Are you an ecommerce professional looking to boost your online sales? If so, you need to focus on conversion rate optimisation (CRO). In simple terms, CRO is the process of increasing the percentage of website visitors who take a desired action, such as making a purchase or filling out a contact form. In this article, we will provide you with a comprehensive framework for CRO, including a methodology, approach, strategy, tactics, KPIs, metrics, data points, and a maturity model. We’ll also brainstorm some additional data point categories that you may not have thought of before. So, let’s get into it!
Methodology
The CRO methodology uses a systematic approach to find and address problems that are preventing visitors from converting. The key steps include:
- Define the problem: Identify the problem areas on your website or landing page that are preventing your visitors from converting.
- Gather data: Collect data using tools like Google Analytics, heatmaps, and user feedback surveys to understand your visitors’ behaviour.
- Analyse data: Analyse the data to identify patterns and trends that may be contributing to the problem.
- Develop hypotheses: Based on the data, develop hypotheses about the changes that can be made to improve the conversion rate.
- Test hypotheses: Conduct A/B testing to validate the hypotheses.
- Implement changes: Implement the changes that have been validated through testing.
Approach
A customer-centric strategy to CRO places a strong emphasis on comprehending the needs, wants and behaviours of your target market. The essential stages comprise:
- Identify your intended market: Determine the essential characteristics of your target market, including their demographics, interests, and behaviours.
- Map the customer journey: Map the customer journey from awareness to conversion to identify your CRO opportunities and visitor pain points.
- Analyse customer feedback: Gather feedback from customers through surveys, speaking to your customer service representatives and reviews to understand their needs and pain points.
- Optimise the user experience: Optimise the user experience by simplifying navigation, improving page load times, and making it easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for.
Strategy
The strategy for CRO involves a long-term plan for continuous improvement. The key stages include:
Set goals: Set measurable goals for your conversion rate, such as increasing it by 1 percentage point over the next six months.
Prioritise changes: Prioritise changes based on their potential impact on the conversion rate and the effort required to implement them.
Test and learn: Continuously test and learn from the changes made to improve the conversion rate or goal metric.
Monitor and optimise: Monitor the conversion rate and optimise the website or landing page based on the data collected.
Tactics
The tactics for CRO involve specific steps that can be taken to improve the conversion rate or goal metric. The key tactics include:
- Improve page load times: To lower bounce rates (and improve your SEO ratings), make sure your website or landing page loads quickly.
- Simplify navigation: Make it easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for by simplifying navigation.
- Use clear calls to action: Use clear and concise calls to action to encourage visitors to take the desired action.
- Optimise the checkout process: Simplify the checkout process to reduce your cart abandonment rates.
KPIs and Metrics
The KPIs and metrics for CRO include the following:
- Conversion rate: The percentage of visitors who take the desired action such as make a purchase or complete a form submission.
- Bounce rate: The percentage of visitors who hit the back button in their browser and leave your website or landing page without taking any action.
- Cart abandonment rate: The percentage of visitors who add items to their shopping basket but do not complete the checkout process within the session.
- Average order value: The average value of each order placed on your website.
So there we have it, we provided a comprehensive framework for Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) for ecommerce websites. We started by explaining the methodology, approach, strategy, tactics, KPIs, metrics, data points, and maturity model for CRO. We then provided examples and tips to make it easy for our readers to implement the framework. Additionally, we brainstormed some novel data point categories to challenge the reader to think outside of the box. Overall, this article aimed to provide a comprehensive guide to help ecommerce professionals boost their online sales through effective CRO techniques.
