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How to Increase Your Conversion Rate with CRO Strategies

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a crucial part of digital marketing. It’s an effective way to maximize the number of visitors that convert into customers. With the right CRO strategies, you can boost your website’s performance and increase your ROI and advertising efficiency. Let’s take a look at some of the different types of CRO strategies that you can use to optimize your site.

A/B Testing

A/B testing is one of the most popular types of conversion rate optimization methods. It involves creating two versions of a page or element on your website and then testing them out on different audiences to see which performs better. This allows you to determine which version resonates more with users and which one drives more conversions. You can also use A/B testing for email campaigns or other marketing materials.

The greatest benefit of A/B testing is it removes the guesswork from your strategy. You may have an idea of what your audience needs and wants, but A/B testing allows you to test that hypothesis on a limited number of your visitors and prove your hypothesis correct before committing to any changes.

You can even segment the results of your test by traffic sources and see which audience segments respond to certain changes more positively than others. This provides a wealth of knowledge about the little differences in your audience segments that can generate HUGE results.

Testing different variations of your products or services pages is something ALL eCommerce sites should be doing on a regular basis.

Personalization

Personalization is another type of conversion rate optimization strategy that can help you increase conversions by providing tailored experiences for each user. By understanding user behavior, you can create personalized content that speaks directly to their needs and interests, making it easier for them to find what they’re looking for and more likely to complete a purchase or sign up for a service.

The entire theory behind Conversion Rate Optimization is better understanding your audience and customers to determine what information they find most valuable, and what experience makes them most likely to convert. Personalization allows you to speak more directly to different parts of your audience at the same time while providing both of them with the information they each find more useful. It shouldn’t come as a big surprise that this is an extremely effective strategy for increasing your number of conversions.

Mobile Optimization

With mobile usage continuing to grow every year, optimizing for mobile devices is becoming increasingly crucial for businesses looking to increase their reach and sales volume. A key component of this is Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), which ensures that the correct offerings are displayed to users during their mobile visits and the checkout process is highly optimized for a hassle-free experience. After all, no one likes dealing with long forms or slow-loading images on their phones! Through the strategic use of CRO, companies are able to boost user engagement, nudge potential customers toward a purchase, and make sure they come back time and again. The bottom line: If you’re not prioritizing mobile optimization and CRO, you’re likely missing out on an essential piece of your success puzzle.

An important part of mobile optimization is making sure the user experience is consistent across all devices. Users are extremely turned off when they find a brand on their mobile device and decide to continue their search on their desktop only to find a completely different experience. Consistency is essential for creating seamless transitions between devices. Mobile and desktop web should not be in competition, but your approach should ensure they work in tandem to deliver a full journey experience.

Mobile traffic was a higher percentage of traffic vs. desktops across all industries this past year (58% vs. 42%) but desktop still has a higher conversion rate on average (3% vs. 1.6%) and an average higher order value (91% higher on desktop vs. mobile). Having a multi-device strategy will ensure you capitalize on opportunities across all devices and acquire and retain your customers.

5 Keys On How to Improve Your Landing Pages

Landing pages are typically a single webpage or a standalone site page linked directly to a marketing campaign with the goal of lead conversion. Landing pages can be your most profitable weapon in an ad campaign. Increase your ROI (Return on Investment) and ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) without increasing ad spend by driving users to a specific page with one action in mind.

Landing page optimization is a must-have if you want to increase conversions. The average landing page conversion rate across all industries is just below 10%, yet landing pages remain the least popular type of sign-up form. In addition, only half of the companies that utilize a landing page have optimized it for conversions. Keep in mind, companies that utilize conversion rate optimization tools on their landing page see an average increase of 30% in their conversion rate.

A landing page is an essential part of any website. It serves as a hub for your visitors, allowing them to easily access the information they need and guiding them through the process of becoming a customer, subscriber, or donor. To make sure your landing page does its job effectively, you'll want to pay attention to five key elements: design, message, content, call-to-action (CTA), and optimization. Let's take a look at each of these in more detail.

Design

Design is one of the most critical aspects of your landing page. It should be visually appealing and easy to navigate, while still adhering to your overall brand identity. If you're working with a web designer or agency on this project, make sure to provide them with detailed feedback and style guidelines. That way you can ensure that the design meets your expectations and accurately reflects your brand.

Message

The message of your landing page should be clear and concise; there should be no confusion about why people are visiting this page or what action you want them to take after reading it. When crafting your message, ask yourself: What makes my product/service different? Why should someone visit this page instead of another? What value do I offer? Answering these questions will help you focus on the essential elements of your message and get visitors excited about what you have to offer.

Content

Once you've got the design and message nailed down, it's time to start adding content! Content is crucial for engaging visitors and getting them interested in what you have to offer. Make sure that all the content on your landing page is relevant, informative, and easy-to-read—no one likes slogging through long-winded paragraphs! You'll also want to include visuals such as photos or videos if possible; these can be great ways to draw people in and show off what makes your product/service unique.

Why is Conversion Rate Optimization so Important?

When running a business, it's essential to pay attention to your website conversion rate and the total number of conversions—the number of website visitors who take the desired action on your website. After all, that’s how you turn visitors into customers and keep them coming back for more. But what is conversion rate optimization (CRO) and why is it so important? Let’s take a look.

What Is CRO?

Conversion rate optimization is the process of increasing the number of people who complete an action (such as buying a product or signing up for an email list) on a web page or website. This can be done in various ways, such as by optimizing website design, making sure there are clear calls to action, improving user experience, and more. Ultimately, CRO is about understanding user behavior and how they interact with your site—and then using that data to make changes that will encourage them to take action.

Why Is CRO Important?

Simply put, without conversion rate optimization your business won't get very far. You can have all the website traffic in the world but if none of those visitors convert into customers you won't see any real returns on your investment. On the other hand, when you focus on improving conversions you can drive more sales and generate more leads in less time than ever before. That's why CRO is so important—it helps ensure that each visitor has an enjoyable experience on your website and takes the action you want them to take!

The importance of CRO goes way beyond converting a visitor one time after an enjoyable experience. Customers are picker than ever, and will gladly leave your site for the competition at the first sign, hint, or whiff of a bad experience.

A CRO Agency aims to create a user experience that’s so intuitive and enjoyable, that the experience itself creates loyalty. CRO is a strategy for sustainable long-term success. Yes, it helps convert more visitors on their first visit to your site, but it also helps increase Average Order Value, Customer Lifetime Value, and loyalty.

13 Keys to Successful A/B Testing

A/B testing, also known as split testing, is a method of comparing two versions of a web page to see which one performs better. By testing different versions of your web page, you can determine which design elements, copy, and call-to-actions convert visitors into leads or customers.

If you’re hesitant about starting A/B testing or refocusing on improving customer experience before advertising, think about this one statistic. According to Forbes, Jeff Bezos invested 100x more into customer experience than advertising during the first year of Amazon. Considering Amazon is referenced in practically every article about superior customer experience, it becomes impossible to argue with his strategy.

Regardless of your industry, your business exists to create value for your customers whether it be in the form of a product, service, or content. Every customer interaction with your brand creates a measurable amount of data. But what are you doing with that data? Are you just sitting back and passively collecting it? The best companies aren’t storing their data for later analysis, they actively generate valuable data and customer insights through experimentation. If you want to grow in your industry, then implementing efficient and consistent A/B testing is essential.

The obvious benefit of A/B testing is to improve your company’s value and increase revenue, but there are other benefits to creating an experimentation culture. When you have the ability to quickly run an effective A/B test, your company has more flexibility to test out new ideas and no longer needs to rely on anyone’s “gut instinct”. Remove all of the guesswork from your strategic decisions, and get actionable insights into what does, and doesn’t, work.

In this blog post, we'll share eight keys to successful A/B testing. By following these best practices, you can maximize your chances of achieving significant results from your tests.

Define Your Objective

Before you begin designing your test, it's important to have a clear understanding of what you're trying to achieve. What is the primary goal of the page you're testing? Do you want to increase conversion rates, click-through rates, or time on-site? Once you've defined your objective, you can design your test around that goal.

Choose the Right KPI

A key performance indicator (KPI) is a metric that helps you measure progress toward your goal. When choosing a KPI for your test, be sure to select a metric that's directly related to your objective. For example, if you're trying to increase conversion rates, then your KPI should be conversion rate rather than time on site.

Select One Element to Test

It's important to only test one element at a time; otherwise, you won't be able to isolate the factor that caused any changes in your KPI. For example, if you're testing two different headlines, then keep everything else on the page the same. That way, if there's a change in your KPI, you'll know it was caused by the headline and not by some other element on the page.

Avoid “micro-tweaking”

Make sure your testing doesn’t involve the use of trivial changes for the sake of testing. You want to focus on making the smallest changes with the biggest impact. If that’s not an option, then sometimes you have to go big and bold.

Take into account seasonality

This one is pretty self-explanatory. Sometimes seasonality can play a big part in the success of a test for a variety of reasons. Save your old tests and re-run them at different times. The results will often surprise you.

Develop a highly targeted approach to customer experience pain points

When testing changes, make sure that you’ve identified the specific reason why you think it’s affecting your KPI, and craft your hypothesis as to why this change should improve it. Make sure your addressing your customers' objections for why your goals aren’t being reached, and provide the counter-objections in your test. The last thing you want is to run a test and have no clue why it was successful. 

The 4 Major Benefits of Conversion Rate Optimization

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a process that uses data-driven methods to increase the percentage of website visitors who take a desired action (i.e. increase the number of conversions). It’s an invaluable tool for any business that wants to remain competitive in today’s digital marketplace. Let's explore some of the key Conversion rate optimization benefits and how they can help your business thrive.

#1 Increased Revenue

One of the most obvious CRO benefits is increased revenue. By using techniques such as A/B testing, you can figure out which elements on your website actually increase conversions and ensure they’re optimized for maximum success. As your conversion rate increases, so does your bottom line. If you combine things like digital advertising, you can use conversion optimization to reduce those expenses while simultaneously increasing profit. It’s a magical combination when done correctly. 

Conversion rate optimization can be used to increase revenue from new customers and  maximize revenue generated from existing customers. By evaluating performance data and customer behavior on your website, you can identify areas where changes will improve user experience and increase sales. A/B testing, for example, is used to compare different versions of a webpage (your control vs. your optimized page) to see which performs better. Then you can continue to adjust layouts and showcase important features more prominently, eliminate unnecessary components that take up valuable page real estate, etc. Ultimately, when implemented well, conversion rate optimization can help businesses realize their full profitability potential by converting visitors into paying customers.

#2 Improved Customer Experiences

It’s important to remember that CRO isn’t just about increasing sales; it’s also about improving customer experiences. By focusing on creating better user experiences through well-crafted website designs, comprehensive content strategies, and easy navigation tools, you ensure that customers have a positive experience when interacting with your brand online. It leads to higher conversion rates, improved loyalty, customer lifetime value, and satisfaction over time.

E-commerce sites are losing an average of $29 on new customers’ first purchases. Having a strategy that ensures your website, visitors come back for repeat purchases is essential in any economic climate.

If your website isn’t intuitive, easy to use, and building loyalty, then you don’t have a sustainable strategy for longevity. The customer’s journey from start to finish needs gives them exactly what they are looking for while meeting all their expectations. A CRO Agency has the perfect strategy for ensuring you deliver all of this to your customers. And I want to make one last important comment here before I move to #3. One of the biggest mistakes we see is an overconfident business owner, marketing exec, web designer, UX designer, etc., who thinks they know what the customer wants and how that translates into an online process. They spend a lot of time and research putting together personas, wireframes, designs, etc., which is all incredibly valuable and extremely important. Still, it simply does not translate into the purchasing process. And not just the “purchasing process,” the unique process for your business and your product or service. 

2023 Playbook: Lessons From the Recession Part 2 of 3

In Part 1 we discussed our findings from McKinsey and covered how we can apply lessons from past recessions to help thrive in times of economic uncertainty. If you missed it, you can access it here.

Part 2

Budget cuts and performance marketing are on every CFO and CMOs mind right now. The most difficult part of navigating tough times is doing more with less. Companies face more pressure than ever to justify their spending, find ways to save money, and prove they’re providing value. Our goal is to help every department get what they want and need while still delivering results.

While the focus of this article is for our CMOs out there, we’re confident the strategy discussed will keep our CFO friends happy as well.

Create meaningful connections with customers

This is always a challenge, but crucial during a recession. There isn’t much budget allocated to awareness campaigns, so retaining customers and creating relationships is more important than ever. Digital marketing is an overcrowded and segmented space. It’s becoming easier for users to ignore messaging and send your brand into the gray. In order for companies to succeed they need to focus on the following:

  • Shift your strategies from broad reach to pinpoint targeting and deliver original and meaningful content to specific pain points, or as we like to call it “hair-on-fire” problems.
  • Ensure your digital experience is seamless across all channels so customers can convert anywhere in the funnel on any device. An incoherent experience across channels is a conversion killer for omni-channel marketing strategies. 
  • Lastly, focus on lead nurturing strategies that meet your customers throughout the sales funnel. Make sure your steps and departments aren’t siloed and are communicating to deliver a clear and consistent message to your audience throughout their journey.

For the majority of companies, this doesn’t have to be a difficult procedure. Oftentimes it can be as simple as asking or interviewing your best, or worst, customers to see what you got right, and where you fell short. Utilizing your sales and customer service teams can be a great resource for getting in tune with your customer's wants and needs.

Utilize Big Data in your marketing funnels

Gone are the ways of building 50 pay-per-click campaigns all targeting different and “identical” match keywords throughout the funnel. Big data, algorithms, and artificial intelligence can out-think and perform our marketing instincts.

Utilize the power of big data to target your audience, and focus your efforts on creating meaningful content that speaks directly to your audience. Let the machines help you deliver. 

However, it’s important to remember that AI and algorithms are learning “robots”. They are only as good as the data we give them. Garbage in, garbage out. It’s imperative you’re setting up your marketing campaigns with a feedback loop to identify what information and behavior is the most valuable to achieve your goals.