Conversion rate optimization (CRO, for short) generated its fair share of buzz in 2013. Startups and established companies alike put CRO at the top of their priority lists.
You might be surprised, then, to learn that while 2013 was a year of discussing, learning about, and even dabbling in CRO, it wasn’t a year of truly implementing it. In fact, according to an oft-cited Forrester study, for every $80 companies spend on driving traffic, only $1 goes toward optimizing its performance.
This disparity indicates that while marketers are beginning to appreciate the prospective value CRO offers in theory, many have yet to truly commit in practice.
I predict that the upcoming year is going to change all of that. With 2014 just underway, those who have spent the past year learning and laying the groundwork will begin to leverage their CRO knowledge to build truly effective growth engines. But what will be the difference maker?
In order for 2014 to become the year of doing CRO rather than talking, marketers must realize the following five things:
For starters, the best growth opportunities are right under your nose. CRO isn’t about chasing down new fountains of users through ingenious growth hacks and paid channels. In fact, the opposite is true—CRO means optimizing the traffic you already have through a systematic, ongoing, and strategic process.
Start by looking at traffic sources through a new lens and attempt to figure out how you can do a better job of meeting those users’ needs. If you can’t convert the visitors you have, what’s the point in paying for more traffic?
Web traffic is water flowing through a leaky funnel. Rather than paying for more water, it makes sense to patch up the leaks first. That’s what CRO is all about. Fixing what’s right in front of you. You’ll still fill up the bucket more quickly, but it will cost less to do so because you aren’t wasting as much water.
Secondly, marketers must also recognize that optimization is not a single test, or several sporadic ones. Instead, it’s an ongoing process of forming a hypothesis, testing one change at a time, then iterating based on the results. Sometimes there will be big, clear wins, and other times you’ll find that your current version performs better than the one you thought might be an improvement.
Still, it’s critical to understand that you’ll never be “done” with CRO. There is no end, no “best” or “final” version—only slightly (and, yes, sometimes drastically) better version after better version. CRO doesn’t mean you’ll achieve perfection—there’s always room for improvement. What it does mean is that you have a powerful tool which will help you to adapt and improve even as your market does.
It’s also critical to understand that CRO isn’t a one-person job. To see true gains, optimization must be a company-wide priority. It must be addressed organizationally with the appropriate headcount and allocation of resources, either from marketing or business intelligence units. The companies that experience true growth with CRO will be the ones that work to create a culture of optimization in which everyone is looking for ways to improve, every team member knows which metrics matter, and every assumption is rigorously tested.
In other words, don’t heap CRO on to your hopelessly overworked head of marketing and expect things to turn out differently this year. Make it a priority to make it effective.
CRO will prove to be a massive advantage for those companies that execute it well. They will see increased revenue and return from their traffic. They will convert higher percentages of visitors. And they will consequently be able to spend more marketing dollars in smarter and more profitable ways, even in competitive channels.
This advantage will help them outdo their competitors who can’t pay as much for traffic while making those channels profitable. CRO is like compound interest for growth, the spoils keep accumulating faster and faster to the victors.
2014 will not be another year of talking about CRO, it will be the year of implementing it. Those companies that shift from discussing to doing will be able to optimize their established channels for improved performance and return. They’ll develop a holistic, continuous optimization strategy, and they’ll implement it with the full support as a company-wide initiative.
All this will help to distinguish them from their competitors, giving them the best chance at success in the new year. They’ll see every day of 2014 as a new opportunity to remove an obstacle, meet a user need, and exceed their numbers.
If you’re responsible for growth, its your call. Will this be a year of talking or a year of acting? You already have a small advantage—rather than realizing these truths on your own in July, you found them out now, the easy way. What you choose to do next is up to you.