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Whats more important Traffic or Conversion

by Quentin
37 replies
I would be interested in what you think is more important to put your time into.

Traffic or Conversion.

Now I know they both work together however what would you put more emphasis on.

Quentin
#conversion #important #traffic
  • Profile picture of the author asiancasanova
    Most organizations, especially internet business and small businesses, get trapped about the quality of guests to their sites. Visitors is important – it provides attention, a certain level of acceptance, and to be able to turn guests into customers or shelling out customers.
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    • Profile picture of the author TimD
      Marketingexperiments.com has done a bunch of research on this. They straddle the question by saying "channel motivation" is the most important issue in getting business. Glenn Livingston has also done a ton of research on this and he comes down clearly on the side of conversion - he says traffic is derivative of conversion. If you can convert at a high rate, people will send you or sell you their traffic, affiliates will flock to you, etc. You never have a problem with traffic if you can convert. On the other hand, all the traffic in the world won't help if you can't convert.

      And marketingexperiments comes back to this: the offer must come before the channel. So ultimately, I think they would come back to conversion.

      I can give you an example. I wrote a homepage for an attorney that sues cruise ships. He said that when the page went up, it was like turning the faucet on. Then they redesigned the site using a web designer in China (they had a personal contact) and buried my page. A month later they called me because the faucet had turned off. I put the original page back up on their homepage and the faucet turned back on again.
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  • Profile picture of the author Quentin
    I agree totally Tim.

    If you put in a lot of effort and get great conversions then Traffic becomes a no brainier as you can pay for it and promote through numerous channels simply because it converts.

    Not many people seem to do this and so spend hours chasing down free traffic believing that if they get enough traffic they will succeed.

    Get your site converting well and you will have more money and more time.
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    • Profile picture of the author Abim
      Originally Posted by Quentin View Post

      I agree totally Tim.

      If you put in a lot of effort and get great conversions then Traffic becomes a no brainier as you can pay for it and promote through numerous channels simply because it converts.

      Not many people seem to do this and so spend hours chasing down free traffic believing that if they get enough traffic they will succeed.

      Get your site converting well and you will have more money and more time.
      I think quentin hit it on the head with his answer, having thousands of visitors are useless if they don't convert. Some of my sites only get 100-150 visitors a day and yet make around $60-$70. While i have others (funny pictures etc..) that can get up to 30,000 visitors a day (thanks to reddit and stumbleupon) yet they end up costing me money in server fees.
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  • Profile picture of the author Doug Slaton
    Think it depends on what you've got more of at the time.

    If you've got plenty of traffic but your conversion isn't good then you work on conversion.

    If you got a great converting offer but few folks are seeing your offer then traffic is needed.

    If both are unknown then get traffic to test/improve conversion.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rus Sells
    Traffic can be a commodity of sorts while conversions are not. Therefore work to improve conversions first so you don't waste the commodity.

    Another way to look at it is like this.

    Can you have traffic without conversions? Yes.
    Can you have conversions without traffic? No.
    So then one must learn to convert firstly by leveraging existing traffic or pay for traffic, then test and improve to increase conversions.

    PS: I own LearnToConvert.com any one want to partner with me to develop it and make a fortune? = )
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    • Profile picture of the author Greg Thomson
      Originally Posted by Rus Sells View Post

      Traffic can be a commodity of sorts while conversions are not. Therefore work to improve conversions first so you don't waste the commodity.

      Another way to look at it is like this.

      Can you have traffic without conversions? Yes.
      Can you have conversions without traffic? No.
      So then one must learn to convert firstly by leveraging existing traffic or pay for traffic, then test and improve to increase conversions.

      PS: I own LearnToConvert.com any one want to partner with me to develop it and make a fortune? = )
      I agree, the first thing we do for our clients is to improve the current conversions and only when we are sure that the website is brings what we expect we start wokring on traffic and other things
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  • Profile picture of the author William Maloney
    Traffic is important, but after all, it's money that we're all chasing. So, all in all, conversion is more important because conversion means money. Traffic means... well, probably conversion in the end so, the same, money.
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  • Profile picture of the author sdentrepreneur
    I am on the conversion bandwagon. How good would it be to tell your client you drove 10,000 visitors to their web site with no conversions. I would prefer to tell client, our marketing efforts landed you 17 new clients this month.
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  • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
    Traffic is the most important. Without traffic you can't have conversions. A website that converts at 10% and only gets 10 visitors and converts one is worse than a website that converts at 3% but gets 100 visitors. The more traffic still gets more sales, and has a higher reach.

    Obviously conversions are important, but you can't have a conversion if there was never traffic!
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    • Profile picture of the author danielsteven
      Originally Posted by iAmNameLess View Post

      Traffic is the most important. Without traffic you can't have conversions. A website that converts at 10% and only gets 10 visitors and converts one is worse than a website that converts at 3% but gets 100 visitors. The more traffic still gets more sales, and has a higher reach.

      Obviously conversions are important, but you can't have a conversion if there was never traffic!
      Dead on! Plus you have no idea if something converts without traffic.

      My vote goes to "traffic"
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  • Profile picture of the author Rus Sells
    Guys, look!
    Conversions are more important because you can't buy them!
    You can always buy traffic and it just so happens that you can't test and have conversions without traffic. But this isn't about which came first, the chicken or the egg as it might appear.

    Another reason why conversions are more important is because once you refine the on page elements you actually begin to lower your costs and increase your returns. Now you can quantify why you're buying traffic which allows you to scale it up without wasting money.
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    • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
      Originally Posted by Rus Sells View Post

      Guys, look!
      Conversions are more important because you can't buy them!
      You can always buy traffic and it just so happens that you can't test and have conversions without traffic. But this isn't about which came first, the chicken or the egg as it might appear.

      Another reason why conversions are more important is because once you refine the on page elements you actually begin to lower your costs and increase your returns. Now you can quantify why you're buying traffic which allows you to scale it up without wasting money.
      Would you agree that no matter what you will have some type of conversion, eventually? So essentially, you could increase sales by increasing traffic.

      You need traffic to a/b split test your conversions... I have to disagree with you Russ, respectfully. BUT, I can't make a solid case about it because I know conversions are important as well..

      Site A converts at 2% with 100 visitors
      Site B converts at 10% with 10 visitors

      Which is better? Immediately Site A is better, but long term Site B is better. You can buy more traffic for site B which makes it more efficient, but only if the traffic is the same quality or better. Some traffic will convert better than others, and then we get into an entirely different area. Know what I mean?

      I get what you're saying Russ, but I have always been in the line of thinking that traffic is greater than everything. However, if a client of mine is already getting traffic, we work on CRO instead of MORE traffic because that makes sense.
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  • Profile picture of the author JerrickYeoh
    I will said Conversion while you can get 100k of traffic but conversion might below 1 % .
    Is that enough ? for those traffic get 10 k but with 5-15% conversion rate , the profit is higher than 100k traffic with low conversion rate.
    So now you know which is more important.
    Increase conversion rate is much more effective but is not a easy way
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  • Profile picture of the author mjbmedia
    Other people/sites can send you traffic, hopefully well targetted, only YOU can control the conversions .

    You can and will get traffic with no 'extra' effort many months/years after setting up the pages, you'll only grow the conversions with specific work in response to what your stats are telling you, therefore you HAVE to work on the conversions, the traffic can and will take care of itself once the groundwork is done .

    Of course traffic can and should be worked on too and be increased and better targetted, but IMO get the conversion rate as good as possible ,THEN drive the traffic in .
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    • Profile picture of the author toto83
      Both traffic and conversions are important.

      However, you can't test your conversion rate WITHOUT traffic.

      So it all boils down to this...

      1. If you're just starting and don't have any traffic...focus most of your resources on either getting the traffic organically, or buying PPC ads to test your conversions.

      2. If you already have the traffic, then it makes sense to focus most of your resources on conversions.
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Travis
    Think of traffic and conversions like this. You can have an car engine (your website) and you can get gas (the traffic) to your engine and the engine will run, but if you want the engine to run efficiently then you are going to have to turn a few screws and make a few adjustments to get the engine to provide the horsepower (the conversions) you want.

    So I would say concentrate on the traffic and fine tune the conversions.

    Michael
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  • Profile picture of the author ltrain_riders
    Ahh... Quality vs Quantity. I'll take the Quality, as in low traffic but higher Conversions. At the end of the day it's all about converting and if you are aren't converting then you aren't making money no matter how much traffic you have.
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  • Profile picture of the author Njenyus
    That's kind of like saying, "Which one is more important to breathe, your heart or your lungs?". Theay are both EQUALLY as important cuz if you don't have one, having the other won't matter AT ALL. If you have traffic where no one converts, that means zero sales; if you have no traffic with a 100% conversion rate, that's still zero.

    With that being said, build your traffic first. Then, after you have some conversions, test and tweak in order to increase your conversion rates. Also, test the sources of your traffic. Obviously, different traffic sources will have different conversion rates.
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  • Profile picture of the author elexmedia
    I focus more on conversion than traffic.

    "It's easier to make money from previous customers rather than to look for new customers."

    If you have high conversion, you just need to increase the traffic to make more money. It's easier to do.
    But if you have low conversion, you will need to struggle to get the traffic in order to make more money. It's harder.
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  • Profile picture of the author trafficmasters
    traffic that converts
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  • Profile picture of the author Rus Sells
    See the question asked which is more important to put your time into.

    Conversions because as I've stated before traffic is a commodity that can be turned on or off through buying it.

    Of course you can't really test your conversion rate so you buy some traffic via PPC to get some baselines.

    But you not really spending TIME on the traffic you are spending time on improving conversions.

    Once you have conversions down then you can spend time on scaling traffic.

    I just can't agree with Chris here because it's a waste to deal with traffic with the mindset that its more important over converting traffic firstly. = )



    Originally Posted by Quentin View Post

    I would be interested in what you think is more important to put your time into.

    Traffic or Conversion.

    Now I know they both work together however what would you put more emphasis on.

    Quentin
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    • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
      Originally Posted by Rus Sells View Post

      See the question asked which is more important to put your time into.

      Conversions because as I've stated before traffic is a commodity that can be turned on or off through buying it.

      Of course you can't really test your conversion rate so you buy some traffic via PPC to get some baselines.

      But you not really spending TIME on the traffic you are spending time on improving conversions.

      Once you have conversions down then you can spend time on scaling traffic.

      I just can't agree with Chris here because it's a waste to deal with traffic with the mindset that its more important over converting traffic firstly. = )
      Okay, okay... I agree I guess, but you still can't put that time in to convert and split test until you have some traffic. I remember one website I built for my business that just wasn't converting well, and it sucked because I probably had 200-300 visitors and no sales. Once I changed things up a bit, it started converting at 4%. The previous traffic was a waste, so I guess I agree with you in a way.

      I'd put more time into optimizing conversions than I would traffic... so I have to agree instead of continuing to be stubborn, which really pains me to do LOL. More time spent on conversions, more important to me is still traffic, but I suppose that's because I know how to set up any website to convert now?

      Russ, are you calling me Chris? I'm not Chris, lol. You think I'm Chris, and kenmichaels thinks I'm Steve and someone else thinks my name is Fred.
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      • Profile picture of the author Rus Sells
        Seeing that your forum handle is iAmNameLess I figured I could just call you whatever I wanted too. LOL

        I know young wippersnappers like you tend to be stubborn sometimes but you all eventually come around!

        Originally Posted by iAmNameLess View Post

        Okay, okay... I agree I guess, but you still can't put that time in to convert and split test until you have some traffic. I remember one website I built for my business that just wasn't converting well, and it sucked because I probably had 200-300 visitors and no sales. Once I changed things up a bit, it started converting at 4%. The previous traffic was a waste, so I guess I agree with you in a way.

        I'd put more time into optimizing conversions than I would traffic... so I have to agree instead of continuing to be stubborn, which really pains me to do LOL. More time spent on conversions, more important to me is still traffic, but I suppose that's because I know how to set up any website to convert now?

        Russ, are you calling me Chris? I'm not Chris, lol. You think I'm Chris, and kenmichaels thinks I'm Steve and someone else thinks my name is Fred.
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  • Profile picture of the author mjbmedia
    good thread, good conversation without resorting to the petty crap some people end up doing , well done gents (I have added value a few posts above this ,I just like the way the discussion is developing , professionally done)
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    Mike

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    • Profile picture of the author drlelong
      You need some traffic to be able to test conversions, but there are always two variables:

      1) Do you have the right traffic?
      2) Do you have the right offer?

      When you have those aligned, then it's time to crank up the traffic to 11.

      You'll need to spend money (or time) to figure out both though.
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  • Profile picture of the author kaja292
    I think Both are important
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  • Profile picture of the author scottgallagher
    Internet Marketing Equation

    Qualified Traffic + Conversion = Sales

    That's like asking what's more important on a car...the wheels or the body?
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  • Profile picture of the author EnzoBlaque
    You can't have one without the other. Both are just as important in theory..

    However, take physical shops for example; everyone knows that a shop located in the busiest part of town, where thousands of cars/pedestrians pass everyday, easily makes a killing in sales daily.. this wouldn't be the case if it was located in some backstreet somewhere..

    Same online. Provided the product is good, more traffic often means more conversions
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  • Profile picture of the author Quentin
    I actually have a friend with a shop in one of those back street that sells pies.

    People come from all over the countryside to get his pies and tell all their friends so he gets more traffic than the other pie shop on the main drag.

    That's the power of conversion!

    If you really want to sell product you need a good product that converts well and people will send you all the traffic you can handle.

    Q
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  • Profile picture of the author PBP Marketing
    I would always put more time and effort into conversions. You can always flip the switch on traffic whether it's sending out EDDM postcards, doing Adwords PPC or some other method. Traffic you can always get. Without the conversions, though, that will all be wasted money.

    If you think about how you are marketing yourself to an offline business it's the same way. There are always more businesses out there to get in touch with (traffic) but without a pitch that will turn those businesses into clients (conversion) what does it matter?
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  • Profile picture of the author mjbmedia
    so you knew the answer all along!!!! Quentin tut tut ;-)
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    Mike

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