targeted, well-designed forms and pop-ups.

Imagine capturing customer feedback right at the peak of their satisfaction – OptinMonster makes this a reality. But it doesn’t stop there. You can then strategically display these testimonials on your website, using OptinMonster’s templates and customization options to ensure they align perfectly with your brand and catch your visitors’ attention.

Moreover, OptinMonster’s A/B testing feature lets you see which testimonials resonate most with your audience, helping you refine your approach for maximum impact. And with detailed analytics, you’re always in the know about how your testimonial-driven campaigns are performing.

In a world where consumers are bombarded with choices, let OptinMonster be your partner in standing out.

Start your journey with OptinMonster today and transform your customer testimonials into a powerful driver of trust, engagement, and conversions.

Get Started With OptinMonster Today!
BONUS: Done-For-You Campaign Setup ($297 value) Our conversion experts will design 1 free campaign for you to get maximum results – absolutely FREE! Click here to get started →
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How to Launch a Product: 14-Step Checklist for Your Next Product Launch https://optinmonster.com/product-launch-ultimate-guide/ https://optinmonster.com/product-launch-ultimate-guide/#respond Wed, 28 Aug 2024 17:30:00 +0000 https://optinmonster.com/?p=140775&preview=true&preview_id=140775 You’ve put time, sweat, money, and maybe a few tears into developing a new product. Now, you need to plan a product launch that will reach your target audience and drive sales. This comprehensive guide will cover the 14 most important steps of a successful product launch plan. I’ll walk you through each stage, including …

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You’ve put time, sweat, money, and maybe a few tears into developing a new product. Now, you need to plan a product launch that will reach your target audience and drive sales.

This comprehensive guide will cover the 14 most important steps of a successful product launch plan. I’ll walk you through each stage, including steps like market research, product marketing, and post-launch analysis.

Whether you’re starting a brand new business or adding to your existing product line, this product launch checklist provides a clear path to success.

What Is a Product Launch?

A product launch is the introduction of a new product into the market. It involves strategic planning to fine-tune your messaging, gain maximum visibility, and build excitement among the target audience. A successful product launch drives initial sales, creates brand momentum, and sets the foundation for long-term success.

Overview of Product Launch Stages

To create a comprehensive product launch plan, you need to understand the 3 basic stages involved:

  1. Pre-Launch: This stage involves market research, product development, and creating a launch strategy. Activities include identifying the target audience, setting goals, building buzz through marketing campaigns, and ensuring that all technical and operational aspects are in place.
  2. Launch: The launch phase is when the product is officially introduced to the market. It includes executing marketing campaigns, engaging with potential customers, and monitoring the initial response. This stage builds brand awareness and generates sales momentum.
  3. Post-Launch: After the product is launched, the focus shifts to customer feedback, analyzing performance metrics, and making necessary adjustments.

Importance of Having a Product Launch Strategy

When starting an online business, you don’t just make it up as you go along. Instead, you create an eCommerce business plan, as well as a digital marketing plan. You need a similar plan every time you launch a new product.

It’s not enough to simply create a great product. You have to introduce it to the market in a way that captures attention, generates interest, and drives sales. Without a clear strategy, even the most innovative products can fail to gain traction.

Successful Product Launch Example: Golden Monkey Gummies

For an example of a successful product launch, let’s look at NielsenIQ’s case study on Golden Monkey, a candy manufacturer. Using extensive market research, Golden Monkey decided to launch a new gummy candy product. Their team spent months identifying a target audience, developing the product, and planning a marketing strategy.

All this work paid off at launch time:

Over the course of six months, the 30-year-old manufacturer was able to identify a growth opportunity, develop a new product, and enter a new market. And the success of the new Gummy product was clear from the get-go, eventually achieving $1.4 million in sales in the first month after launch.

In short, if you want your new product to be profitable, you have to invest in research and planning well before your launch.

Benefits of a Strategic Product Launch

A strategic product launch offers numerous benefits, including:

  • Increased visibility: A well-executed launch can create buzz around your product, ensuring it reaches a wide audience.
  • Customer engagement: By engaging with your target audience through marketing campaigns, you create excitement for your product release, leading to higher conversion rates.
  • Competitive advantage: A clear strategy lets you position your product effectively in the market. You can differentiate it from competitors and highlight its unique value proposition.
  • Measurable goals: Your product launch strategy should be based on research and include measurable goals. That way, you can track your progress and make adjustments along the way.

Product Launch Checklist: 14 Steps to Successfully Launch a New Product

Now, I’m going to share the 14 steps involved in launching a product. Of course, every business and product is different, but this checklist will provide a basic template for your product launch strategy. I’ve separated the steps for the 3 stages of launching a product.

Product Launch Checklist by OptinMonster. Pre-Launch includes conducting market research, developing messaging and branding, defining goals and success metrics, creating a launch timeline, producing marketing content such as website popups and blog posts, preparing sales and customer support teams, and generating pre-launch leads. Launch involves executing marketing campaigns, engaging with media, monitoring and responding to customer feedback, and tracking early performance. Post-Launch includes evaluating performance, continuing marketing and customer engagement, and planning for future launches.

Pre-Launch Stage

  1. Conduct Market Research & Product Testing
    • Identify Target Audience: Conduct surveys, interviews, and focus groups to define and understand your target market. This process will help you create buyer personas.
    • Analyze Competitors: Review competitor products and strategies to identify gaps and opportunities.
    • Validate Product-Market Fit: Test your product concept with potential customers to ensure it meets their needs.
  2. Develop Marketing Messaging & Branding
    • Unique Value Proposition (UVP): Clearly articulate the unique benefits and value your product offers. Need some help? Check out our guide to writing value propositions.
    • Key Messaging: Develop consistent messaging that resonates with your target audience across all channels.
    • Branding Elements: Finalize product name, logo, and branding guidelines.
  3. Define Goals & Success Metrics
    • Outcomes: Set goals for benchmarks such as marketing reach, pre-orders, and sales.
    • KPIs & Metrics: Define the key performance indicators (KPIs) you’ll track to measure the success of each launch stage. These could include web traffic, social media engagement, email list growth, revenue, and more.
  4. Develop a Launch Timeline
    • Set Key Milestones: Outline major activities and deadlines leading up to the launch, including content creation, marketing campaigns, and internal training.
    • Assign Responsibilities: Designate team members for each task to ensure accountability and smooth execution.
  5. Create Marketing Content
    • Website Popups: Use OptinMonster to create popups, floating bars, and other onsite campaigns to announce your new product to website visitors.
    • Landing Pages: Develop optimized landing pages with clear calls-to-action (CTAs). If you’re new to landing pages, check out our landing page how-to guide.
    • Email Campaigns: Draft and schedule pre-launch email campaigns to build anticipation. Email marketing is one of your most powerful tools for product promotion.
    • Blog Posts: Write announcement posts as part of your larger content marketing strategy.
    • Social Media Posts: Prepare posts for all of your social channels.
    • Videos: Create video announcements, tutorials, how-tos, and testimonials. Learn tips on creating videos in our complete video marketing guide.
    • Public Relations Assets: Create press releases and media kits to send to journalists and influencers.
  6. Prepare Sales & Customer Support Teams
    • Training Sessions: Educate your sales and support teams on the product’s features, benefits, and key messaging.
    • Internal Documentation: Provide teams with detailed product guides and FAQs.
  7. Generate Pre-Launch Leads
    • Grow Your Email List: Use website popups and special offers to grow your email list ahead of your product announcement.
    • Offer Early Access to Subscribers: Build excitement and FOMO (fear of missing out) by letting customers sign up for exclusive early access to your new product.

Need some help generating new leads for your product launch?

OptinMonster is the #1 tool for turning your website visitors into email subscribers and customers. You can use OptinMonster’s popups, floating bars, slide-in scroll boxes, and other campaigns to build excitement for your new product. You can even add features like countdown timers and coupon wheels to increase engagement.

OptinMonster has 700+ premade templates, which you can customize in our easy drag-and-drop builder. Here’s our basic product launch template, which you can edit to fit your product announcement:

Website popup that says "Launching soon" as a headline. Below, there's a countdown timer, counting days, hours, minutes, and seconds until launch. Test says" We're creating something exciting and amazing for you. Subscribers gain special early access!" A large button says "Yes! I want early access," and smaller linked text says "No thanks I'm not interested."

Visitors who click the “Yes! I want early access” button will be prompted to enter their email address. Then, you can continue marketing to that new lead with your promotional email campaigns.

Launch Stage

  1. Execute Marketing Campaigns
    • Email Blast: Send out launch announcement emails to your entire list.
    • Social Media Blitz: Launch coordinated social media campaigns across all platforms.
    • Paid Advertising: Place targeted ads on Google, social media, and relevant websites.
    • Influencer & Partner Promotions: Collaborate with influencers and partners to promote the product.
  2. Engage With Media
    • Press Release Distribution: Send out your press release to media outlets and industry publications.
    • Media Interviews: Schedule interviews or guest appearances on relevant podcasts, webinars, or blogs.
  3. Monitor & Respond to Customer Feedback

OptinMonster can help you with feedback collection. We offer multiple templates for customer feedback surveys, such as this one:

OptinMonster popup that includes fields for First Name, Email address, and a text area asking "What do you love about our brand."
  1. Track Early Performance
    • Real-Time Analytics: Monitor KPIs like website traffic, conversion rates, and sales figures.
    • Adjust Strategies: Be prepared to tweak marketing tactics based on initial performance data.

Post-Launch Stage

  1. Evaluate Performance
    • KPI Assessment: Compare actual performance against your initial goals and KPIs.
    • Customer Feedback: Compile and analyze your customer surveys.
    • Sales & Support Processes: Identify any areas for improvement.
  2. Continue Marketing & Engaging

Here’s an example of an Exit-Intent® popup we’ve used on our own site:

OptinMonster popup that says "Special Offer! Complete your checkout now and get 20% off!" CTA buttons say "Claim My Discount NOW!" and "I have a few questions first"

OptinMonster’s Page-Level Targeting lets you show a cart abandonment popup just to visitors who exit your site from a cart or checkout page. Alternatively, you could also target a popup to visitors exiting from the product page for your newly-launched product. These visitors have shown a high level of interest in your product. A special discount might be enough to win that sale.

  1. Plan for Future Launches
    • Post-Mortem Analysis: Conduct a detailed review meeting with your team to discuss what went well and what could be improved.
    • Document Findings: Compile insights and lessons learned into a report to guide future launches.
    • Plan Next Product Updates or Launches: Use your launch data to optimize the next phase of product development and marketing efforts.

Create a Product Launch Plan & Grow Your Business!

If you follow this 14-step product launch guide, you’ll be on the right track to meeting your business’s goals for your new product.

Want to learn even more about promoting new and existing products? Here are a few resources:

No matter what kind of product you’re launching, OptinMonster can help you convert more of your website visitors into customers. There’s no better way to build your email list, offer exclusive discounts, and build excitement for your new product.

Get Started With OptinMonster Today!

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YouTube SEO: 10 Steps to Skyrocket Your Video Search Rankings https://optinmonster.com/youtube-seo/ https://optinmonster.com/youtube-seo/#respond Thu, 22 Aug 2024 16:30:00 +0000 https://optinmonster.com/?p=138763 If video is a major part of your digital marketing strategy, then YouTube SEO is pivotal to growing your brand. YouTube is the world’s 2nd most popular search engine, and researchers estimate that it contains about 14 billion videos as of 2024. That’s a lot of videos to compete with. How can you get your …

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If video is a major part of your digital marketing strategy, then YouTube SEO is pivotal to growing your brand. YouTube is the world’s 2nd most popular search engine, and researchers estimate that it contains about 14 billion videos as of 2024.

That’s a lot of videos to compete with. How can you get your brand’s videos to rank in YouTube searches? You’ll need to master SEO for YouTube, so you can boost your visibility, engagement, and subscriber base.

We’ve accomplished all of those goals and more on OptinMonster’s YouTube channel. Using the tactics I’m sharing in this post, we’ve reached a subscriber base of nearly 10,000. That’s a big accomplishment for a niche channel, and it’s exponentially higher than the channels for our competitors.

Screenshot of OptinMonster's YouTube channel, showing 9.82K subscribers.

In this guide, I’ll cover everything you need to improve your YouTube video ranking. I’ll share YouTube SEO tips ranging from keyword research to advanced optimization techniques, and I’ll give actionable steps to rank higher and get more views on your videos.

Throughout the article, you’ll also see examples of how we implement these tactics at OptinMonster. That way, you can understand exactly how each tip works for a real brand.

Just Getting Started on YouTube?

Check out our popular guide: How to Get Your First 1,000 YouTube Subscribers (13 Tips!)

What Is YouTube SEO?

YouTube SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of optimizing your videos to rank higher in YouTube search results. It can also include improving ranking in Google search results. Like traditional SEO, YouTube SEO involves keyword research, but there are also several platform-specific optimization strategies.

YouTube’s algorithm considers several key factors when ranking videos. Some of the most important factors are:

  • Relevance: How well your content matches the user’s search query
  • Watch Time: How long viewers watch your videos
  • Click-Through Rate (CTR): Percentage of people who click on your video after seeing it in search results
  • Engagement: The number of likes, comments, and shares on the video and on the channel overall

Throughout this article, I’ll discuss tactics to improve these factors and increase your YouTube video rankings.

Keyword Research: The Foundation of SEO for YouTube

Before you can start optimizing your YouTube videos, you have to find the right keywords to target.

Keywords and search queries are the terms and phrases that users type into the YouTube search bar when looking for content.

By identifying and using the right keywords, you help YouTube understand the content of your videos. That makes it more likely that your video will appear in search results. Smart keyword research not only drives more views. It also attracts the right audience: people who have a genuine interest in your content, brand, and products.

Here are some of the best ways to conduct keyword research to help your YouTube video ranking.

1. Use YouTube’s Autosuggest Feature

YouTube's search bar with "best dog food" types in. Automatic suggestions include "best dog food brands," "best dog food for pitbulls," and "bet dog food for puppies."

YouTube’s search bar is an excellent starting point for keyword research. As you type a word or phrase, YouTube automatically suggests popular searches. These autosuggestions reflect what users are actively searching for, making them valuable keywords to consider.

This process helps you both:

  1. Identify keywords for videos you’ve already made
  2. Find keywords to make new video content for

Example: If your video is about “yoga for beginners,” start typing “yoga for” into YouTube’s search bar. You might see autosuggestions like:

  • “yoga for beginners”
  • “yoga for flexibility”
  • “yoga for stress relief”

These suggestions show what people are actively searching for. This information provides specific angles or subtopics to focus on in your video. For example, a specific phrase like “yoga for stress relief” could help you reach a new segment of your target audience.

Tip: Try typing a few variations of your main topic into the search bar, and take note of the autosuggested phrases. These can often reveal niche keywords you might not have considered.

2. Use Google Trends for YouTube Search

Screenshot of using Google Trends YouTube SEO keyword research. It  shows a search for "healthy smoothie recipes" with "YouTube Search" selected in a dropdown menu. There's a line graph showing interest over time.

Google Trends is a free SEO tool that helps you discover trending keywords and topics. It offers a dedicated section for YouTube search data, allowing you to explore the popularity of specific keywords over time. You can also find trending topics within your brand niche, along with seasonal search trends.

Google Trends also offers a comparison feature. You can enter 2 search terms and see how their popularity compares over time. This free YouTube tool can help you determine the best main keyword for your video.

Example: Let’s say you want to make videos for healthy smoothie recipes. You can enter that main keyword into Google Trends and select YouTube Search. You’ll see a line graph of the term’s interest over time. If you scroll down, you’ll find a list of related keywords. You can see both:

  1. Top Related Queries: Similar keywords with the highest level of interest. For “healthy smoothie recipes,” I got results like “weight loss smoothie recipes,” “healthy breakfast recipes,” and “healthy breakfast smoothie recipes.”
  2. Rising Related Queries: These are search terms that are rapidly growing in popularity. They help you take advantage of keywords that are on an upswing. For “healthy smoothie recipes,” the rising related queries were “healthy snacks recipes” and “healthy green smoothie recipes.”

Tip: Use Google Trends to compare the search volume of different keywords. Opt for keywords that show consistent or rising interest over time, rather than those that spike and drop quickly.

3. Use Advanced YouTube SEO Tools

The YouTube search bar and Google Trends give you a great starting point for YouTube SEO research. But if you want to dig deeper, you’ll need a more advanced tool. Here are my top suggestions.

Semrush & Rank Tracker for YouTube

Semrush is the most thorough and effective tool for SEO keyword research. In fact, we list it as #1 in our list of best keyword research tools. Semrush focuses on traditional web search SEO, so it can help you get your YouTube videos ranking higher in Google searches.

Semrush also offers the Rank Tracker for YouTube app, which includes these features:

  • Keyword tracking for up to 200 YouTube keywords
  • Competitor video analysis
  • YouTube rank change monitoring

Both Semrush and Rank Tracker for YouTube offer free trials.

TubeBuddy:

TubeBuddy is a browser extension and app for YouTube. It helps you optimize your YouTube videos to improve search rankings and engagement.

Here are some of TubeBuddy’s top features for SEO:

  • Keyword Explorer: See detailed insights on keyword search volume, competition, and overall score, specifically for YouTube.
  • Tag Management: Quickly discover and copy your competitors’ best-performing video tags.
  • SEO Studio: This suite of SEO tools walks you through the process of optimizing all aspects of your YouTube video.

You can try out basic features, including the Keyword Explorer, with TubeBuddy’s free version. For full access, you’ll need to sign up for one of TubeBuddy’s paid plans.

Tip: Use these tools to identify long-tail keywords, which are more specific and less competitive. A long-tail keyword can be something like “what are the best ingredients for a protein smoothie.” This phrase probably has a lower search volume. However, if you’re selling protein powder, you want to target videos to people using that search term.

How to Optimize YouTube Videos for SEO: 10 Steps & Best Practices

OptinMonster's YouTube SEO Checklist:
Optimize Your Video Title

Write Engaging Video Descriptions

Tag Videos for Better Visibility

Categorize Your Video Appropriately

Add a Custom Thumbnail

Include Timestamps to Create Chapters

Add Subtitles or Closed Captions

Include Cards and End Screens

Group Videos Into Playlists

Track & Analyze Your Video's Performance
  1. Optimize Your Video Title
  2. Write Engaging Video Descriptions
  3. Tag Videos for Better Visibility
  4. Categorize Your Video Appropriately
  5. Add a Custom Thumbnail
  6. Include Timestamps to Create Chapters
  7. Add Subtitles or Closed Captions
  8. Include Cards and End Screens
  9. Group Videos Into Playlists
  10. Track & Analyze Your Video’s Performance

1. Optimize Your Video Title

Your video title should include your video’s main keyword. That lets the YouTube algorithm understand your content’s topic. Additionally, your title needs to entice users to choose your video over others in the search results.

When users are searching YouTube, your video title is one of the first things they see. That makes titles extremely important for click-through rates (CTR). Giving your video a catchy title is essential for getting more people to click on it, just like having a good email subject line increases open rates.

Here’s an example of a title we’ve used for a video on OptinMonster’s YouTube channel:

An OptinMonster YouTube video with the title "Upselling Vs. Cross Selling: Which One Is More Effective?" The title is optimized for SEO.

The title starts with our keyword phrase: “Upselling Vs. Cross Selling.” It continues with a question that shows exactly what information searchers will learn if they watch the video.

YouTube Title Best Practices:

  • Use keywords early: Use your main keyword early in the title. For example, if your keyword is “YouTube SEO,” a good title might be “YouTube SEO: 10 Tips to Rank Your Videos Higher.”
  • Incorporate keywords naturally: Your keyword phrase should make grammatical sense in your title. Don’t force it in a way that sounds awkward.
  • Keep Titles Concise: Aim for titles around 60 characters to avoid truncation in search results.
  • Consider Using Numbers, Parentheses, or Brackets: Variations from regular text can draw a searcher’s eye. For instance, you can say “Top 5 Tips” instead of simply “Tips.” Or you can add “(2024 Update)” to a new video guide.

A well-written, keyword-focused title won’t magically rank your video content at #1, but it’s an important first step.

2. Write Engaging Video Descriptions

Video descriptions help the YouTube algorithm understand the content of your video and provide context to viewers. You can also include important links in your descriptions.

Here is the description we use for our “Upselling vs. Cross Selling” video:

YouTube video description for an OptinMonster video. It starts "What’s the difference between an upsell and a cross-sell? These two strategies may sound similar but there are important differences. And, the most effective sales tactic will depend on the situation. In this video, I’ll explain the difference, and share examples of when to use each strategy."

Then there are a variety of links to related content and social channels. Getting more clicks improves YouTube SEO.

The description starts with a long-tail search term: “What’s the difference between an upsell and a cross-sell?” After the brief summary of the video’s content, the rest of the description consists of links to related content and OptinMonster’s social channels.

YouTube Description Best Practices:

  • Include Keywords: Include your main keyword, or an important variation, within the first few lines of the description. Avoid keyword stuffing.
  • Include CTAs and Links: Guide viewers with clear calls-to-action (CTAs), such as “Subscribe for more tips!” Include links to relevant content. YouTube descriptions are also the perfect place to add affiliate links.
  • Focus on the First Few Lines: The first 100-150 characters should be catchy and informative. This portion is what appears in search results and above the fold in the description box.

Remember, YouTube’s search algorithm prioritizes user engagement. So if viewers regularly click links in your descriptions, YouTube will see that you’re providing helpful content.

3. Tag Videos for Better Visibility

Tags are a type metadata. They help YouTube understand the context of your video and improve its discoverability. Essentially, you’re providing a list of topics that your video falls unders. While not as powerful as titles or descriptions, tags still play a role in ensuring your content appears in relevant searches.

For our “Upselling Vs. Cross Selling” video, here are some of the tags we used:

  • upselling vs cross selling (always include your main keyword as a tag)
  • upselling and cross selling
  • upselling tips
  • how to upsell
  • email marketing
  • email marketing strategy

As you can see, we included several keyword variations that relate to the content of the video.

YouTube Tagging Best Practices:

  • Start with your main keyword: Make your primary keyword the first tag.
  • Include Related Terms: Use tags that are semantically related to your main keyword.
  • Add spelling variations: If your topic or product is regularly misspelled, include common misspellings as tags.
  • Use a YouTube Tag Generator: If you use TubeBuddy, you’ll get tag suggestions as you fill out your YouTube video’s details. You can also try TubeRanker’s YouTube Tag Generator Tool, which is free for limited use.
TubeRanker's YouTube Tag Generator Tool. This screenshot shows a search for "email marketing." The tool has generated tag suggestions such as "email marketing for beginners," "email marketing strategy," and email marketing course." These tags can improve SEO for YouTube videos.

4. Categorize Your Video Appropriately

During the publishing process, YouTube will ask you to select a category for your video. While that sounds simple, it can be tricky to choose the best one. YouTube only offers 15 categories, and not every video will fall neatly into just one of them.

For example, it can be difficult to decide between 2 similar categories, such as “Comedy” or “Entertainment.” Or, you might have a video that demonstrates how to use a piece of software. Should you select “Science & Technology” or “Howto & Style”?

These best practices can help guide your decision.

YouTube Category Best Practices:

  • Consider your audience: Think about who your target audience is and which category they’re likely to browse or search within. For instance, you might have an educational video about eco-friendly beauty products, and you’ll feature affiliate links in your description. While the video could fall under “Education,” your target audience is more likely to search for “Howto & Style” videeos.
  • Stay consistent across your channel: If you regularly post content on a similar topic, keep your videos in the same category. Consistency helps build a clear brand identity and makes it easier for viewers to find related content on your channel.
  • Reassess over time: As your channel grows and evolves, it may be worth reassessing your category choices. Your audience may shift over time, or your content focus may change. Don’t hesitate to update the category of older videos when needed.

5. Add a Custom Thumbnail

It’s easy to just let YouTube select a screenshot from your video to use as a thumbnail. However, these images are rarely eye-catching or effective. Your thumbnail is your visual hook to get searchers to click on your video, and a well-designed custom thumbnail can significantly boost your CTR.

For OptinMonster’s YouTube videos, we always create thumbnails that are fun, attractive, and intriguing:

OptinMonster YouTube thumbnails. Most of them include the host's face, and they all include bright contrasting colors and bold text.

YouTube Thumbnail Best Practices:

  • Stay on-brand: Use consistent colors, fonts, and design elements to make your thumbnails easily recognizable.
  • Use faces and text: Thumbnails with faces tend to perform better because they create an emotional connection. Adding text can also clarify the video’s content at a glance.
  • Choose high-contrast colors: Use bright colors and high-contrast images to make your thumbnail stand out. You want your thumbnail to be easy to see, even on small screens.
  • A/B Test your thumbnails: YouTube has recently rolled out A/B testing for thumbnails. This feature lets you try out up to 3 thumbnails to see which performs the best.

6. Include Timestamps to Create Chapters

Timestamps are specific time markers added to a YouTube video’s description. They allow viewers to jump directly to a particular moment or section of the video. They’re perfect for longer videos or tutorials, where viewers might be interested in specific segments.

For example, we uploaded our webinar about A/B testing to YouTube and added timestamps in the description:

YouTube video description that includes timestamps for chapters. The timestamps start:
0.00 Introduction and Webinar Overview
02:04 The Concept of Split Testing
04:26 Defining A/B Split Testing

Timestamps provide context that help YouTube video rankings.

When timestamps are added to a video, YouTube automatically generates chapters, which are clickable segments on the video progress bar. Here’s what that looks like on our webinar video:

Screenshot of a YouTube video featuring chapters along the video timeline. The chapter currently highlighted is titled 'Creating Split Tests in OptinMonster' at the 18:52 timestamp.

Timestamps help your YouTube SEO strategy in 3 ways:

  1. Increased watch time and engagement: Timestamps and chapters make it easier for viewers to find the information they want, which leads to better audience retention and more clicks. In turn, that helps your videos’ search rankings.
  2. More context for search algorithms: The titles of your timestamps give YouTube and Google more information about your video’s content. That can help your video rank for more search terms.
  3. “Key moments” in Google search: Google uses your chapters to create “key moments” that show up in Google video search results. Here’s an example of key moments that display on an OptinMonster video in Google search:
A Google video search page where the first result in a YouTube video from OptinMonster. The search result has been expanded to show "10 key moments in this video."

Best Practices for Adding Timestamps:

  • Identify key sections: Before adding timestamps, identify the main sections or topics covered in your video. These sections should be natural breaks in the content that a viewer might want to jump to.
  • Use descriptive labels: When labeling your timestamps, use clear and descriptive text. For example, instead of just writing “1:23 – Tip 1,” give more information by writing “1:23 – Tip 1: Optimize your video title.”
  • Start with a 0:00 timestamp: Always start your list of timestamps with “0:00” and use a label like “Introduction.” This sets the stage for the viewer and lets them know they can jump to other sections if needed.
  • Be consistent: If you’re creating multiple videos with timestamps, try to maintain a consistent format. Consistency helps regular viewers know what to expect and makes your videos more user-friendly.

7. Add Subtitles or Closed Captions

Accessibility is the #1 reason you should add subtitles or closed captions to all your videos. It’s also helpful for your YouTube SEO strategy and can help your videos get higher rankings.

Subtitles increase audience retention by catering to viewers who prefer watching without sound. More importantly, they help non-native speakers and users with hearing impairments. Your subtitles also give YouTube and Google more text to index and rank your video for, which directly impacts SEO.

YouTube Subtitle Best Practices:

  • Create Accurate Subtitles: If you followed a script for your video, you can always upload your script using these transcript formatting guidelines. Otherwise, start with YouTube’s automatic captioning feature, or use a third-party service to generate subtitles. Make sure you always review and edit the transcript for accuracy.
  • Decide between subtitles and closed captions: Subtitles only include the words that are spoken during your video. Closed captions also include descriptions of any noises, such as sound effects, music, or even sighs and laughs. Use closed captions if your video includes non-verbal sounds that are important to the video’s meaning.

8. Include Cards and End Screens

Cards and end screens are interactive, clickable elements that you can add to your YouTube videos. They help keep viewers engaged, promote additional content, and guide them towards specific actions. Cards and end screens can encourage viewers to subscribe to your channel, watch another video, or visit an external website.

These in-video links let you encourage viewers to take a desired action. For example, the end screens for many of our videos include a link to sign up for OptinMonster:

End Screen for an OptinMonster video. It includes a link that says "Use the code OMVIDEOS. OptinMonster.com. Sign Up"

Clicks on your cards count as engagement, which helps your YouTube SEO.

Best Practices for Cards:

  • Focus on timing: Place cards during moments when viewers are highly engaged or when they might be interested in exploring more content. For instance, if you mention a topic that you cover in another video, that’s the perfect moment to suggest it through a card.
  • Keep it relevant: Make sure your card is highly relevant to the current video. You might link to a related video, a playlist, or a poll to engage your audience further.
  • Limit the number of cards: Too many cards can be distracting. Stick to a few that provide real value and are well-timed.

Best Practices for End Screens:

  • Keep it simple: Use a clear call-to-action (CTA) that encourages viewers to take the next step, such as subscribing or watching another video.
  • Make it look great: Design end screens that are visually appealing and consistent with your brand. Use contrasting colors to make buttons and CTAs stand out.

9. Group Videos Into Playlists

YouTube playlists are collections of videos on a particular topic or related to a specific interest. They help you organize your content and keep viewers engaged for longer periods. Playlists create a seamless viewing experience that encourages binge-watching. That will increase overall watch time and improve the ranking of your YouTube videos.

OptinMonster’s YouTube channel is organized into a number of playlists, including this one called “How to Grow Your Email List”:

OptinMonster YouTube playlist called "How to Grow Your Email List." It includes 22 videos, starting with:
"5 Places to Add Email Signup Forms for Higher Conversions" and "First 5 Steps to Start Your Email List."

YouTube Playlist Best Practices:

  • Group related content: Organize your videos into thematic playlists, so viewers can easily find the content they’re interested in. For example, a fitness channel might have separate playlists for beginner workouts, advanced routines, and nutritional advice.
  • Optimize playlist titles and descriptions: Just like with individual videos, use keywords in your playlist titles and descriptions to help them show up in search results.
  • Use a logical order: Arrange videos in a logical order within the playlist. For tutorial or educational content, this might be chronological or step-by-step. For entertainment, it might be by popularity or release date.

10. Track & Analyze Your Video’s Performance

SEO for a YouTube video isn’t a one-and-done process. You need to monitor each video’s performance so you can continually optimize your YouTube search rankings. Analyze metrics such as watch time, click-through rate (CTR), audience retention, likes, comments, and shares. This data lets you know which strategies are working and which ones you need to adjust.

Best Practices for Analyzing Performance:

  • Use YouTube Analytics: YouTube’s built-in analytics let you easily track key metrics. Pay specific attention to any spikes and drop-offs in your videos. That helps you understand what keeps your target audience engaged and where they’re losing interest.
  • Experiment and test: Use your data to test different strategies. For instance, if your CTR is low, experiment with different thumbnails and titles. If your watch time is low, consider adjusting your video’s length or structure.
  • Monitor Engagement: Keep an eye on likes, comments, and shares. These interactions play a significant role in video performance. Respond to comments to encourage more interaction.

Generate More Leads From Your YouTube Videos

When you apply these YouTube SEO tips and best practices, you’ll start getting more views and engagement on your videos. But if your YouTube channel is part of a larger brand, then getting viewers is just the first step. You also want to encourage those viewers to take another action, such as purchasing a product or joining your email marketing list.

In other words, YouTube videos are a powerful way to generate more leads for your business. You just need the right tools and strategy to make that happen.

OptinMonster is the best lead-generation tool on the market. You can use our popups, floating bars, and other onsite campaigns to grow your email list and offer enticing coupons and lead magnets.

Popup with a photo of a woman holding shopping bags. "Want to get an extra 5% off your order?" CTA button says "Yes please!" and linked text below says "No thanks, I don't like saving money.

If you want to convert more of your YouTube viewers into leads, I suggest using these 2 strategies:

  1. Add OptinMonster campaigns to any web pages you link to in your videos or descriptions. You can use OptinMonster’s Referrer Detection to create special offers just for visitors coming from your YouTube channel!
  2. OptinMonster lets you create MonsterLinks™, which are links that directly open an OptinMonster campaign. In your video description, you can include text such as “Get more tips in our email newsletter,” “Download our free ebook,” or “Enjoy a 20% off coupon.” Use a MonsterLink™ to link that text to your OptinMonster campaign, which will ask for their email address to receive that perk.

That’s just a tiny glimpse at what you can accomplish with OptinMonster. Here’s a quick overview of our features:

Give it a try today with our 14-day money-back guarantee!

Related Resources:

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34 Clever Scarcity Examples to Skyrocket Your Conversions https://optinmonster.com/scarcity-examples-to-boost-your-conversions/ https://optinmonster.com/scarcity-examples-to-boost-your-conversions/#respond Wed, 21 Aug 2024 17:00:00 +0000 https://optinmonster.com/?p=103968 Have you ever seen a countdown timer on a sale or an “Only a few left!” message on a product page? That’s scarcity marketing in action. Scarcity marketing works because it increases the perceived value of a product. When something feels rare or exclusive, we tend to want it more. This can lead to higher …

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Have you ever seen a countdown timer on a sale or an “Only a few left!” message on a product page? That’s scarcity marketing in action.

Scarcity marketing works because it increases the perceived value of a product. When something feels rare or exclusive, we tend to want it more. This can lead to higher sales and a competitive edge for businesses that use it effectively.

In this article, we’ll share 34 scarcity examples to help you boost conversions.

What Is Scarcity Marketing?

Scarcity marketing is a strategy that leverages the fear of missing out (FOMO) by creating a sense of urgency through limited availability or time-sensitive offers. It’s a powerful technique for increasing perceived value and driving immediate action.

Here’s how it works:

  • Limited Supply: This could involve limited quantities of a product, exclusive collections, or limited-time offers.
  • Time Pressure: Countdown timers, flash sales, and “only a few left” notifications create a sense of urgency and encourage people to buy before it’s too late.
  • Exclusivity: Making a product or service feel exclusive can make it more desirable. This could involve VIP access, limited edition releases, or high-end products.

By using these tactics, scarcity marketing aims to:

  • Increase Demand: When something feels scarce, people are more likely to want it, leading to higher sales.
  • Boost Perceived Value: Limited availability suggests a product is more valuable or desirable, making people more willing to pay a premium.
  • Drive Action: The fear of missing out encourages people to make a purchase decision quickly before the opportunity disappears.

Scarcity marketing can be a powerful tool, but it’s important to use it ethically. If done wrong, it can come across as manipulative or inauthentic.

Let’s take a look at 34 examples of scarcity marketing.

Scarcity Marketing Examples

We have curated these scarcity examples from real-life brands that have used the scarcity principle in their online campaigns. The examples offer several ideas on how to apply the scarcity principle in your marketing.

  1. Cracku: Urgency Through Countdown Timers
  2. Wildist: 50% Discount for 2 Days
  3. Tinder: Fear of Missing Out
  4. Booking.com: Book Before It’s Too Late
  5. Chemical Guys: Beat the Clock Sale
  6. Bud Light: Limited Edition Pack
  7. JACK1T: Only 2 Pieces in Stock
  8. Clubhouse: Invite-Only Sign-Ups
  9. Amazon Prime: Discount While Supplies Last
  10. Bed Bath & Beyond: Top Deals Are Scarce
  11. BookMyShow: Seats Filing Fast
  12. Netflix: Only On Netflix
  13. Tesla Apparrel: Notify When Available
  14. MasterClass: BOGO Meets Limited-Time Offer
  15. Coke: Share a Coke
  16. Airbnb: Rare Find
  17. Float: Request Access
  18. Moto Z: Limited Time Offer
  19. HappySales: Join the Waitlist
  20. Nokia: Black Friday With a Twist
  21. Amazon: Today’s Lightning Deals
  22. Ninety9: Happy Hour Deals
  23. Best Buy: Flash Sale
  24. iHerb: 13 Sold in 24 Hours
  25. Fleet Feet: Clearance Sale
  26. Thread Up: End-of-Year Sale
  27. Pulp & Press: Abandoned Cart Email
  28. Asos: Black Friday Deal
  29. Catalina Crunch: Early Access SMS Marketing
  30. Jeffree Star: A Different Take on Scarcity
  31. G Fuel: Giveaways Worth $10,000
  32. Eightvape: Christmas Holiday Offer
  33. Udemy: Sale Ends Today
  34. Growth Marketing: Last Chance to Register

1. Cracku: Urgency Through Countdown Timers

Countdown timers are the best scarcity examples in marketing. Cracku, an online student coaching portal, used OptinMonster to create countdown timers on its website.

They combined it with a limited-time offer and increased conversions by 300%.

scarcity examples

2. Wildist: 50% Discount for 2 Days

scarcity marketing examples

Wildist offers people to sign up for its workshops at half price, but only for 2 days.

Notice the testimonials from past customers on the top-right of the page. Social proof earns you trust and improves website conversions by 34%.

Pro-Tip: Check out this list of social proof notification apps you can use to add credibility to your site! We recommend TrustPulse. It’s the best social proof notification tool out there.

3. Tinder: Fear of Missing Out

examples of scarcity marketing

Tinder uses a push notification for its mobile app users to improve product adoption. They notify inactive users that their profiles won’t be visible to possible matches if they don’t start using the app.

The clever use of scarcity triggers fear of missing out (FOMO) in buyers. Research suggests that about 69% of millennials experience FOMO, and 60% make impulsive purchases because of it.

In other words, FOMO works wonders in convincing people to take action.

Pro-tip: Want to create push notifications like Tinder’s? Take a look at PushEngage. It’s the world’s best push notification software that’s easy to install and set up.

4. Booking.com: Book Before It’s Too Late

Scarcity examples are more common in marketplaces with fluctuating supply and demand of goods and services. For instance, the travel and hospitality industry.

Booking.com is a master at scarcity marketing. Take a look at how they imply that this deal on a hotel won’t be available for very long.

scarcity principle

5. Chemical Guys: Beat the Clock Sale

Car detailing company Chemical Guys creates urgency for website visitors with multiple limited-time offers.

The sooner buyers book a service, the more discounts they get.

scarcity principle examples

6. Bud Light: Limited Edition Pack

scarcity marketing examples

Bud Light collaborated with the Philadelphia Eagles to launch a special edition commemorative beer pack to celebrate the team’s Super Bowl victory.

The beverage company produced 20,418 packs to honor the victory date: 02/04/2018. Special edition marketing also allows brands to sell products at higher prices. Fans don’t mind buying limited quantities of special merchandise at a premium.

7. JACK1T: Only 2 Pieces in Stock

what is scarcity principle

JACK1T lets you know when they are running low on a particular item. This is a good scarcity example that highlights how creating urgency in marketing can improve conversions.

8. Clubhouse: Invite-Only Sign-Ups

what is scarcity marketing

Remember when Clubhouse was a rage? One of the reasons it became so popular in such a short time was because it created an illusion of exclusivity.

Only people who had an invite from existing Clubhouse members could join the social audio platform. This drove a huge demand for Clubhouse sign-ups.

Clubhouse had another level of scarcity baked into its platform. Initially, it was available only in iOS. A year later after its launch, it was launched on the Android platform.

Although the craze for the platform has died down, it remains a shining example of how to use a sense of scarcity and exclusivity to increase sign-ups.

9. Amazon Prime: Discount While Supplies Last

Amazon Prime Now has a weekly ad with a time-sensitive discount.

For more examples like these, read our post on how to use discount codes to increase conversions.

10. Bed Bath & Beyond: Top Deals Are Scarce

scarcity marketing tips

Bed Bath & Beyond uses a unique promo offer for each product category in its website’s Top Deals section. All deals have footer text to create urgency in buyers:

  • Limited time
  • Valid thru 2/2
  • While supplies last

This is to let the buyers know they’ll get the most value for their money if they buy sooner.

11. BookMyShow: Seats Filing Fast

scarcity marketing ideas

India’s largest online movie and events booking platform BookMyShow uses a popup to convert movie lovers to buy its most expensive tickets.

Let’s see how it works.

The most expensive seats have better reclining, extra leg room, and the best view of the screen. The booking page suggests that people might lose out on the premium experience if they don’t act fast.

They also use ember color text for the fast-selling seats. This is an example of demand-induced scarcity. What color you choose for CTA buttons can impact conversions.

12. Netflix: Only On Netflix

netflix scarcity marketing

Netflix knows that movie lovers will go to any extent to watch their favorite movies and shows. It buys the copyright of high-demand content like Kill Boksoon and Money Heist.

It even has an entire genre called Only On Netflix for non-subscribers to browse. Netflix drives new subscriptions by making high-demand content available only on its platform.

13. Tesla Apparrel: Notify When Available

how to use scarcity in marketing

Tesla has an eCommerce shop that sells vehicle accessories, battery chargers, and apparel. The website has a functionality for buyers to receive an email notification for out-of-stock items.

This is a genius scarcity marketing example on many levels.

  • First, it implies that out-of-stock products are scarce resources. People are more likely to opt in for notifications if they think it’s going to fly off the shelves.
  • Second, it’s also a lead generation technique. Buyers who optin for a notification will also start getting marketing emails from Tesla for other products in the future.

Pro-tip: Want to target and convert website visitors based on their past interactions? Use OptinMonster’s Onsite Retargeting®. It lets you optimize campaigns for returning visitors and boost your eCommerce sales.

14. MasterClass: BOGO Meets Limited-Time Offer

how to use scarcity marketing

Buy one get one (BOGO) is a great way to convert customers and increase your average order value.

In this scarcity example, MasterClass offers 2 memberships for the cost of 1. It combines the discount with a holiday offer that’s ending soon.

Product bundling like this gets buyers to convert faster because they get a 2x return on investment (ROI) on their purchase.

15. Coke: Share a Coke

how to use scarcity technique

The world-famous beverage company Coca-Cola’s Share a Coke campaign was a hit when it came out. The campaign allowed customers to buy Coke bottles with the names of their friends and family members.

The campaign sold 1.25 million drinks in the U.S. and improved sales by 11% in a year.

Coke ran the campaign at the expense of replacing its brand name from the bottles. It’s a classic example of scarcity advertising coupled with emotional intelligence.

Depending on where you live, you can still order personalized Coke bottles from their website. Notice not 1 but 2 website notification bars on the website.

scarcity examples in marketing

The company sure knows how to create multiple sale opportunities on a website!

16. Airbnb: Rare Find

airbnb scarcity

Airbnb makes its customers feel lucky to find properties that aren’t sold out. It’s the company’s way to highlight resource scarcity for their premium property listings.

17. Float: Request Access

scarcity marketing hacks

Float asks new users to request access to the app instead of handing out free signups. This means their platform isn’t easy for everyone to sign up for.

The message is clear: you might not be allowed if you don’t fit the bill. The scarcity of access makes it immediately appealing.

18. Moto Z: Limited Time Offer

limited time offer

Moto Z offers its customers a scarce opportunity to buy its new smartphone for only $200.

Limited-time offers convert like crazy.

An online clothing company ran an experiment offering one of its products with and without a limited-time next-day shipping offer. The one with the relative scarcity offer increased sales by 226%.

19. HappySales: Join the Waitlist

happysales ai

HappySales is a business-to-business (B2B) sales technology software that’s yet to launch. Its website allows users to join the private beta. When you click the CTA button, it takes you to a sign-up form.

But instead of asking users to sign up for free, Happysales encourages joining privately. This implies that they don’t entertain everyone. It’s an exclusive circle of users.

20. Nokia: Black Friday With a Twist

scarcity principle tips

Nokia sent this marketing email to its customers a few years back. Instead of offering instant discounts or pre-orders, Nokia made it easy for customers to create a personalized wishlist.

This is among the best Black Friday-related scarcity examples.

21. Amazon: Today’s Lightning Deals

amazon scarcity examples

Amazon’s “Lightning Deals” are offered daily for only a few hours.

22. Ninety9: Happy Hour Deals

what is scarcity

Protea Hotel in Kampala uses happy hour discounts to drive traffic to its retro bar. You can get amazing discounts on a limited variety of drinks, but only between 5-7 pm.

23. Best Buy: Flash Sale

what is an example of scarcity

Best Buy’s flash sale offers multiple scarcity examples rolled into one.

The sale is live only for 48 hours. The website notification bar lets users know the exact time and date when the sale will start and end. This heightens the sense of scarcity.

Best Buy also reminds buyers of the limited availability of products. And that they won’t accept rainchecks.

24. iHerb: 13 Sold in 24 Hours

what is an example of scarcity in marketing

iHerb’s website has multiple cues to convert visitor traffic. It uses a notification bar to offer a 20% discount, While also reminding buyers that the offer ends on a specific date.

Further down, iHerb lets people see the number of products other buyers have bought in the last 24 hours. If you don’t act on time, the product might run out of stock.

The limited availability of resources is one of the causes of scarcity.

Pro-tip: Are your customers dropping off of your website due to out-of-stock products? Read our guide on how to win more sales with out-of-stock pages.

25. Fleet Feet: Clearance Sale

best examples of scarcity marketing

A lot of online retailers use clearance sales to sell surplus products at reduced prices. Online apparel stores especially have clearance sales because they are closing down or need to clear old stocks to make room for new product inventory.

In any case, a clearance sale implies that the discounted offering is going to run for a short time. Here, Fleet Feet has an entire product category called Clearance with discounted products.

26. Thread Up: End-of-Year Sale

best examples of scarcity principle

End-of-year sales are similar to clearance sale campaigns. Thread Up, a second-hand apparel store, combines its year-end sale with multiple other promotions.

The copy on the website offers a discount code and free shipping. It also reminds customers about the sale ending date and time to trigger buyers’ scarcity mindset.

27. Pulp & Press: Abandoned Cart Email

Pulp & Press sends buyers a limited-time discount on their orders to reduce cart abandonment. This is a great way to create artificial scarcity and convert lost opportunities into sales.

28. Asos: Black Friday Deal

examples of scarcity marketing online

Asos offers a Black Friday discount code. It follows its promotion by reminding people to stay safe and be ahead of the surge.

This is among the best scarcity examples that explicitly communicate the limited resources and time.

29. Catalina Crunch: Early Access SMS Marketing

scarcity marketing technique

Catalina Crunch offers users early access to its Black Friday deals. When visitors click on the signup button, the website asks them to enter their phone number.

These kinds of optin campaigns are trade-offs between what buyers want and what sellers can offer.

30. Jeffree Star: A Different Take on Scarcity

scarcity examples online

Jeffree Star has a different take on creating scarcity.

Instead of creating scarcity with limited-time offers or discounts, they do it with delivery times.

Jeffree Star uses a website alert banner to let customers know that orders after 12/19 will be delivered after Christmas. This means the earlier people place their orders, the earlier they will receive them.

Nice way to evoke scarcity!

31. G Fuel: Giveaways Worth $10,000

tips for scarcity marketing

G Fuel runs a giveaway contest on its website for visitors to enter a chance to win 1 grand prize. Or, they can enter to win 10 runner-up incentives.

Either way, G Fuel’s scarcity example is not based on time. It’s built on the probability of winning by participating in the sweepstakes and answering a simple question.

Pro-tip: Do you want an easy way to run giveaways in WordPress? Get RafflePress. RafflePress is the best plugin that lets you run successful giveaways in WooCommerce.

32. Eightvape: Christmas Holiday Offer

how to use scarcity principle in marketing

Eightvape displays a banner on its website hero section, offering customers tempting Christmas offers for a limited period.

The website also uses a Yes/No campaign to convert visitors into leads. Yes/No campaigns offer people a no-brainer choice: to choose an easy option or skip it for an opportunity cost.

scarcity examples of brands

33. Udemy: Sale Ends Today

scarcity examples inspiration

Udemy has a one-day flash sale for visitors to enroll in one of its online courses. The website also offers a discount code and has a notification bar with a countdown timer.

34. Growth Marketing: Last Chance to Register

scarcity marketing for lead generation

Growth Marketing’s email uses an image of a clock to suggest the need to act fast and create urgency. The CTA adds to the sense of scarcity further.

These CTAs work well both on your site and in your email marketing copy. Read our guide to creating the perfect call to action for more tips to improve conversions.

Time Is Running Out: Use These Scarcity Marketing Examples Now

See what we did there? Scarcity can be a great incentive for buyers to act sooner. Take inspiration from the examples in this post to apply in marketing your business.

If you’re new to marketing, you may also want to check out our comprehensive lead generation guide. Lead generation is the starting point for most things in marketing.

If you’re already running lead generation campaigns on your website, get started with OptinMonster. OptinMonster is the #1 lead generation tool that helps you build marketing campaigns to capture leads through popups, floating bars, sidebar optins, and more.

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