Do you feel like you have a lot of interest in your event but somehow you’re losing customers? We think we can help. Let’s talk Conversion Rates - what they are, how can you use them, and what are the industry averages?
So, we're just going to put it out there. Around 87% of people who show interest in your event won't end up buying a ticket. It hurts to read, doesn't it?
And when we say show an interest, we don't mean a simple like on Facebook. Although we do love our likes. No, those who’ve shown an interest are the people who have taken the time to click through to your ticket page and have considered buying a ticket. Come to think of it, they had probably started to mentally plan their wardrobe for your event but something just got in the way of them going through with the booking.
In e-commerce, this little game of interest vs purchase is what is commonly called your conversion rate, i.e. what percentage of people who start the process of buying a ticket, actually go through with it and complete the process.
At the end of the day, conversion rate makes a huge difference. As an event organiser, you really want to see a high conversion rate, because quite simply, it means more tickets sold. And everyone wants to sell as many tickets as possible.
Consider this:
Let’s assume you’re aiming to sell 900 tickets and historically your conversion rate has been 15% (which is pretty much on par for a lot of ticketing websites). You’re looking at sending a total of 6 000 people (900 / 0.15 = 6 000) to your ticketing page. Getting 6 000 people to your site is going to cost you marketing money and a bunch of effort. If things are going well, however, and you are converting at say a rate of 30%, you’d only need to reach 3 000 people (900 / 0.30 = 3 000). Much better, right? This means you’d only spend half the money on marketing, and invest much less effort upfront. It’s plain to see that optimising conversion is essential.
There are a number of factors that can affect your conversion rate. It’s a proven fact that when you make people log in during a purchase process, a lot of them immediately give up on making the purchase. Immediately. Just for logging in. On top of that, you’re looking at losing even more people with each additional step you add to the purchase process. Asking for too much from your buyers has a similar effect. Remember, most people have short attention spans and get distracted pretty easily, so it’s essential that you make it as easy as possible for people to buy tickets, otherwise you are basically throwing money away.
Make it easy:
There are loads of considerations like the ones we just mentioned that impact your conversion rate. Just look at how booking via a computer and a smartphone affects conversions. The majority of people looking at your ticketing page, approximately 63%, are using smartphones (chances are you’re reading this on your iPhone right now). People on their phones are much more likely to fall out of the ticket purchase process, so it is essential that you take steps to capture this audience. These are the people who are actively interested in your event and want to give you money - you just need to make it easy for them.
Okay, so now that we've made you aware that conversion rates can affect you, here are a few potential solves that your ticketing company should be using to help you convert clients...
Make sure you have:
- Single step checkout - Research suggests that each step in a checkout process increases drop off, in other words it lowers conversion rates. Having a single step checkout, like the one we use at Quicket, means there is just a single step process for checking out when buying a ticket. Some ticketers have as many as 5 to 7 steps during checkout, i.e. Step 1: Login, Step 2: Ticket details, Step 3: Billing info, Step 4: Marketing opt-in, Step 5: Payment, etc (all the way up to Step 7: Losing your customer). At each step, you're more likely to lose a percentage of your customers. So, when choosing a ticketer, you should make sure they have the most streamlined checkout process to increase your conversion rate.
- Express checkout for mobile - This allows mobile customers to fill out only their basic information, and the rest later. If you’re using Quicket, you’re in luck! We're the only ticketer in South Africa that has a seamless express checkout where no login is required - something that's been proven to reduce drop-off of people showing interest in buying tickets.
- Guest checkout - We’ve found that this really reduces drop-off in the ticket sales process. Guest checkout allows a person wanting to buy a ticket to do so without being logged in or without needing to have an account prior to buying. Quicket also offers this conversion rate-improving functionality.
- Abandoned Cart handling - Your ticketer should be sending a simple email as a reminder to clients to come back and complete their purchase if they failed or didn’t finish buying their ticket for whatever reason. Just a little reminder works wonders. At Quicket, we find that our reminder emails typically bring back about 10% of failed purchases, which makes a big difference.
And don't forget...
- Remarketing - This is probably the most important marketing a ticketing company can offer you. Remarketing effectively allows you to target anyone who has visited your ticket page and hasn't yet completed their purchase with ads until they buy a ticket. It serves as a non-invasive reminder for them to complete their purchase, and can be incredibly effective. Have a look at this resource on how to set this up on Quicket for Facebook ads, as an example.
- Reporting - “Measurement is management” and if you are not actively monitoring your conversion rates, they are more than likely not going to improve. This is why you must choose a ticketing company which offers a complete picture of what your clients are doing on your ticket page.
All in all, conversion rates are a crucial aspect that anyone who’s planning an event should really scrutinise. If you give a little time and attention to pushing your conversion rate up, you’re bound to benefit both in time and effort, and with increased ticket sales.
James is one of the founders of Quicket and is always at the forefront of brand strategy and vision. His obsession with both the upliftment of Africa and Futurism puts us in an exceptionally good space to innovate across the continent. James spends most his time trying to balance his creative and strategic genius with dreams of grandeur – all of which eternally catapult us towards the future.