Conversions Specialist - What is CRO?

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What is CRO?

CRO stands for conversion rate optimisation. It’s the process of enhancing your site to improve visitor metrics and drive maximum conversions. The action doesn’t necessarily have to mean a customer purchase. You can optimise for any desired action you want visitors to take on a page. For example, anything from a newsletter signup, to an app download, sale, receiving a call back, a video view and so on.

Why is CRO so important?

If your marketing efforts are driving traffic to your site, but your conversion rates are poor or have room for improvement – then CRO can help you get more value.

Conversions can take place anywhere on your site. Therefore, it is essential to optimise individual pages and make continuous site adjustments to drive visitors towards your desired outcomes.

We’ve listed some CRO techniques and approaches below:

User testing

One of the most important CRO techniques is performing regular tests. User tests can reveal how your site visitors respond to different features, layouts, content and other aspects of your site. It will provide you with direct input about how users are navigating on your webpages. These are just a few of the questions that can be answered through user testing:

At which point did a user decide to leave your site?
How easy is it to complete a specific action?
Why was a purchase cancelled?

The results you find from user testing will enable you to optimise your site for conversions.

Find out how we can perform user testing.

Google Optimize

Optimize is Google’s solution for A/B testing – enabling you to improve your CRO through Google Analytics. So, how does it work? Google Optimize is a split-testing tool which you can plug into your site – allowing you to test what is working and what isn’t. The tool sits ‘on top’ of your site and makes it possible to alter various aspects and test how each change will impact your performance.

When running tests through Optimize – you can experiment with your layout, content, design, CTA (call-to-action) buttons and more. The main benefit of this tool is that you are not simply relying on your own opinion – but you can gage the reaction of real users. You also have the option to test different elements to specific groups and audiences – which you can control in Google Analytics.

Testing for conversions

A test compares different versions of your site – and measures which version is doing a better job of leading visitors towards your goals. You can run different tests using Optimize – depending on the depth of your changes. We’ve explained 3 key test types:

A/B tests – An A/B test uses two or more variants from one page – it is a randomized way of testing the functionality and effectiveness of a specific page. Variant A is the original version, whilst B will be an element that has been modified. For example, you might change the position or colour of a CTA button for variant B. Depending on the experiment, variant B can also be an entire new version of a page.
Multivariate tests – A multivariate test (MVT) can test variants of two or more elements at the same time – to reveal which combination leads to the best results. A/B testing would show which variant is most effective, whereas MVT identifies the most effective variant of each element and can analyse the interactions between each of the elements.
Redirect tests – A redirect, or split URL test, is a different type of A/B technique. It allows users to test separate pages and measure their effectiveness against each other. In this case, variants are identified by URL rather than the elements of a site. This is a beneficial test type for users who want to test two completely different landing pages and want to test out multiple page designs.

The benefits of CRO

Some of the ways you could benefit from a CRO campaign include:

Increase engagement on site – You can increase the average time customers spend on your site, the pages viewed and the actions taken.
Increase conversions – You will be capitalising on traffic that you are already generating. CRO helps you squeeze maximum value from your traffic and drive the conversions that matter to you.
Improve UX – The goal is to make your customers converts at a higher rate, this leads to journeys that are smoother and more straightforward for the customer, so the overall experience improves.
Increase brand loyalty – If your site is user-friendly and easy to navigate, you’ll gain a better reputation. Users will return and be more likely to recommend you to others.
Identify & fix problems – The changes you make will lead to permanent site improvements, such as removing any bugs or problem areas. Having this process in place ensures you are regularly identifying issues on site.
Know your customers better – The data collected will provide you with a better understanding of your customers behaviours and needs when they navigate your site. Improving your CRO and collecting valuable insights will lead to higher customer satisfaction on your site.

Find out about our CRO process.

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What Next?

CRO is an essential contribution to the success of your site, your customer relationships and your brand reputation. If you have any questions, or you want to find out how we can help you meet your objectives through CRO, please get in touch.