How to Use Data to Improve Your Sales Funnel

A sales funnel is undeniably one of the most important parts of marketing and selling products or services. You can address and identify issues that could keep your business from reaching its goals with it. When it comes to marketing techniques for lead generation, a sales funnel is an excellent way for companies to track people as they go through your website and interact with you. 

It’s not enough to have SEO tactics to get traffic to your site. After all, visitors are not always ready to make a purchase immediately. You have to nurture the visitors and guide them through the sales funnel. Make sure you have engaging content at every stage to keep them interested. This is a good way to make sure that people will continue taking steps toward becoming a customer.

First, What Is a Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel is a process that leads a prospect from the acquisition of new knowledge of your product or service, to developing interest, to determine whether you can fulfill their needs, and finally to the actual purchase. A sales funnel often includes offers that encourage people to choose your product, such as discounts or special bonuses. 

An effective sales funnel is key for a strong sales strategy. It allows you to gather information about your customers that you may not have accessed otherwise. Of course, this is only true if you use the data to improve your sales funnel. In a sales funnel, you see how your customer interacts with you and your brand. You can then use that information to make changes and develop new strategies. With this knowledge, you can maximize the customer’s journey to the point of sale.

Can Data Improve My Sales Funnel?

There is an almost endless amount of data that you can collect about your visitors, leads, and customers. How do you know what information to track? You want to use the right metrics that can actually help improve your sales funnel. Data makes it possible for you to know which part of your campaign isn’t working so you can eliminate it quickly, saving time and resources by making meaningful changes.

The first thing to do is identify the goals you want to achieve with your sales funnel. You need analytics software or Google Analytics installed on your site if you expect accurate tracking results. Some common goals include increasing revenue per customer, increasing traffic, growing email lists, lowering cost-per-lead (CPL), and increasing the average value (AV) of customers. You can also use data to improve the sales funnel for your eCommerce business.

How to Use Data to Improve Sales Funnel for Better Results

Understand How Your Prospects Are Moving Through Your Funnel 

Be aware of how different groups of people move through your sales funnel. If you have the data, you can decide where to spend your time and money.

The first step is to identify where your customers are in the funnel. You can do this by using a lead scoring system that helps you track the number of leads you have and how many reach different funnel stages. If the number of leads coming in is higher than your conversion rate, you have to increase your lead generation. On the other hand, if most of your leads are dropping out or staying in an early stage of the funnel, you need to figure out why and fix it.

You can use data to test different types of content for each stage in your sales funnel. Your goal should be to uncover information about where people are falling off so you can improve engagement with your site

Use Data to Identify Potential Issues With Different Phases

You can then use data to spot issues with different sales funnel phases. If, for example, many people leave at the same phase, you know you have to develop strategies to help their transition. You could also use resources to help with the problem, or you might want to decrease the price of your product to renew interest in that phase.

Using an analytics platform, you can establish benchmarks for each phase. You then use this information to set goals that will improve your sales funnel.

A/B Test Different Variations of Online Ads

You also want to A/B test different ads and landing pages. Data allows you to see which is most effective at driving traffic and leads to the next stage in the sales process so you can optimize your efforts based on performance. You can track key metrics like cost per click (CPC), click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, bounce rate, page views per visit, time on site, and more.

Better Understand Your Visitors With Behavior Tracking Tools And Features

Use behavior tracking tools and features to learn what your visitors do when they get to your site. This data is vital in understanding the path that led them there so you can improve your sales funnel with a better idea of who is interested in your products and services. Knowing this information will help you better present content, drive conversions, and generate more leads.

Focus on the Customers That Matter Most

As you identify issues, you can get a better idea of the critical customers. You can then use the knowledge to focus on the segments that matter most to you.

Start using your data to track your most valuable customers. First, determine who is valuable by identifying which segments purchase the most and spend the most time on site. If you’re not sure how to do this, look at average order values (AOV), number of repeat customers, lifetime value of a customer (LTV), revenue per customer, or even website bounce rates.

Next, set goals for each segment. You can then use the data you collect to help improve the sales funnel by focusing marketing efforts on these customers. For example, if you have one particular segment that spends twice as much money per transaction as another, it makes sense to concentrate your marketing plans there rather than splitting resources between both groups.

Then, Develop Strategies to Make Improvements

Finally, as you understand which customers are most important, you can develop strategies to bring them through the rest of the sales funnel more easily. Make sure you have the right goals for each segment.

Here are some examples:

• If you notice that many customers drop off at a certain point in the funnel, look for new ways to present content, improve messaging, and change product offering (for instance, add more resources or create educational material).
• If you’re getting lots of conversions but they’re low value, try using ad campaigns to increase spending per transaction.
• Evaluate different types of offers like coupons, discounts, and bundles.
• You should also test changes before implementing them on a larger scale. You can A/B test different variations of online ads, landing pages, and forms.

Use the Data to Improve Your Marketing Efforts.

You can also use the data to adjust your marketing efforts. By looking at which customers are most valuable and understanding what segments of visitors convert into customers, you can refine your strategies to improve the sales funnel. You could try adding different types of offers like coupons, discounts, and bundles. Then, test changes before implementing them on a larger scale.

As you develop new methods for attracting and converting visitors, take advantage of analytics so you can measure performance and see how close your results align with your goals.

By using data to improve your sales funnel, you can make your marketing more effective. This is especially true if you use data from the different phases of your sales funnel to see how your efforts are working and to adjust accordingly.

Conclusion

Data gives you the knowledge needed to improve your sales funnel. You can use it to identify which customers are most important so you can focus on them. It also helps you develop strategies to improve your sales funnel and your other marketing efforts. When you use data the right way, you can better turn prospects into leads. 

Visitor InSites provides technology for visitor identification that you can use to get better results from your sales funnel and other marketing strategies. Reach out to us today to know how our technology can help your business!