Conversion Rate Optimization in 2021
How to Get Started With Conversion Rate Optimization
eCommerce sales grew by 30% in 2020; almost everyone has heard that news with physical stores turning more and more to digital solutions to deliver their goods and a boom in demand for online goods, the trend will likely continue into 2021. The growth has provided opportunities for companies to differentiate themselves and open new revenue streams. The other side of this growth is what will come after. Competition could become very fierce at the end of 2021 to defend the growth companies have seen as sales may slow down and balance some back to traditional retail. So how do companies keep an edge in their business? If your company hasn't built a conversion rate optimization program and strategy, you're going to miss an opportunity in a much more digitized market.
While it may seem like every company out there is doing conversion rate optimization, as CRO consultants, we can tell you they're not. A few tests run a year, and an audit doesn't make a CRO strategy. We aren't blaming here; there are barriers for both big and small companies that result in the lack of CRO programs such as:
[Startups and small businesses] Not enough traffic for traditional tests (we have a fix for that).
[All companies] Lack of testing expertise.
[All companies] A fundamental misunderstanding of what CRO is and how to use it to your advantage.
[All companies] Departments aren't set up for the heavy collaboration required.
[All companies] Politics.
The Basic Steps of Setting Up A Testing Program
We don't start by diving into the technicalities. Buying Optimizely or Monetate doesn't come until you have some groundwork set up. And this groundwork shouldn't take months, even for larger organizations.
Set CRO Goals
Setting goals that match your business and are attainable is the step that we all skip - and the one we need the most. Or, you set goals of what you wish you could have without calculating what's possible. We see it all the time, a company asks us for help and says, "We want to see our conversion rate improve by 60% in five weeks." Your goals should be in line with where you have pain points in your business and come from numbers that are a stretch but possible. Conversion rate itself is one of the more challenging metrics to influence, which can be frustrating because that's what the whole method is named after.
Some examples of attainable CRO Goals:
We focused on creating a better introductory experience for our brand. Our bounce rate has reduced by a collective amount of 30% on average across all of our popular landing pages.
Improving our shopping and checkout experience was a primary focus for all departments, and as a result, our cart abandonment rate dropped by 10%, which gave us an additional $20,000 in revenue.
[Curious about why we write our goals in the past-tense? Check out our primary consultant's business coach]
2. Create the strategy
Now that you have goals based on your current website data, you can design how to get there. Key stakeholders from development, marketing, UX, and analytics should create a strategy together. Look through your resources and identify what needs to change. Strategies look like this:
Building a cross-functional team that will sit together for the whole year and dedicates 30% of their time to optimization efforts.
Hiring a consultant or a new role that will head up your optimization department.
Funneling resources from marketing budgets to balance your advertising spend with site-improvement efforts.
3. Now comes the how. Tools, projects, and testing.
Not every CRO effort requires a testing tool. What? I thought this was about testing programs. We said it. You don't need to test everything. We've seen many a CRO program's suffering because the company has fallen into the trap of split testing their new website design for the whole year instead of improving anything measurable.
We could write a whole book about how to choose the right tools and methods. Here are some of the basics:
Create a ranking system for tests and efforts (need help with this? Request a Conversion).
Decide what needs testing and what needs fixing. Your analysts and designers can collaborate to decide.
Find a tool that matches your size. Google Optimize works excellent if you're small and will run simple tests (hint: you should only run simple tests). If you're big, you could benefit from partnering with one of the more advanced tools.
Create a pipeline for tests based on your data, not just what the CEO thinks would be cool.
4. Be agile and up the cadence.
Once again, one of the biggest pitfalls we've seen is testing paralysis. It's so easy to fall into the trap of "this test isn't significant yet, let's just keep it running. Oh, oops, now we can start the other three tests we had planned." Part of this can be mitigated by having a solid program that dictates when you should stop tests based on pre-testing, but another part of it is a program leader that keeps true to your program plans.
What else?
Almost every ambitious company can benefit from bringing in a consultant or another partner for optimization programs. The nature of these programs lends really well to having an outside force to help you push through your company's unique politics and hangups. While you can see success by setting aside internal resources, it can be challenging to shuffle people's roles and direction. At Insight Lime Analytics, we offer consulting for optimization programs from start-to-finish. Partnering with a paid optimization tool can be another option, although they will fit your company into their existing framework instead of finding a framework custom to you.
So if you're ready to get to the next level, reach out and submit a proposal request. Or if you’d like to learn more, check out our A/B Testing Webinar
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