Contents
- What is a conversion?
- What is conversion rate?
- What does optimisation mean?
- What kinds of changes are considered CRO changes?
- How do you decide what changes to make?
- What is a conversion rate optimisation hypothesis?
- How do you test in conversion rate optimisation?
- Can I do conversion rate optimisation if I have low traffic volumes?
- Summary
This article answers conversion rate optimisation (CRO) questions for websites. This is the way it is CRO is typically used, although there may be other applications.
The article covers the very basics of CRO. If you would like more of an in-depth beginners guide, I would recommend this article on the ultimate guide for beginners instead.
What is a conversion?
A conversion is any action you want users to take on your website. This can be making a purchase, signing up to a newsletter, filling in an enquiry form, or signing up to a webinar.
Typically, primary conversions are those that result in money being made. Secondary conversions are those that gather user details for future marketing use.
You will also have what we call micro-conversions. These are the smaller steps towards one of the conversions mentioned above and they are really important when you are measuring the impact of a change. Examples of micro-conversions from e-commerce are users clicking through to a product page (PDP) from a collection page (PLP), and users clicking add to cart/basket from a product page.
What is a conversion rate?
Conversion rate is the percentage of users who completed an action on your site. For example, if you had 100 site visitors and 2 of them converted, you would have a conversion rate of 2%. (Two divided by 100 and then multiplied by 2 equals 2%.)
What does optimisation mean?
Optimisation means improvement, towards the optimal condition. In the case of conversion rate optimisation, it means improvement towards the optimal conversion rate.
In practice, optimisation means making improvements to your site which then lead to an improvement in your conversion rate.
What kinds of changes are considered conversion rate optimisation changes?
Any change that increases the chance of users converting can be considered a CRO change. Typically, these changes are small so the impact of each change can be tested or monitored.
These small changes are designed to add up towards a greater impact on your overall conversion rate.
How do you decide what changes to make in conversion rate optimisation?
You should decide what changes to make based on evidence that something is wrong. This evidence can come from:
- Analytics (click here for 5 things to look out for in your analytics).
- User research (click here for more on how we carry out moderated user research).
- An impartial heuristic review of your site based on user psychology such as with an audit (click here for more about the audits we offer).
- User behavioural data from Clarity or Hotjar (click here for a 30 day free trial on us).
- Any internal information you have about user questions and concerns such as that from support tickets or knowledge held by the sales team.
Once you have this evidence you can ideate (come up with ideas) on how to improve your site. It’s best to run these past a CRO expert to make sure you are on the right track if you can.
What is a conversion rate optimisation hypothesis?
Each idea or small group of ideas to improve your site should form a hypothesis. A hypothesis sets out what you are changing, the expected impact of that change, and why you believe the change will occur.
For example, if you believed showing the most expensive price for a SaaS product first would increase the percentage of users clicking through to the checkout you could say:
‘Placing the highest cost package first will increase the percentage of users who click through to checkout due to the impact of price anchoring on user psychology.’
How do you test in conversion rate optimisation?
Testing in CRO typically means AB testing. AB testing usually means testing version A (a control version) against version B (a version with the changes you wanted to test). You will want to use testing software to split the traffic (visitors to your site) between the two versions.
You will set up goals for the test. These can be your primary or secondary, or micro-conversions. In whichever version your goals are hit the most, you have a winner. You can also monitor engagement with engagement and bounce rate goals. These help you determine how well the versions are connecting with users and encouraging them to stick around.
AB testing software includes:
- VWO
- Webtrends Optimize
- Shoplift (native AB testing for Shopify)
- Optimizely
- Convert
- AB Tasty
To use AB testing software effectively, you typically need substantial traffic volumes and the patience to run a test for at least 4 weeks before drawing a conclusion.
Can I do conversion rate optimisation if I have low traffic?
Yes, you can do CRO if you have low traffic volumes to your site. The way you do it will be mostly the same (as described above), but when it comes to testing, you may struggle running AB tests and getting meaningful results. Instead, you can do what we call benchmark testing. With benchmark testing you:
- Take a moment in time (perhaps a month’s worth of trading).
- Note all your KPIs for that time period.
- Make your change.
- Leave this change in place for at least 4 weeks.
- Note your KPIs for that time period and how they have changed.
The reason benchmark testing is not recommended if you have the traffic volumes for AB testing is that there are more things that can impact the outcome of your test such as changes in buying behaviour seasonally. For example, it wouldn’t be fair to compare a month of trading with no offers on an e-commerce store to November if you are running Black Friday offers. Try and wait for a period of stability.
Summary
Conversion rate optimisation can be done by organisations of any size and in any industry, even non-profit. The key principle is to make decisions about what to test based on evidence and then formulate informed hypotheses. CRO isn’t about making hap-hazard guesses, it is about evaluation.
To learn more about what a CRO strategy is and get a better sense of what goes into running CRO, click here. Otherwise, feel free to get in touch for a free consultation where you can:
- Learn if CRO is right for you right now.
- Discuss your options (audit, full service CRO, user research, something in between).
- Speak to a CRO expert.
- Get a quote.
Hi, I’m Charlotte. I love writing about user psychology and tips I’ve picked up from leading user research and CRO projects. Get in touch if you’d like to work with me to improve the user experience on your site or click here to learn more about your future CRO team.