Everyone wants higher conversion rates. Why? Because its extra dollar in your pocket without any extra spend – well not factoring your marginal CRO activities cost. The power of CRO is in the underlying return on investment it generates when it produces the desired results. We have seen disasters in CRO, but we have also seen good models and practices that work and have indeed delivered results. So, let’s share some of that here.

But first, what is CRO? Designing, Testing and validating your hypothesis; is the core of Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). If you want to create an exceptional customer experience, you need to look at CRO as a journey, not a destination. Everyday there are new tools, platforms and ways and design, test and validate. At the same time, the user behaviour is evolving at the same pace if not faster.

So, CRO needs to be a way of life. It’s all about delivering a smooth brand experience that delivers outcomes. Everyone is talking about a ‘friction-less customer experience’ but it is easier said than done. How do you compete in an Omni-channel digital world? Your CRO activities need to encompass all your optimization activities.

Here are couple areas that can dramatically lift your game in CRO.

Micro Conversion Driven Framework

Out of all the tactics we have seen lately, we fully stand behind the shift from macro to micro conversions for the simple fact that it drives a shift in mindset that helps you transform your user experience and move more towards the friction less experience we just talked about.

This is perhaps a newly coined term where you create a holistic framework that focuses on the big picture through small wins. What does that mean? One of the aspects that are often overlooked is how you get commitments from your audience. Are you asking for a MACRO or a MICRO Commitment?

Creating a framework for your micro commitments is proven to pay off more than just shooting yourself in the foot by going for the kill aka the macro conversion – straight away. You need to start thinking about taking your users through ‘micro’ steps, leveraging the psychology of decision making and ensuring you give them value along the way. That’s what a micro commitment is about.

What is an example of a MACRO Commitment? A Long enquiry form with too many questions. A hard sale is another example. On the flip side, a micro commitment is essentially a way of getting a small commitment from your audience as you interact with them and take them through your funnel. An example of this is having an engaging and a small form that maybe ask about their email & name in exchange for more info about something interesting to them and related to your business.

Example of a micro conversion

Let’s say you are in the business of selling software as a service, you don’t want to promote to your audience your subscription straightaway. Instead, give them a way to option for a free trial or even download a free eBook or a report on something that truly adds value. Another micro commitment could be sending them personalised email that takes them to a landing page with a form that asks about more info about what they are actually looking for.

The shift here starts with the mindset and strategy to go from macro to micro commitments throughout your messaging and communication with your target audience. If your macro conversions are working perfectly, by all means continue doing what you are doing but consider integrating or switching to a Micro Conversion Driven Framework if you are really looking to squeeze more juice out of your digital marketing campaigns.

Don’t let the numbers fool you. Understand statistics!

This is the less sexy part in CRO. Testing and validating aren’t very cool and not a lot of people find this area interesting or easy. And we don’t blame them. But, if you are spending money and time on your test, you need to at least know if it’s working or not. A common problem in testing is how people make sense of the data and how do they rationalise the results and translate them into insights and feedback to the business.

Correlation vs. Causation

One of the mistakes people make, is confuse correlation for causation. They are not the same. And it took me some time to get my head around it but once you do, you will feel liberated. Correlation is when two dimensions seems to go hand in hand. Increase in traffic to landing and increase in conversions, for example. The fact that they both tend to increase together, doesn’t mean one of them is the cause for the other. This article actually gives quite a good explanation on correlation vs. causation.

Controlling your variables

Another mistake people often make is not keeping the factors constant. If you study statistics or research, one of the basics they teach you is keeping all other variables in your study constant. They call it ‘controlling the variables’. How does that apply to CRO? Well, your traffic source is one of the things you might forget about. Every marketing channel has different demographics and user mix. So, if you don’t keep that constant, you will get different results every time and you will most likely make false conclusions.

Author Bio:

Founder and Managing Director of SAVV Digital, Rani Arsanios helps organisations grow their top and bottom line by enabling their digital transformation and presence through strategic digital marketing and technology solutions.