CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation)
You've managed to get a lot of traffic to your site with the help of SEO, SEA and social media. Now you probably think you're there? Unfortunately, you don't get much out of driving traffic to your site if it doesn't lead to a conversion. Many site owners spend most of their time trying to get traffic to their site, but hardly any of their time they try to improve their conversion rates. In this article, we will help you on your way to successful conversion rate optimisation!
What is CRO? What does it mean?
CRO stands for Conversion Rate Optimization and occupies an important place in online marketing. In a nutshell, CRO means structurally increasing the number of website visitors who actually proceed to a conversion. But what exactly is a conversion? Good question, read on!
What is a conversion?
A conversion goes beyond placing an order in a web shop. There are so many different conversions that it is difficult to name them all here. At The Dare Company, we speak of a conversion when a visitor completes the desired goal on the website. These goals can be the following:
- Placing an order
- Clicking on the phone number
- Clicking on the e-mail address
- Placing an order on a web shop
- Send a contact request
- Submit a request for quotation
- Etc.
Micro and Micro Conversions
In the field of CRO, we speak of micro and macro conversions. The difference between the two is explained below:
Micro conversion is a conversion that represents a small value. A good example is clicking on a phone number or email address. This person may contact you because a large order needs to be placed, or because they have a question.
Macro conversion is a conversion that represents a large value. Think of placing an order in a web shop. These conversions provide you with direct revenue and are therefore desired conversions.
At The Dare Company, we aim to measure both micro and macro conversions, as this contains very valuable information!
Why apply CRO?
You might still wonder why you should implement Conversion Rate Optimisation within your online marketing strategy. Simple, you want to get returns from your website, especially if you advertise! CRO can help you do that. The example below explains this well:
In this example, we are buying advertising through Google Ads.
|
Ad-Spend |
Website visitors |
Conversion rate |
Conversions |
|
€10.000 |
5.000 |
1% |
50 |
To double the number of conversions, it is possible to double the Ad-spend:
|
Ad-Spend |
Website visitors |
Conversion rate |
Conversions |
|
€20.000 |
10.000 |
1% |
100 |
This seems like a good strategy to get more conversions, but it is not cheap. After all, your advertising budget has doubled and the return is still the same. This is where CRO comes in. Now imagine that instead of doubling the ad spend, we only double the conversion rate:
|
Ad-Spend |
Website visitors |
Conversion rate |
Conversions |
|
€10.000 |
5.000 |
2% |
100 |
The example above clearly shows that with the same advertising budget, 2X as many conversions were achieved.
How do you apply CRO to your website?
Now that you know what CRO is and what its effects are, one question remains: How do I apply CRO to my website? Below, we discuss the implementation of CRO!
Where do most visitors drop out?
Before we start thinking about implementing CRO at all, we first look at the places on the site where visitors drop out. For this, we use Google Analytics. Suppose that we see from Google Analytics that many visitors drop out during the payment process of the web shop, we will use this data to find out why. There are various tools and techniques that can provide insight into this. We will go through these with you below.
- Heatmaps: A heatmap is a representation of a page that shows where visitors click. Thanks to this technique, you gain insight into the clicks of the visitors.
- Mousetracking: Mousetracking is a way of following the visitor's mouse. This can also provide very relevant information.
- Hotjar: Hotjar is a program that allows you to create heatmaps and implement mousetracking on your site.
Gerelateerde cases
The A/B test
You've made it clear where most visitors drop off within your site, for instance in the payment process. Now it's time to determine what you want to change about the payment process, hoping that more visitors will place an order. When applying the tools and techniques described above, you will often come across bottlenecks that cause your visitors to drop out. Once these bottlenecks have been identified, you can think of a way to remove them. But how do you know if your idea will lead to a higher conversion? This is where the A/B test comes in.
To determine whether your solution to the bottleneck is the right one, we run an A/B test. But what is an A/B test? In an A/B test, you create 2 versions of the website. One is the original website, the other is the website in which the idea for solving the bottleneck is implemented. The A/B tool then divides your visitors fairly between these 2 versions. Over time, you will be able to see which of the two versions of your site generates the most conversions. If it turns out that your idea for solving the bottlenecks actually generates more conversions, implement this change and you will have increased the conversion ratio of your website. Awesome!