Getting a cut of the revenue increase would be great, but how do you prove how much influence you've had on the revenue increase/decrease as compared to other steps the company took to change their fortunes? Are there any methods that can be used to tease apart each cause and effect?
Generally the businesses that we have pursued this path are ones who neglect to treat their online selling motions like a product.
For example, we are working with a client who makes "99%" of their money from physical retail. Their focus is on opening new physical locations and their eCommerce side is an after-thought. Their offline business is booming, but their online visits and conversion rates have been flat for 6+ months. My team will be taking over their site.
There is certainly a bit of faith that any change to visits will be from our SEO, though we can specifically target long-tail terms and build reports to show that they previously received X visits a month on these highly convertible terms now they receive 5X. However, with conversion rate optimization, the split-testing makes it pretty clear which changes performs better.
When the business gets an increase in highly convertible traffic after a flatline and additional $50,000-$500,000 in online revenue, they are very happy.
This type of contract only works with businesses that bring in millions. For smaller businesses or startups generating $50k-$100k/year, there are generally smaller budgets or not enough traffic to make split-testing possible in short-term engagements. So we'll do fixed bid consultations and short-term contracts for $1k-$20k and possibly do a follow up 3+ months down the line. Or we will use the split-testing and CRO service as a feeder to build trust in my team and then try to cross-sell our other service (build a custom mobile app, web app, or immersive advertisement).
