Top Source of Traffic & Conversion

: Email Dominates in Traffic & Conversion :

SeeWhy studied a sampling of 60,000 ecommerce transactions in February 2011 and found that not only is it the primary driver of traffic for Internet retailers, but does pretty well as a driver of conversions too. 

Online marketers in all verticals go around and around as to the best source of converting traffic. While the SeeWhy study applies only to merchants (and furthermore only to those user sessions where an item was added into a shopping cart), it does clearly show how important email marketing is to the revenues of merchants - despite its often maligned reputation. 

Email was responsible for 56.8 percent of traffic arriving at the shopping cart and 67 percent of the conversions. Compare that to the next largest segment in direct traffic (type-in, bookmark) which accounted for 17.9 percent of traffic and 23.68 percent of the conversions. Search marketing, referrals (presumably affiliates), social media, and display advertising rounded out the list and were collectively responsible for approximately 25% of the traffic and less than ten percent of the conversions. Not a good sign, particuarly with the influx in social media investment. 

So Website Magazine reader, which source of your traffic has the best conversion rate? Share with others by commenting below.