"Identifying What 'Conversion Rates' Really Means When Evaluating Potential Solo Ad Joint Ventures"

Of the major pieces that make up asuccessful online business, highconversion rates can be one of themost coveted. A solid product, strongsales copy, targeted traffic,effective advertising, and otherfactors all contribute to the highlyimportant business metric,the "conversion rate".The term "conversion rate" is simplythe ratio of people that visit yoursite versus the number of people thatvisit your site and buy something fromyour site. If you have 100 peoplevisit your site daily and 4 people buyfrom you, essentially your dailyconversion rate is 4%.That's obviously an unqualified numberbecause you don't have all theinformation about those visitors forthat day.There is no real standard definitionthat everyone adheres to and agreesupon and there is no governing bodythat says online marketers mustdefine "conversion rate" the same way.The "conversion rate" metric can takeinto consideration any of or more ofthe following:* A 1st time visitor to the siteversus 1st time visitor who buys yourmain product on the 1st visit.* A visitor who reviews your site butdoesn't buy on the first visit butdoes buy on a subsequent visit.* A visitor who doesn't buy but joinsyour list and buys later.* A visitor who doesn't buy your mainproduct but joins your list and buysanother product of yours.* A visitor who buys a product fromyou not associated with the main sitewhich is where they were originallyreferred.* A visitor who buys your main productin a bundle that includes otherproducts the visitor is interested in.*And so on...Take the above scenarios and add inthe fact that most of the time thesource of the traffic isn't given, andyou can easily get an 'ambiguous atbest' definition of what "conversionrate" means.Many successful online marketers withlists are bombarded with joint ventureproposals that include some sort ofconversion rate metric designed tobuild intrigue and desire to the listowner to make them seriously considergoing ahead with the solo add jointventure proposal.While the conversion rate metric is anecessary piece of the potential jointventure package, it can be misleadingif not properly qualified.So, what questions do you ask toproperly qualify what 'conversionrate' means and how do you verify it?Short of looking at the othermarketer's web log, you really can'tverify the metric. The best thing to dois to review the product yourself ifpossible and take a look at the salescopy of the product. Take a lookat the Alexa ranking to see what typeof traffic the site is getting, atleast from a volume standpoint.Remember, Alexa rankings measurevolume of traffic not the quality oftraffic. Go to Google or some othersearch engine and see what types ofsites link to the site of the product.If there are professional welltraveled sites that link to the sitethat fit well within the niche thatthe product caters to, and the salescopy, price point, and delivery areprofessional and fitting to theproduct offering, maybe the conversionrate is comparable to what you'rebeing told it is.But, just because the conversion ratesmaybe close to truthful, it doesn'tmean that sending a solo ad to yourlist will work well.You have to decide for yourself if theproduct could pull in the type ofconversion rates that are being 'sold'to you by the proposer of the JV.Remember that the source of traffic isone of the main factors that willdetermine what type of conversion rateany JV will obtain. Ask yourself ifyour list will respond well to a soload JV. Only you as the list owner willknow whether the product will beuseful to your list and purchased byyour list.Be humble, work smart, keep it simple.Karl Augustine"The Regular Guy"(c) Karl AugustineStarting an online business