3 Common Conversion Optimization Mistakes

One of the greatest gifts you can give to your website and business is Conversion Rate Optimization, otherwise known as CRO. Conversion Rate Optimization, when implemented correctly and having a clear process in place, is the only guaranteed way to make sure that the changes you make to your website will result in a higher engagement rate for users coming to your website.

But, much like anything else in life, CRO can fail without proper preparation and communication in place. When you start a CRO campaign, it’s important to have a clear plan, one that has resources, roles, responsibilities, and expectations laid out so that your entire team is on the same page when you begin testing. To put it simply, proper planning will lead to greater ROI when starting a Conversion Rate Optimization campaign and put more of your team’s confidence into it’s own process.

There can be a myriad of reasons that businesses give up on testing their website if proper planning is not done at the start of a CRO campaign, but below we name 3 that we encounter more often than most.

Not Prioritizing Your Tests

When you begin a Conversion Rate Optimization campaign, it’s important that you step back and take a look at what your website is really trying to accomplish. Are you trying to get more leads? Are you trying to sell more products? Are you trying to get people to sign up for an event? Knowing the primary goal of your website is important in strategizing what tests you should run to have the biggest impact accomplishing that goal.

When prioritizing your CRO tests, you should break down into 3 categories:

• Must haves
• Up at bats
• Nice to haves

These can be categorized, respectfully, as:

• Highest impact tests
• Waiting in the wings tests
• Experimental or down the road tests

Working your way down this prioritized list of tests will help you see a greater ROI out of the gate when you start your campaigns and also give your team a more clear path to get the most out of your tests. Do not start a CRO campaign without knowing the direction you are heading and what you are trying to accomplish. Doing so will only dwindle your efforts, resources, and ultimately, your faith in Conversion Rate Optimization.

Running Too Many Tests At A Time

It’s easy to understand why businesses and website owners get excited over Conversion Rate Optimization and begin to test every single thing they can on their site. But it’s important to show restraint and let each test run independently of each other before beginning a new test. What this will allow your team to do is understand what effect individual changes have on your conversion rate.

For instance, say you change the color of a call to action and then change a testimonial on the same page. If your conversion rate improves on that page, it’s hard to distinguish if the call to action caught your user’s eye or if the testimonial gave them a push to fill out a form. Make sure you test one thing at a time so you can firmly decide what tests accomplished what for you and how you can best utilize them or your learnings moving forward. Failing to do so can cause confusion on what’s working or confuse your team on which direction to head in Conversion Rate Optimization.

Giving Up Too Early

All of this being said, one of the biggest reasons we see businesses give up on CRO is because they didn’t see the return on investment right away. While it’s easy to get frustrated and declare a lost on an investment, the usual reasons that CRO doesn’t work are included in the two reasons listed above, or:

• Not aligning with your target audience’s goals
• Not giving tests enough time to run
• Not having test tracking properly implemented
• Not having a clear CRO process in place

When you take on CRO as a part of your marketing strategy, make sure you understand the amount of time and effort it will take to see the ROI you want in CRO. Conversion Rate Optimization is not a quick fix or immediate. It will take research, it will take planning, and it will take testing. Sometimes those tests aren’t successes out of the gate, but it’s important to remember that every test is a lesson that makes your path more and more clearer as time passes. User preferences, industry standards, and functionalities will change, and the only way to understand what’s working and what’s not is to test.

If you guide your focus to what you’re learning from the tests you are running instead of immediate results, then you will see Conversion Rate Optimization to not only be a useful tool in your long term marketing strategy, but one that you can’t live without.

Have questions about Conversion Rate Optimization and how you can get off on the right foot? The digital marketing experts at Marcel Digital are standing by and waiting to hear more about your business's goals. Feel free to contact us today and we will be in touch with you within 24 hours!