A tale of two websites

Once upon a time, in the kingdom of URL, there lived two identical twin Online Marketing Managers. They managed two of the king’s banking websites which were the same in every way:

• They looked identical.
• They each had 2,000 monthly visitors to the mortgage page.
• Those visits turned into clicks of “apply now” 3% of the time.
• And of those, 25% exited the sales funnel as booked mortgages.

Each of the websites received $5,000 a month from the king to invest in getting mortgages, and at the end of each year, the king would return to reward the manager of the website that returned the most mortgage business. You see, each new mortgage brought a monthly profit of $500 to the kingdom!

The first Online Marketing Manager spent the $5,000 on online mortgage advertising and earned an unheard of Cost-Per-Click of $5. Targeted audiences from far and wide would visit its pages to gaze at its splendorous rates and apply for mortgages, which continued to happen at the ever-reliable rate of 3%.

The second Online Marketing Manager spent the money on optimization. With $5,000, he hired a vendor who increased the “apply now” conversion rate on the landing page by 2%, then fled the kingdom the very next day never to be heard from again.

The king felt sorry for website two because of the misfortune of the optimization vendor leaving, so at the end of the first month, he decided to once again give both websites $5,000. Again, website one spent it on advertising, and website two spent it on optimization. And once again, the optimization vendor showed up for 1 day, increased the funnel conversion rate (conversions after an “apply now” click) by 5%, and then ran off with the money never to be heard from again.

The king was furious at the second manager for making the same mistake twice. His leniency, it seemed, had been rewarded with carelessness. He vowed website two would not receive another dime of his money. Furthermore, the full $10,000 would now be awarded to website one each month.

The months went on as festivals and parades were held in honor of the first website, whose manager proudly displayed its cost-per-click numbers in ever more ornate dashboards and entertained crowds with his humorous and intriguing clickbait ad copy. The $10,000 per month had now doubled traffic to the mortgage page from the original 2,000 to 4,000 visitors!

At the end of the first year, the king called the two managers to his chambers.

The manager of website one rode in on a gold chariot and proudly proclaimed that the king’s $110,000 had been used to generate 345 new booked mortgages! The king beamed with pride. Given $500 in monthly profit per mortgage, this means total profit was $1,083,750, of which $498,750 could be attributed to the king’s monthly investment! The astounding return on investment of 353% was impressive to say the least.

The second manager humbly approached the king with a one sheet printout of the results. The king looked up in disbelief when he saw the numbers. The second website generated 355 new mortgages generating $1,140,000 in profit, of which $555,000 was directly attributable to the king’s $10,000 investment. What’s more, because this manager had spent such a small amount in comparison, he achieved ROI of 5,450%.

The second Online Marketing Manager had reduced costs, increased profits, and ensured the site would maximize the value of any dollar invested in future advertising.

And that’s how this humble Online Marketing Manager became the Duke of URL.