Conversion Rate Optimisation is gold

Here we are again!

This time, we’re talking about Conversion Optimisation testing and why it’s so important for your business. 

Why do I think CRO testing is so important?

Testing your flows (i.e. sign up flows, sales flows and more), landing pages, call to action, H1s, H2s, images, page sections and much more is extremely important!

There should never be a moment where you are not testing something!

It’s crucial for a business to find out what works and what doesn’t. The only way to compare what works is to split test (A/B test). You can do this with tools such as Unbounce. 

Having a plan

Running Product Optimisation tests (conversion rate optimisation tests) with a structured plan and a clear / data backed assumption for each experiment helps you increase Conversion Rates and decrease Cost Per Acquisitions massively!

Some tests can help you improve conversions by 10-20%, while some can double performances. There is no such thing as a failed test – all of it helps you learn something.

Learnings are what your business needs. No matter whether you are a start-up or a well-established business, the day you stop testing is the day you stop learning.

The day you stop learning is the day you start failing.

CRO is often undervalued

These from my experience are the most frequent reasons:

• Not knowing what CRO is (this is the number one reason)
• Lack of in-house specialists (CRO geniuses)
• Thinking that a developer can run CRO testing
• Believing that there is no need for CRO testing
• Believing that there is no need for CRO (making changes to the site/product through gut feeling only)

Mapping out the funnel

What keeps The Growth Hustlers alive is their clients – without them we are out of the game!

Not that this isn’t the case for all businesses out there…

For the sake of this example let’s assume that we have a super simple funnel!

• VISITORS (the people we get to the site through various marketing activities)
• LEADS (those visitors that decide to proceed to requesting a free consultancy call through our contact form)
• CLIENTS (those leads that decide to turn into actual clients, where we start doing our magic to help them find growth)

As you can see the funnel gets smaller and smaller and the drop offs between the 3 stages increases. This is completely normal, however CRO testing will help reduce those drop offs by increasing the conversion rates between those stages.

A simplified example:

Let’s assume The Growth Hustlers homepage doesn’t have any clear “Contact Us” call to action above the fold (the part of the page that is visible without scrolling) – see the screenshot below.

As you can see there is a clear H1 and H2 and the only call to action to request a free consultation is the “Contact” button in the header.

We strongly believe however that we can increase the number of leads acquired through our contact us form by adding a button under the H2.

Let’s illustrate our hypothesis with an assumption.

Assumption:

Adding a button below the H2 that entices the visitor to request a consultation (in order to increase lead acquisition) will increase our Conversion Rate from session to lead by 50%. The main reason why we believe this would be the case is that there is no clear call to action right now that calls their attention. A nice yellow button will clearly show up as soon as any visitors gets on the page and it will help us increase lead generation.

How much better do we think the variant will perform when compared to the Control?

Defining a KPI:

The main KPI we are looking at here is the Conversion Rate (CR) from session to lead.

Designing the test:

What will the variant look like?

This will be the variant (the new page we will be testing)

Setting Up a Benchmark

Now let’s set up a benchmark.

A benchmark can be set on the data you have from the control page.

Take a close look at your google analytics (you need to have a goal set up). 

We’ll assume the conversion rate on the control is 5%.

Meaning that for each 100 visits you will be acquiring an average of 5 to leads.

This will help us estimate the cost per acquisition, assuming you spent anything on paid acquisition channels such as AdWords or LinkedIn ads.

Now, let’s assume we spent 1k a month on AdWords at a cost of £1 per click.

£1k at £1 CPC will give you 1000 sessions.

Time to calculate the CPA (Cost Per Acquisition).

The formula will be:

CPA = Total Media Spend / Total Leads = £1000 / 50 leads = £20 a lead

Define expected results from the test

If, with the new page, we can achieve a 50% increase in the conversion rate as we earlier assumed it means we will be converting at 7.5% instead of 5%.

Meaning that for each £1000 spent – and the new page converting at 7.5% – we will be acquiring 75 leads instead of 50 leads.

Now let’s calculate the CPA of the variant (the new page).

The formula is going to be the same as the one above:

CPA = Total Media Spend / Total Leads = £1000 / 75 leads = £13.33 a lead

p.s. when running the test, make sure the traffic is evenly split (50%-50%). Also, make sure you keep a close eye on the p-value to define whether the test has reached statistical significance (enough data to be ended before you can come up with conclusions and learnings).

Now you laid down the foundation of the testing with an objective, an assumption, a benchmark, and a prediction.

You need to crack on and build it!

Setting up the test

There are many platforms that you can use to set up CRO testing. Our personal favourite is VWO.

Check it out here: https://vwo.com/

There is so much more to talk about, but if we did this blog would never end. I promise I will write a more advanced CRO blog in the next couple of weeks covering details on:

– actually setting up the test (on VWO)

– building a CRO testing roadmap

– prioritisation of CRO experiments

– statistical significance

Bye for now!

May growth find you soon…and, if it doesn’t – make sure you let us know by becoming a lead on the link below: 

https://thegrowthhustlers.com/contact/