Everything You Need to Know About CRO
You may be asking yourself, "what is CRO?" We'll tell you. Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a process by which companies optimize their website or landing page in order to increase the number of users who convert into customers. Conversion rate optimization is a subset of marketing but focuses on improving the conversion rates of websites or landing pages rather than broad marketing goals like brand awareness and reputation management. In other words: CRO focuses on increasing sales while marketing focuses on increasing awareness and engagement with your brand or product.
It's important to note that conversion rate optimization isn't just for e-commerce companies; it can be used by any type of business because every company has customers online looking at their website!
What are my first steps in CRO?
The first step to any CRO effort is understanding your audience, their behavior and how they interact with your site. This can be as simple as asking yourself who you're trying to reach, what their needs are, and what stage in the funnel they're at when they arrive on your site. If you have an existing website or are making a new one from scratch then this research should be easy enough to do; if not, it's worth investing in some initial user research before getting started.
Once you've done that the next step would be to understand why people aren't converting (or worse: why they aren't even visiting) by looking at the data available through Google Analytics (GA). GA will give you insight into how much traffic is coming through which channels and where they land on the site. For example, if 90% of our visitors come from organic search then we know there's something broken with our SEO strategy—we should look at improving our SEO efforts instead of wasting time optimizing other parts of our funnel like email marketing or social media campaigns for example.
The first step to a successful project is defining the problem. Start by asking yourself what you want to accomplish, and then figure out how you can achieve it. It's important not to get distracted by other people's goals; they may have their own plan for achieving success, which could be different from yours. Set expectations that are ambitious, but realistic within a reasonable timeline—three to six months is ideal for most fitness goals. Maybe you want to run a 5K or lose 20 pounds in three months? Maybe your goal is more long-term, like building muscle or decreasing body fat percentage? Whatever your goal, make sure it's measurable—you'll want to track progress so that you know whether or not what strategies are working (and which ones aren't).
What if I don’t have data to test my hypothesis?
You don't have to have data. If you're like most marketers, you may not have the resources or time to get a bunch of testing data before you start running CRO tests on your site. And that's OK! In fact, even if you do have some existing testing data, it might make sense to still try some CRO experiments without it. It's possible (and likely) that the type of experiment you're running will help inform future A/B tests and thus give more helpful insights into how users interact with your site or app.
It helps if a hypothesis is actionable—that is, something specific you can test for—but sometimes this just isn't possible until after running an experiment and seeing what happens next. For example: Let's say we want to increase sign ups by encouraging people who visit our pricing page twice within 24 hours but haven't clicked through yet (maybe they were distracted by something else while they were there). With this in mind we design three different variations: one calls attention directly to sign up areas (with an arrow pointing toward them), another highlights promotional offers only available during sign up periods and another plays soothing music as soon as someone arrives at our site so they feel relaxed enough not worry about missing out on any deals if they don't buy right away.
Now that you’ve got the data, it’s time to put it to work. The first step is to determine what exactly you want your website visitors and app users to do on your site or in your app. Do you want them to buy something? Do you want them to sign up for a newsletter? Or maybe even something as simple as click on a button or watch an ad.
Once you know what action drive success for your business, then all that’s left is figuring out how much emphasis should be placed on each CRO element (e.g., A/B testing different calls-to-actions). In other words, how do we know which element is most important when we have limited resources available?
The answer lies within another question: How much revenue can we expect from each conversion event if our goal is X% higher than it currently stands today?
For example: If someone signs up for our email list through the optin form but doesn't purchase anything (i.e., no conversion), then what's the value of this person being added into our database because they signed up through this specific call-to-action (CTA)? If they don't purchase anything now but later do after seeing multiple marketing messages over time--then which CTA generated those leads? Which one produced more sales per dollar invested spent versus any other type of campaign type such as display ads or direct mail pieces delivered via snail mail...etc!
There are many different approaches to testing your hypothesis, but the three most common methods are A/B testing, split testing, and multivariate testing.
A/B testing: This method involves showing two versions of your ad or website to users (such as a control group who sees one version and an experiment group who sees another). The goal is to determine which version performs better. Google Optimize allows you to conduct A/B tests on our platform; other options include AdWords Scripts as well as tools like Unbounce or Visual Website Optimizer.
Split testing: This method involves splitting visitors into two groups based on one variable — like their location — and then showing each group different versions of your ads or website in order to determine which version performs better. We’re currently working on making it easier for advertisers using our platform to do split tests through Google Optimize!
What kind of data does CRO pull from?
CRO can pull data from any source. It's important to know that CRO isn't just limited to website data; it can also pull from email, social media and other sources. Additionally, third party tools like Google Tag Manager can be used in conjunction with CRO for a more comprehensive view of your customers' online behavior. If you already have analytics in place on your site or elsewhere, these tools will allow you to add this information into the mix as well!
What kind of businesses benefit from CRO?
The short answer is that any business that wants to increase revenue, increase customer satisfaction, or get more leads or sales can benefit from CRO. However, there are some general characteristics of businesses that will benefit most from CRO:
Businesses whose conversion rates are below average (as defined by industry benchmarks) will see the biggest gains with CRO. If your conversion rate is already above-average, you may still benefit from testing different versions of a given page in order to maximize revenue even further.
Businesses whose web traffic has plateaued should use CRO as a way to boost engagement and drive traffic back up again through improved user experience on their website. This can also help mitigate any negative impact from seasonal changes in purchases habits during the year—for instance if people tend not to buy winter clothes until it starts getting cold outside!
If you want to improve your business at all, chances are you can benefit from conversion rate optimization.
If you want to improve your business at all, chances are you can benefit from conversion rate optimization. CRO is a process that helps you improve your website’s ability to convert visitors into customers. This is done through testing different variations of a page and then analyzing the results to figure out what works best. There are many different types of CRO:
A/B testing: two versions of the same page are shown to users, with only one version used as the control. The other version is tested against the control during an experiment period (usually between one day and a week) in order to see which performs better.
Multivariate testing: many different versions or combinations of elements on a single page—such as text links, images or buttons—are tested against each other at once. In general, multivariate tests are more effective than A/B tests because they give you greater insight into why certain changes lead to higher conversions; however they require more time and effort to conduct well because each combination must be tested separately rather than being compared directly against another type of content (which would make it an A/B test).
As you can see, conversion rate optimization is a big deal and it can benefit your business in so many ways. If you’re looking to improve your conversion rates, then testing and improving is the way to go. There are a lot of things that could be improved on any website, so don’t feel overwhelmed! We hope this guide has given you some insight into how CRO works and what steps should be taken next time when making changes in your own website or app (or any other online platform).
