By Joe Johnston
Conversion optimisation has been around for years, but often seen as a ‘nice-to-have’ rather than being baked into digital marketing strategies.
If you fall into that camp, there may be some signs you’re overlooking that would suggest you should reconsider your stance. If any of the seven below signs apply to your brand or business, it’s highly likely you would benefit from CRO, and the investment would pay dividends in the long run. Read on, and see what you think.
1. You want to build a new website
Ah, the the classic temptation.
A new website is a huge, inconvenient and (usually) expensive undertaking.
Most of the time, you’d benefit more from incremental improvements instead of building an entirely new website. Otherwise, how do you know what to change? Remember you are not your audience, and big changes to a website should always be backed by evidence that suggests the changes you’re making will benefit them (as well as your business).
If you’re set on a new website, be sure to loop in a CRO expert (or, ahem, us) to help ensure the designs demonstrate conversion best practice.
2. Your conversion rate is dropping
This may sound like pointing out the obvious, but yes, you likely need a spot of conversion optimisation if your conversion rate is continously dropping.
The reasons for a fall in conversion rate can be complex. There’s never normally a single cause and often tracking issues can make it difficult to isolate. The best approach is to work through a list of potential causes one-by-one, using a mixture of quantitative and qualitative research – all while A/B testing any big changes, of course.
3. You’re planning to launch a high-spend paid media campaign
Whilst that sounds very exciting, you must make sure you’re set up for success before spending a large amount of your budget in a short space of time. Which landing page/s are you sending traffic to? Have they been reviewed for conversion design? Do you have Microsoft Clarity, or similar software, installed to monitor how users are interacting with the page?
4. You have poor website design and UX
This, unfortunately, is not an overnight fix – nor is it caused overnight. In fact, the reason for having poor web design and UX is usually years of neglect and an outdated CMS.
Sometimes wholesale changes are required, but in the meantime, we can help with optimising what’s there, designing new landing page wireframe and learning what works for your audience to justify those bigger changes.
5. You have a high cart abandonment rate / exit rate
Here’s where you definitely don’t want to be launching a high-spend paid media campaign (yet). High abandonment and exit rate are normally indicators of a lack of user trust and effective persuasion throughout the journey – so you’ll want to adjust those mission-critical things first.
We can help identify these problems using mixed methods research (such as user surveys, usability testing, GA4 analysis). There will usually be many reasons, and many of them not obvious.
6. Your lead quality is poor
Poor lead quality is often due to bad website signposting or aggressive sales tactics. A mismatch between user intent and what the website is promising often delivers leads who are not the right fit.
And here’s where conversion optimisation comes in: it’s not just about testing only your website. CRO can help by better understanding the user through in-depth research and surveys, and then interpreting that for the web via a comprehensive A/B testing programme.
7. You have a high number of complaints / poor reviews
Customer complaints are a sign of potential website user experience issues – for example, failed payments or irritating bugs. Alternatively, it can be customer experience issues after transaction (e.g. delivery, returns process, and so on).
A conversion optimisation programme includes regularly reviewing Voice of the Customer (VoC) data, including surveys, reviews, and chat logs, to discover common issues and introduce fixes that’ll help you get those customer satisfaction scores back up.
Do any of those ring true for your business? If that’s the case, get in touch to see how we can help – or read how we’ve helped clients uncover conversion opportunities.
