The ultimate guide to CRO ideation (Part 0: Why?)
February 2020
How do you generate ideas for experiments, campaigns, or improvements to your website?
How do you decide which ones are worth the effort?
One way is to run hundreds of experiments across dozens of websites over the course of several years, while spending your free time hanging out with Conversion Rate Optimization nerds đ¤.
If thatâs not an option for you, though, you need a detailed, step-by-step guide. Thatâs what this is.
Before you start: Why bother?
Weâre going to step through a rigorous process for generating test ideas, uncovering opportunities to reduce friction, and âjust fix stuffâ thatâs impeding conversions on your site.
Itâs going to take time, though. And making the changes, or running the experiments, is going to cost money. Why go to all the trouble?
Challenge yourself to go deeper than âWe want more conversions.â You can probably get more conversions by buying more traffic.
Donât settle for âOur conversion rate could be higher.â
How much higher? What would that mean for your business?
How many additional conversions would this target conversion rate yield? Are you equipped to handle that kind of volume? How much additional revenue do you expect them to bring?
Weâll be extremely methodical, but your own subjective judgement is still a huge factor in the decisions youâre about to make. So, be clear on where youâre starting from, and where youâre trying to get.
To prepare, be sure youâve documented the following:
-
Your current conversion rate by visitor
- Your current conversion rate by month
- Your target conversion rate for each of the above
When youâre done, you should be able to fill in the blanks:
We get about ____ conversions per month. Most come from _______ - our conversion rate for that channel is ___%. Weâd like to raise it to ___%, and if we could, it would mean an additional $_____ per month in revenue. (Of course, the conversion rate varies week-to-week, from as low as ___% to as high as ___% ⌠weâll know when weâve succeeded when we hit our target for __ months in a row.)
Weâve also got conversions coming in from _______, with a conversion rate of ___%. Raising that to our target of ___% would mean an extra $_____ per month.
Congrats! Youâre done with Step 0, and youâre ready to begin.