Setting CRO

Qualitative tools to uncover why things happen

Qualitative tools help you collect qualitative (non-numerical) data to learn why your website visitors behave in a certain way. They include:

• Website feedback tools (on-page and external link surveys) where visitors are asked questions about their experience
• Website session recording/replay tools that show how individual users navigate through your website
• Usability testing tools where a panel of potential or current customers can voice their thoughts and opinions on your website
• Online reviews where you can read more about people’s experience of your brand and product.

Quantitative tools to uncover what is happening

Quantitative tools allow you to collect quantitative (numerical) data to track what is happening on your website.

• General analytics tools that track website traffic (e.g., Google Analytics)
• Website heat map tools that aggregate the number of clicks, scrolls, and movement on a page
• Funnel tools that measure when visitors drop off from a sales funnel
• Form analysis tools that track form submissions
• Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) tools that measure customer satisfaction on a scale from 1 to 10
• Tools that use the Net Promoter System to measure the likelihood of people recommending your website/product to someone else on a scale from 0 to 10.

Tools to test changes and measure improvements

After you’ve collected quantitative and qualitative feedback and developed a clear sense of what’s happening on your website, testing tools allow you to make changes and/or report on them to see if your conversion optimization efforts are going in the right direction. They include:

• A/B testing tools that help you test different variations of a page to find the best performer (recommended for high-traffic sites, so you can be certain your results are statistically valid)
• Website heat map + session recording tools that allow you to compare different variations of a page and the behavior on it
• Conversion-tracking analytics tools that track and monitor conversions
• Website feedback tools (like visual feedback widgets or NPS dashboards) that help you collect qualitative feedback and quantify it, so you can compare the before/after response to any change you made.

Stage 1: Research Phase: Identifying the areas of improvement

Only one in every seven A/B tests gives a winning result.

As a general practice, most marketers tend to copy CRO strategies that yielded results for other firms thinking the same would work for them. But, they fail because every orange button cannot convert and every long form page cannot falter.

1. Analyze what are your visitors doing?

Analytics allows you to make decisions based on facts and figures rather than pure instincts. In the CRO process, there are multiple ways to derive data to understand your results. For instance, you can fetch relevant information from your web analytics tools such as real-time data tracking, bounce rate, incoming website traffic sources, audience, demography, site behavior, and much. Google Analytics is one of the best tools to obtain in-depth quantitative data on what people are doing on your site.

2. How page features shape user behavior?

By using visitor behavior analysis tools such as heatmaps, session recordings, interview feedbacks, customer surveys, analytics, net promoter score, and so forth, see how different features on a page are influencing user behavior. For instance, you might find that the search tool placed on your landing page is getting you more conversions than the showcased product categories. Getting such insights can significantly help you eliminate unwanted features and focus more on the ones that convert users better.

Understanding User Behavior/Qualitative

Customer psychology typically lays down the fundamental ground rules for CRO elements to follow.

Two essential elements that aid in understanding customer psychology are:

1. Principles of Persuasion: Human beings are highly susceptible to suggestions and cognitive biases. To quote an example here, knowing that an item is popular amid the masses becomes even more popular no matter it’s actual worth. At the same time, the rarer and more exclusive an item is, the more valuable it becomes. Understanding such human psychology is essential to effectively define your goals and draft a CRO plan that adds to your company’s profits.

Furthermore, adding social proofs in the form of reviews and testimonials on your landing page or wherever relevant can add to your efforts. As most case studies published over the internet report, social proofing aids in more conversions!

2. Customer Behavior: A research carried out by NN Group states that most people browsing through the internet don’t read; they merely skim through the posts. Another study reveals that younger people are more interested in browsing through flat designs as they are more “trustworthy” than their older counterparts.

Studying the behavior of your target audience gives an insight into “why they do what they do” over the internet, and how you can use this information to build a better-converting website.

There are two primary ways to study the behavior of your target audience:

• Conducting tests and taking in-person interviews: Conducting tests and taking in-person interviews: Closely watching your customers interact with your website in real-time can give you significant data and insights on a plethora of things. These can include, the pages they most visit, the amount of time they spend on your website, the areas where they’re facing maximum problems such as finding difficulty in filling a form, unable to generate passwords, payment drop-off, and much more.
• Reading case studies and following guidelines on user behavior: Many existing pieces of research and case studies can vastly aid in understanding the collective psyche of your customers, which can, in turn, serve as an excellent source for improving your website’s overall look and feel and increase conversions.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is an integrated it tool that offers numerical data about your website’s overall performance, reports on visitor activities, engagement, traffic inflow sources, content performance, and ecommerce sales.

Customer Surveys

Customer surveys reveal information about the actual psychological thinking of customers – what convinced them to buy a product, what drew them away from the site, and so forth. It’s one of the best ways to learn strategies for effective site optimization.

Usability Tests

Usability testing is a smart way to evaluate the ease of using a website from a customer’s point of view, their engagement rate on a particular page, stumble spots and similar fall-off. It’s a powerful weapon that only aids in crafting a better user experience but increasing conversions.

User Interviews

Interviews provide deep insights about your site, respective pages, and target audience. They’re more about gathering qualitative data than its quantitative data. Interviews can effectively lead to drafting campaign-changing test hypotheses.

Stage 2: The Hypothesis Phase: Construct an Educated Hypothesis

Using the information gathered in the research phase, you can now draft your hypothesis. At its core, a hypothesis is a proposed explanation of your research that typically comprises of 3 parts.

• A particular change: based on insights derived from quantitative and qualitative data
• A particular effect: a goal, a conversion metric or a similar element, which needs improvement.
• A particular reason: the thinking behind why a specific change can bring about the desired effect.

Stage 3: The Prioritization Phase: Choose an Order

Here, a number of frameworks can help you through the process. Of these, the P.I.E. framework formulated by Chris Goward at WiderFunnel is what we most recommend:

Stage 4: The Testing Phase: A/B, Split, or Multivariate?

Before running a test, understand the basics:

What is statistical significance, and why is it critical?

How long do you need to run a test?

What should I use—A/B, Split, or Multivariate test?