A recent report by e-consultancy suggests that reality is setting in for web marketers. 94% of those surveyed see online lead generation as a growth area (this number up from 82% last year). In addition the proportion of company respondents who believe that their organizations are effectively exploiting online lead generation as a way of growing their B2C business has decreased from 44% to 41%.

I see this as a good sign that marketers are realizing how poorly the web is being leveraged overall. With typical conversion rates in the single digits, we still have a long way to go.

I read an interesting article yesterday on the Practical eCommerce website called ‘When to Ignore a 50% Conversion Rate’

It discussed the issue of data validation - meaning that if you launch a new keyword in your pay-per-click campaign, then the first visitor from that keyword goes ahead and converts, then your conversion rate for that keyword is 100%. However, because you’re only looking at the behavior of a single visitor, you don’t have a large enough sample size for that data to be valid.

Initially what struck me about this article was how obvious that was. But as I’ve pondered it a little bit, it occurs to me that many people may be making the mistake of making decision on too few data (although I suspect most marketers don’t make decisions based on a single click).

So, how big does a sample size need to be? Now, if you ask a statistician, I’m sure that you’ll get a different answer, but for the typical marketer I’m assuming that we’re looking for a best guess. Here are a few thoughts that might help your guess be more accurate.

1. If you’re looking at impressions, look for at least 1,000. If you’re looking at clicks, look for at least 200.

2. When comparing conversion rates of two Google ads, I like to calculate what percentage would be expressed by one more conversion. Simply multiply the number of clicks by 0.01 (or multiply by 1%) - the answer is how many percentage points would be represented by a single conversion.

3. Our friends at Vertster also have a little tool that measures the difference between CTR’s and tells you if the sample size is big enough.

I’d be interested in your feedback, and any other techniques you might use for this sort of data validation…

Our sister site has just been named a top 10 pay per click management agency in the U.S. Conversion rate expert, Mat Greenfield is the Founding Partner of Conversion Results, and a thought leader in the pay per click world.

Here are some of his articles on pay per click strategies:

Biggest AdWords Mistakes
Google AdWords: Structure For Success
Google AdWords: Get ‘em Where You Want ‘em

Read more on the: Top 10 Pay Per Click Management Ranking

I just returned from presenting at the Software Marketing Perspectives Conference in Santa Clara, CA. My topic was Online Lead Generation Best Practices for Software Companies.

I covered some best practices for Home Pages, Structure, Navigation & Flow, Offers, Forms, and Split Testing. Since it was only an hour long, my presentation didn’t go into vast detail about these topics, but I think I presented some genuine nuggets, as well as prompting more serious thought by the attendees about the effectiveness of their websites.

Feel free to contact me for a review of your website based on these criteria.

When it comes to B2B lead generation, remember that the most compelling offers are those which provide value to the visitor whether they make a purchase or not. In other words, offers like ‘Sign-up for a discount’ tend not to be very compelling.

Here are a few ideas for compelling offers for B2B lead generation:

• Offer a guide to selecting the right
• Top tips, or a checklist for accomplishing
• An essential guide to
• A free audit or consultation
• Webinars relating the the hottest topics in the field/industry

A great example is the Free Website Conversion Analysis offered by Conversion Results.

I’ve been thinking about the new benchmarking feature in Google Analytics, and while I’ve signed up to see this data (it looks like it’ll take a few weeks before we’re actually seeing anything), I must admit that I’m a little concerned.

No, this isn’t another conspiracy theory about how Google is mis-using all the data they collect - it’s far simpler (and perhaps more serious than that).  My concern is that by reviewing benchmark numbers,  many marketers will settle for mediocrity.  If you look at the ‘average’ numbers published by Marketing Sherpa and others, you’ll see that about 5% is considered a typical conversion rate for B2B lead generation.  However, I’ve found that much higher numbers are possible (certainly into the teens and even as high as 40%) by the use of effective conversion best-practices, split testing, etc.

My feeling is that just because your site is doing as equally badly as everyone elses, that doesn’t mean that you should just live with it…

I haven’t even had time to check this out, but Google has just announced that it is offering ‘benchmarking’ in analytics.

Excerpt from the announcement:

The industry benchmarking feature is currently in beta. Once you have enabled benchmarking, it may take up to two weeks before the categorized, aggregated and anonymized benchmarking data shows up in your reports.

More information on the Google Analytics benchmarking service.

Just in case you needed a reminder that Google is the top-dog when it comes to Search Engines, recent numbers list Google with staggering 67% market share!

See the full report from HitWise

Inside CRM just published a pretty helpful list of ‘50 Ways your Site is Discouraging Conversion’.  It’s a good list for both lead generation and ecommerce.

From my discussions with many Google AdWords advertisers, I think it’s true to say that the concept of Quality Score is largely not understood, and is therefore ignored.  In fact Quality Score is just one of the many variables that Google allows you to adjust - if you know how.

Quality Score is used as a part of the calculation to determine how much you will pay, and where you will rank for a particular keyword.  The better your Quality Score, the cheaper your clicks.

You can manipulate Quality Score simply by ensuring that your keyword is 1) in your ad, and 2) on your landing page.  Beyond that, you’ll have to work to increase your CTR to impact your QS.