The title is a bit of an exaggeration but the points in the article are still valid and worth having a look at.

What many marketers fail to consider is just how much poor conversion rates cost them. Every missed lead is one less customer. Every failed sale is less revenue. Every time a customer gets frustrated filling out a form takes them one step closer to switching to another company.

But when it comes to actual lost revenue, how much are we talking? It’s easy to talk about conversion rates at a high level without ever realizing just how much low conversion rates can cost you.

To get a handle on this, let’s look at some common conversion rate mistakes and then create a basic estimate of how much these mistakes can cost you.

Common Conversion Rate Mistakes

Mistake #1: No People

More and more, people want authentic human connections with businesses. So many companies have cold, stuffy, corporate-feeling websites. Adding a personal touch to yours can make a huge difference in your conversion rates.

37Signals (now Basecamp) discovered this when they added an image of a person to their landing pages. The result was a 102.5% increase in conversions.

Mistake #2: No Live Chat

Nothing makes you want to smash your computer more than calling the company and hearing that you’re a “valuable customer” but also are 44th in queue.

When Intuit added live chat to their site in order to engage prospects and customers, they saw a 211% increase in sales.

Mistake #3: Not Targeting By Device

Wal-Mart Canada noticed that a significant portion of their traffic was coming from tablets, so they optimized their site to increase page performance, particularly on tablets.

This single improvement led to a 20% increase in conversions and a 98% increase in sales.

Mistake #4: No Progress Bar

If people have no idea how much work is required to fill out a form, there’s a good chance they’ll bail before they complete it.

When Ecwid optimized their progress bar to show how visitors were progressing through both free and paid plan sign ups, they saw a 21.3% conversion rate increase among English speaking users.

Mistake #5: No Urgency

Adding urgency to a Call-To-Action is a tried-and-true marketing technique.

When Dewalt (a Black and Decker brand) added a graphic of a clock along with the message, “Order in the next N hours for delivery today,” it resulted in a 27% increase in orders.

Mistake #6: A Cluttered Landing Page

When you have many choices you get overwhelmed and don’t pick anything.

When The Weather Channel wanted to turn visitors into premium subscribers, they dramatically simplified their home page, resulting in a 225% increase in subscribers.

Mistake #7: No Reviews

Purchasing something online can be somewhat intimidating, especially if a person has been burned in the past by a terrible product or company. That’s why reviews and testimonies are so helpful. They are a sign that your company is trustworthy and the product you deliver is excellent.

When FigLeaves (a clothing brand) added product reviews to their website, they saw a 35% increase in sales.

Conclusion

In an absolutely perfect world, in which you perfectly stacked all these improvements on top of each other, one after another, your conversion rate increases by 237%.

Granted, this is an extreme scenario that completely eliminates the human factor and is based on everything be implemented perfectly, neither of which can happen in real life.

But even if you can implement some of these conversion tactics imperfectly, the potential for revenue growth is enormous.

And on the flip side, failing to improve your conversion rates truly could cost you millions of dollars. It’s really that simple.

How Poor Conversion Rates Cost Marketers Millions of Dollars

PS. From experience, positive test results do not perfectly add up or multiply each other. But they keep you at the front of the race, in the top percentile of your industry. This, in turn, gives you a better margin and more cash for growing.