Conversion Optimization

So you want to start A/B testing your site. OK, great! But where do you begin?

Most experts (including us) will advise you to look to best practices and go after “low-hanging fruit” first. That's great advice, but you'll soon find out that some best practices are ... better than others. And, not all low-hanging fruit is worth picking.

Not all A/B tests are about turning buttons red or green. Here's a quick rundown on one of the more interesting experiments we've run lately.

Q: Where is java not slang for coffee, and Ajax not a brand of kitchen cleanser?

A: In engineering, of course.

Recently someone asked a question on Quora about whether there were any specific, granular examples of where a growth expert helped a startup increase revenue significantly after subtracting their costs.  Having just prepared a summary for DODOcase about our work over the past year, I gave an in-depth answer as it illustrates what CROmetrics does has benefits far beyond the outcome of any one A/B test.

“It’s a numbers game.”

You hear it in sports, you hear it in sales, and these days, you hear it a lot in social media. While these examples may indeed be run by the numbers, when it comes to optimizing your business, "it's a numbers game" takes on a whole new meaning.

"Show me the money!" In one form or another, this film declaration has become the de facto response to any new or unusual marketing gambit. CROmetrics does exactly that: shows you the money. Let me explain.

In the movie Wall Street, Gordon Gekko proclaims, “Greed is good”!  While we don’t advocate avarice, we do help our clients become more profitable. So when you ask site visitors to take an action, such as signing up, purchasing, or moving one step further down your conversion funnel, be boring. Yes, you read that right.

Whether your business is couture apparel or digital marketing, nobody wants their "seams" showing. And nobody knows this better than Stella&Dot, which helps women entrepreneurs become independent stylists by selling fashion accessories. Just as beautifully styled clothing depends on the skill of the couturier, selling these items successfully online relies on a seamless optimization and testing strategy.

If growth hacking were a person, it might be Commander Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Okay, he was an android, (and a quantum leap more powerful than smart phones!) though he evolved considerably during the show's 7-year run, gaining emotion and even a sense of humor. But at heart (or whatever mechanical substitute was embedded in its place), Data was an analytical thinker focused on metrics: the best outcome for the Enterprise. His name was Data, after all. He might have been the original growth hacker.

In The Wizard of Oz, the people living in Oz have never actually seen the Wizard. Yet he affects everything about how the city is run. Minus the Wizard, Oz would be a colorless town, not a destination that transforms lives.

Optimization is like Oz. It's a high ROI item with a definite, measurable return. You don't see it, but without it, your customer funnels will decline over time because you'll have no compelling competitive advantage: content, design and flow that stamp your website as unique, just like your product or service.