SmartSearch Marketing Launches ‘Peak Conversion’

April 10, 2007; 03:33 AM
SmartSearch Marketing, a full-service search engine marketing agency specializing in consumer and business-to-business markets, announced its Peak Conversion offering to help search marketers convert more Web site visitors into action takers, inquiries, leads and customers while lowering the overall cost-per-action and improving ROI. The Peak Conversion methodology and service is part of SmartSearch’s Search Lifecycle Management (SLM) suite of comprehensive online marketing services.

The Peak Conversion service continuously measures and improves the percentage of Web site visitors that become action-takers. The service accomplishes this through a rapid and iterative “test-measure-improve cycle” to convert more visitors to customers. SmartSearch continues to develop and launch new services that advance the practice of search engine marketing and, in this instance, address the glaring shortcomings of many basic search programs that fail to implement post-click improvements and miss the opportunity to proactively drive prospects through the entire buying lifecycle.

Peak Conversion employs a consultative approach where SmartSearch helps clients define various “visitor personas” by identifying different types of Web site visitors and what stage of the sales cycle they have reached. The desired online actions for each persona are defined and then a path to conversion is developed for each.

The Peak Conversion blend of services includes:
• Web site audits
• Usability assessments
• Visitor persona analysis
• Path-to-conversion improvements
• Creation of compelling action triggers
• Registration form improvements
• Landing page creation & testing
• Content creation

Peak Conversion at Work
As a specialist in developing results-driven search engine marketing campaigns for high technology b-to-b clients, SmartSearch has seen it Peak Conversion services deliver tremendous results through its development and early stage rollout. One of its clients, a leading global provider of enterprise software products with more than 20,000 customers in more than 140 countries, wanted to move beyond just driving traffic to its Web site. The company set goals to improve the overall online experience for Web site visitors, improve the engagement rate through a more interactive experience and generate more inquiries and better qualified leads as they proactively move prospects through the buying process.

After engaging SmartSearch and its Peak Conversion services, the software maker was able to decrease its cost per lead from $500 to $70 in just a three-month period. Through continuous testing and landing page improvements, conversion rates skyrocketed from 5.8 percent at the beginning of the campaign to 12.2 percent. In addition, using the Peak Conversion services, the client was able to quadruple the number of leads received per month, better integrate lead tracking with the offline sales process and improve the overall quality of its leads over time.

“Most search marketers focus their efforts exclusively on pre-click services; simply finding prospects and driving them to a Web site,” said SmartSearch CEO, Dale Hursh. “Some of these firms are measuring online conversions but very few are systematically testing and improving landing pages, dramatically increasing conversion rates and deriving business insights from Web analytics data. The end result is improved ROI.”