To some extent, CRO can be adopted by companies of any size. Whether this is just starting with a CRO audit of your site, or a full on CRO program with continuous A/B testing. What matters more than having a big team is your commitment to making decisions based on data and sound reasoning rather than guesswork or gut instinct.
Reason you don’t need a big team #1 – as long as you have a good strategy, you are off to a great start
A good strategy is key for CRO teams
You might think you’re at a disadvantage when it comes to conversion rate optimisation (CRO) if you are part of a small team, or simply by yourself. But there will be lots of big teams that are just testing things blindly, with no real sense of direction. By following a good CRO strategy, you put yourself on an equal or better footing than the big guys.
Start your CRO journey by gathering insights
To get started with CRO you should be basing the changes you plan to make to your site on insights from analytics data, behavioural data (like click maps, scroll maps, and recordings), or research (such as user testing, customer interviews and surveys).
Ideate how to fix problems
Knowledge around best practice will come in handy after you’ve gathered your insights. Whilst best practice isn’t always going to apply to your site, it can help you make decisions about what to test once you have discovered a problem.
It also helps to have a good understanding of user psychology. This means you understand why people behave the way they do. But don’t worry if that’s too advanced for you when you’re just getting the hang of things.
Write hypotheses and prioritise
Something a lot of big teams may skip is writing hypotheses. Hypotheses are important because they state what change will be made and the expected result. Writing them ensures that each change (or small group of changes) has a clear goal and are not just being applied haphazardly. Having hypotheses also helps you when it comes to testing, because you will be clear what impact you are looking for.
An example of a simple hypothesis may be:
‘Moving the pricing options higher up the homepage will increase click through to the checkout as more users will scroll to this point on the page.’
In this hypothesis we are stating what we are doing (moving pricing options higher up the homepage), and are noting what impact we think this will have (greater click through to the checkout and an increase in the percentage of users scrolling to the pricing section). The primary KPI we would be testing for would be click throughs to the checkout.
Once you’ve got your findings, come up with your ideas, and formulated your hypotheses you are on to prioritisation. This means applying a prioritisation method such as the ICE scoring system or MoSCoW method. We tend to apply the ICE method to ideas first, as we feel this fits in nicely with CRO. In the ICE method you give each idea or hypothesis a score based on impact, confidence, and ease. This way you are not only focusing on what you think will move the needle, but being realistic about how feasible it is.
Test
The next step to a good CRO strategy that a team of any size can learn about is testing. Understanding what testing is and what testing options are available to you is important. It is always best to measure the impact of a change (or the application of a hypothesis).
How you do this will vary depending on your traffic volumes. If you have lots of traffic, then we recommend running A/B tests using specialist A/B testing software such as that provided by our partners at Webtrends Optimize and Shoplift (native A/B testing for Shopify).
Running these tests requires good traffic because to determine a winner most software is going to require thousands of views of each version of your page you are testing. The software will try and guess at a winner for you, even if it doesn’t have really high volumes of traffic, but it can’t be relied on if your volumes are too low.
In the situation where you have very low traffic volumes, you are best carrying out benchmark testing. This is where you make a note of what your key KPIs are before you make a change, implement the change, and then wait a while before noting any difference in your KPIs. This way of testing is best done during stable periods, by which I mean periods where you are not running promotions or switching up your marketing. This will help reduce external factors from influencing your results.
Learn and repeat
Another issue a lot of teams face is running tests and not analysing the results hard enough. Sometimes you can learn more from a failing test than you can from a winning one, helping you formulate your next hypothesis.
If a test won or failed, did it win or fail on all devices? What about with users from all countries if you have an international user base? Did it perform better or worse with different traffic sources? These are all things that can help you learn and develop an even more effective test next time round, and it is a step even the big guys can skip.
Once you’ve learnt from your test, it’s time to start the process again. You don’t necessarily have to be doing continuous research, but you should still be referring to other insight sources to inform your next steps.
Reason #2 – You are probably more capable of gathering insights than you think
There are plenty of things you can do as an individual or a small team that will get you the insights you need.
Click maps, scroll maps, and recordings
Using behaviour tracking software such as Hotjar (click here for a 30 day free trial of Hotjar), or Microsoft Clarity you can see how users are interacting with your site. One of my favourite things to look out for is where users are clicking on a page and where this is in relation to how far users are scrolling down the page.
For example, you may look at your click map and see strong interaction (usually indicated by red) with an element which only 50% or less of your users are scrolling to. This suggests that the element is important to your users, and if it is something that aids navigation or leads down the path to conversion, you may want to place it higher.
Similarly, if you see very little interaction with elements that are above the fold (the bit users see when their screen loads), then it suggests something isn’t resonating with them.
Watching recordings of users interact with your site is something else you can do by yourself, or share amongst a small team. Recordings can be a great source of qualitative insights (insights that are not numerical). In Clarity, and on some Hotjar plans you can select an area that received interaction and choose to view recordings where users interacted with that area, helping you really narrow in on what you are looking for.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics can seem intimidating if you are unfamiliar with it. But it is a great source of insights that even an individual can use effectively. If you are unsure where to start with Google Analytics, check out my other article on 5 reports that tell you where your opportunities lie.
One of the biggest hurdles I found when making the switch to Google Analytics 4 (the current version) was getting familiar with the metric and dimension names. Understanding these is helpful because it enables you to make sense of the reports that are pre-built in Google Analytics and build your own custom reports.
In very lose terms, metrics and dimensions are the ways your data is presented, and sometimes their names are not intuitive. You might find this guide by Google helpful when getting to grips with the default reports in GA4.
User research
I’m a big fan of user research having ran moderated user research for around 3 years before starting with Credo. Usually, I recommend you leave moderated user research to the experts as it takes years to really hone your skills. That being said, if you feel particularly confident, you can run your own moderated user testing sessions. These are sessions where you sit with a user as they navigate through your site and attempt a task. The aim is to let the user move around as naturally as possible, being curious and asking questions, but not influencing the direction they take.
You can also run interviews with existing customers and prospective customers to get a sense of the type of language they use (so you can mimic this on your site), and understand their motivators (so you can tap into these). You could also run customer journey mapping sessions with existing customers to better understand how they came across your site, their experience with it, and their experience afterwards to determine potential weak points in the customer journey. Again, these types of research are a little advanced, so you might want to bring in someone to help you.
If you can’t afford to bring in someone else and you are not feeling confident in your skills as a researcher, then running unmoderated user research through sites such as UserTesting and Userlytics can give you helpful insights that you wouldn’t be able to get from analytics alone and that you may find more difficult to get from watching videos in your user behaviour tracking software.
Reason #3 – with the right developer by your side, you could run A/B tests yourself
Running A/B tests likely means having a developer, at least on most A/B testing platforms. If you just want to make small changes like changing the header text on your Shopify homepage, then you can absolutely do this yourself using a tool like Shoplift. Some other A/B testing platforms also have a visual editor, but these do tend to be limited. For the more complex changes, finding a reliable and trustworthy developer is going to be key.
It’s important to note that having the ability to run tests is different to knowing how to analyse the results, but most platforms have useful help guides to walk you through applying segments to your data which helps you look for patterns in the things we talked about earlier (device, user location etc.).
Why you might want to bring in some extra help
By this point, hopefully you are feeling more confident that you can start CRO by yourself or with a small team. But there may be some reasons you decide that actually, you would like a bit of help.
1 – You want an outside perspective
It’s great that you are ready to take a look at your site with a critical eye. But even with the best intentions of being non-biased, internal knowledge can be a factor in missing the obvious.
Too many times, I have audited a site and pointed out that the target audience may not understand what it is the page is talking about. This is because the copy has been written by those in the know who have assumed a greater level of knowledge than that which real users visiting the site have.
An outside perspective is good to keep around even after the initial insight gathering/auditing phase as it keeps your tests grounded in what really matters to your users.
2 – You want someone to handle your CRO strategy
Having an outside input can be helpful throughout the CRO journey as it can keep projects on track, not letting them get sidelined by competing internal factors drawing attention away.
In addition, coming up with ideas, formulating hypotheses, and testing can be a big time commitment. One you may not be able to really give the attention it deserves. You might feel that although you want to be kept in the loop about what’s happening and why, you would rather take a step back from the day to day running of CRO and let someone else handle it for you.
3 – You want the expertise of professionals
With AI, everyone can do a lot more than they could before. But if we’ve learnt anything about AI so far, it’s that it’s far from perfect and can’t replicate true human originality. That’s where your experts in design, copywriting, development, user research, user psychology, and analysis come in. If you can, then paying for real expert input is going to help you on your way to a really successful CRO journey.
Ways we can help
As you’ve probably guessed, as a CRO agency we can help you get your CRO show on the road. If you are looking for that helping hand, we’ve got you covered.
- Want insights based on best practice, user psychology and user behaviour tracking? Our CRO Mini-Audit is perfect for you.
- Want all of that plus analytics insights? Check out our Full CRO Audit.
- Need moderated user research to get the best insights from your users or customers? Take a look at our user research
- Want the reassurance that your CRO strategy is being handled by the experts? Then our Full Service CRO is for you. We work with e-commerce brands, service companies, SaaS companies, and more.
The advantage of choosing Credo is that whilst you’re working with people on the outside, we are a small company ourselves. This means the service you receive is collaborative and personal. We are always here to support you in a way that many larger agencies can’t. If you’d like to speak to us about what you need to support your CRO journey, you can do so by clicking the link below.
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.