What is conversion rate optimization (CRO)? (2024)

What is conversion rate optimization?

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the process of increasing the percentage of conversions from a website or mobile app through desired action. It involves:

• Generating ideas for improving site/app elements
• Validating hypotheses through A/B testing and multivariate testing
• Enhancing user experience to boost conversions

Looking at lessons learned from 127,000 experiments, under-prioritized metrics like search rate can increase conversions.

Why is conversion rate optimization important?

By having a conversion rate optimization strategy, you can:

• Increase revenue per visitor
• Lower customer acquisition costs
• Get more value from existing visitors/users
• Acquire more customers and grow your business

Example: If a landing page has an average conversion rate of 10% and receives 2000 visitors a month, then the page will generate 200 conversions per month. If the conversion rate can be improved to 15% by optimizing different elements on the page, the number of conversions generated jumps by 50% to 300 per month.

In digital marketing, there is always room for improvement when it comes to website conversion rate, and the best companies are constantly iterating and improving their sites and apps to create a better experience for their users and grow conversions.

An effective CRO strategy relies on several key elements:

1. User research: Understanding your audience's needs and behaviors.
2. Website analytics: Gathering and analyzing user data in real-time.
3. User experience (UX) design: Creating intuitive, enjoyable user interactions.
4. Landing page optimization: Refining entry points for maximum impact.
5. Copywriting: Crafting persuasive, action-oriented content.
6. Page load speed: Ensuring quick loading times across devices.
7. Trust building: Incorporating elements that boost credibility.
8. Conversion funnel analysis: Identifying and addressing drop-off points.
9. Mobile optimization: Providing excellent experiences on all devices.

Conversion rate optimization examples

We’ve got 2 examples from real practitioners to prove conversion rate optimization can help you learn interesting things.

Example 1: Real book cover vs. Abstract version

Joe Geoghan, Senior Visual Brand Design Specialist, Optimizely, wanted to test the real cover vs. an abstract version of the big book of experimentation in the email body. Assuming the real cover would win, it was the cover used in most of the emails.

Version 1

Version 2

Result: The abstract version still ended up winning

Takeaway: The small version of the cover was too small to show the important information -- the illustration and text were both illegible. The abstract version was concise and showed you exactly what you were getting into. In design, clarity matters.

Example 2: Predicting the next best action

Charlotte Golding and her team at Virgin Media wanted to predict the Next Best Action (NBA) so they could design personalized experiences for their customers. They assumed customer would only have specific requests like improving the network in their area or upgrading their existing broadband, etc.

Result: The team found that the same customer would come in with different requests each day. One day, they were looking for customer care and the next day, they just wanted to upgrade. This wasn't initially factored in the NBA but after the experiment, the team had to optimize their model to better understand on which next best action to show to a customer. Learn more about Charlotte’s experience here.

Takeaway: Customers can come to your website about a different thing every day. Don't just put them in a single personalized experience and expect the same results. Optimize the model regularly.

Remember, any marketing strategy relies on a variety of techniques, each targeting different aspects of the user experience. Here are a few conversion rate optimization techniques:

• Optimize Call-to-Action: Craft compelling, action-oriented CTA buttons with strategic placement and contrasting colors.
• Improve user experience (UX): Simplify navigation, improve page load times, and ensure mobile responsiveness.
• Test: Systematically compare variations of page elements to identify top performers.
• Personalize: Tailor messaging and offers based on user behavior, preferences, or demographics.
• Include social proof: Leverage customer testimonials, reviews, social media threads, and usage statistics to build trust.
• Build trust: Display security badges, certifications, and clear policies to alleviate user concerns.

Establishing conversion metrics

Conversion rate optimization begins by first identifying what the conversion goals are for any given web page or app screen. The success metrics of your website or mobile app will depend on the type of business you’re in, and what your goals are.

For example, if you sell products online via ecommerce channels, a conversion for you may be the number of purchases or the number of website visitors that add a product to their shopping cart. If you sell products or services to businesses, you might be measuring the number of leads your website collects or the number of white paper downloads.

Some common conversion goals organized by usability and industry type:

• Media - pageviews, ad views, newsletter subscriptions, recommended content engagement
• Ecommerce - product sales, add-to-carts, shopping cart completion rate, e-mail newsletter sign-ups
• Travel - booking conversions, ancillary purchases, social shares
• B2B - leads generated, deals closed

Once you have established the conversion metrics for your digital interactions with your audience, you can increase conversion rates by improving your digital customer experiences.

Conversion rate optimization process

Once your conversion metrics have been identified, here's a simple data-driven process you want to follow for converting site visitors:

• Identify your conversion goals
• Analyze your current sales funnel
• Focus on high-traffic or underperforming pages
• Develop hypotheses for improvements
• Test your hypotheses
• Analyze results and implement winning changes
• Continuously iterate and improve

You can start by optimizing pages that receive the greatest amount of traffic. By focusing on these pages, you will be able to see the results of your changes faster and have a larger impact on your business.

Other potential places to start include your highest-value pages that are underperforming compared to the rest of your site. Again, improving these areas can have the greatest immediate impact on your conversion goals.

For example, a clothing retailer may find that their page for hats receives a lot of traffic but has a conversion rate that is much lower than the rest of the site. By improving the conversion rate of that page, the retailer might see a big improvement in sales.

CRO best practices

When it comes to CRO, great results aren’t possible without specific action and experimentation. Here are some of the best CRO practices you can use to get started.

1. Research your target audience and website traffic. Understand their pain points.
2. Test clear Call-to-Action (CTA). Do not rush your visitors. Anticipate how ready they're to buy and send them to the next step accordingly.
3. Don't add too much information on every page. Each page should lead to a clear next step.
4. Optimize for mobile devices. Ensure all functionalities and CTAs work.
5. Reduce load time for your slow-loading web pages to reduce bounce rates.
6. Use trust signals like customer testimonials, case studies, social proof, industry badges, etc.
7. Personalize content and product recommendations based on user behavior.
8. Identify areas of a page that are most (or least) engaging with heatmaps and improve wherever required.

Not all ideas improve your website conversion rate

There are tonnes of ideas folks want to implement on their website, all of which seem like a great idea at the time. Most teams come up with benchmarks and ideas, push them to production, and then try and measure the results through a CRO test. However,only 12% of experiments run actually produce a winning result.

Because they've already invested in the process, the focus is on making it work. But what if the wrong ideas were being tested from the start?

Change gears a bit. Testing isn't just about finding winners. This is a legacy way of thinking about CRO.

Experimentation is about learning. The only way your optimization efforts 'fail' is if you fail to learn from it. For example, changing a call-to-action and product page design and messaging is a great way to see how potential customers interact on the page. Some even prefer seeing the pricing upfront.

Focus on using data at every step (Google Analytics functionality can help you here).

Finally...

We understand, that getting started with conversion rate optimization can be tricky. To help you, we’ve collected 40+ industry-wide use cases showing how real businesses leveraged experimentation to skyrocket conversion rates.

Check out the2024 Big Book of Experimentation. It’s free and you can start reading in seconds.