By Omri Yacubovich | Head of Marketing @ Commerce Sciences
Imitation may be a form of flattery, but it isn’t always the best business approach. This is especially true when dealing with traffic to your website. Taking advantage of industry CRO best practices can reduce your learning curve and help you to maximize your conversion rate optimization strategy
However, you also need to realize that just because a CRO trend is all the rage, it may not be the right fit for your business model. You can spend a great deal of time and energy chasing e-commerce with the wrong CRO strategy that winds up doing more harm than good. Here are some tips to maximize your CRO strategy.
5. E-Commerce CRO is the Web Designer’s Responsibility
Can your web designer help with CRO? Of course. Should you make it his or her sole responsibility (and priority)? Absolutely not. These professionals come from the world of design, not conversion rate optimization.
Web designers need guidelines to work with. Be clear with your specs while communicating that CRO is important. Once the initial design is complete, it is your job to monitor and make the necessary tweaks and adjustments.
Your web designer can assist with CRO, but don’t expect this person to take the lead.
4. Someone Else’s CRO Success Will Mean the Same for You
You follow what the top CRO experts are saying. You understand their strategy is paying off in more ways than one. For this reason, you believe that duplicating their approach will do the same for you.
And then something happens. You realize what works for somebody else is having no impact on your business.
Using CRO best practices from experts and even from your competition makes good business sense, as long as you tailor them to your unique business needs. Test strategies and change the ones that don’t give you the CRO results you are looking for.
3. CRO Best Practices Are All About Conversions
Yes, conversion rate is seen as the holy grail of CRO, but it’s not the only result you should look at when you are working on your e-commerce strategy. Other metrics to consider include:
- Revenue
- Cost per acquisition
- Customer lifetime value
- Attrition rate
Conversion rate may be at the top of the pyramid, but these other metrics are not far behind. You want to achieve positive results in all these areas.
Keep in mind too that identifying a true winner typically means that the variant is winning across your key metrics, not just one. If conversion increased by 35% but the average order value fell 40%, could you really call that a win? In that case, following the winning variant would be a costly mistake.
2. You Can Never Test Too Much in E-Commerce CRO
While you won’t know if your CRO strategy is working without doing testing, it is easy to let it become all consuming, pulling your focus away from other parts of your business. You can’t afford to have a one track mind.
There are many A/B tests you can get started with today. Test until you’re reasonably certain that you have accurate results and then implement and move on.
1. A/B Tests are Foolproof
It’s easy to believe that every A/B test is 100 percent accurate and foolproof, but it isn’t always true. You can generate data to make more informed decisions, but thinking that every result is foolproof will lead to trouble.
There are many A/B testing pitfalls which will lead you astray, such as
- Measuring the wrong indicators.
- Short testing periods.
- Small sample sizes.
- Overlooking statistical significance.
- Believing there is no more room for improvement.
- Neglecting to scale A/B testing at the right time and in the appropriate manner.
Keep a small control group set aside (try 5% of your traffic) so you can leverage the winning variations, but still retain control over time. This allows you to make sure your winner is still performing over time as traffic trends change and other variables come into play.
Trust Your Instincts for Smarter CRO
You know your business better than anyone, and CRO strategies are simply one part of effective e-commerce. Focusing exclusively on CRO strategies can distract you from an overall customer attraction and retention strategy.
Can CRO strategies help grow your business? Yes. Apply the strategy that makes the most sense, track and test the CRO and implement the ones that work best for your business. CRO as part of a carefully constructed, customer-centric strategy backed by data is sure to succeed.
Are there any other conversion optimization trends that you don’t agree with? Share your thoughts in the comments.