Conversion Rate Optimization isn’t rocket science…but it is science, and the Managing Director of Speero, Ben Labay, has come to give you the lowdown. Seeing as he built the Speero’s AB testing calculator (which entrepreneurs use throughout the world) we’d say Ben has a pretty good grasp on how CRO works.

He’s seen it all, from helping 5X Codecademy by focusing exclusively on pricing strategies, and scaling Native Deodorant through other CRO tactics, Ben has got a sleeve full of tricks - and he’s coming to share them with you.

🗣️: How are you optimizing conversion rates? By making sure the journey is smooth?

💬 Ben: Yup, by first documenting behaviors and perceptions, because we want to change those two things. We implement things (tests, changes, research) in order to change behaviors and perceptions. Your question is quite broad, let me know if you have more specifics.

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🗣️: How do you identify areas of improvement for conversion rate optimization?

💬 Ben: 

• behavior opps -> thru analytics, heatmaps
• perception opps -> surveys, polls, interviews etc.

So in other words, strategic customer research. The key is to do the research with the business strategy in mind. E.g., subscriptions is the year focus... ok so lets focus research there. 

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🗣️: How can you improve customer service to improve conversions?

💬 Ben: CS interviews, documenting and streamlining the process, getting CS to rigorously document customer issues (e.g., SPICED data in salesforce or similar), chat log analysis... all these things are areas of inquiry to lead to road-mapping improvements.

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🗣️: What are some effective ways to use live chat to increase conversions?

💬 Ben: We're testing live chat ONLY on some of our B2B clients.. but for ecommerce it's more a support and research feature, so only indirectly involved in conversion I'd say. I have seen it work really well around ecom sizing/fit guide work... can prompt questions about support there, it's naturally where a customer wants to have a dialog. 

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🗣️: How I can optimize website navigation and use abandoned cart emails to increase conversions?

💬 Ben: For navigation, this is a core AB testing project eventually, but first you can use analytics, card sorting into tree jacking (optimal workshop is good as a tool here) to help find a variation to test. Abandon cart emails to increase conversions, just need to continue to tweak, optimize, and personalize. No over arching magic there, it's a constant pipeline of work for large ecom. 

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🗣️: What role does product bundling play in conversion rate optimization?

💬 Ben: LOVE product bundling for CRO, a rich area for testing and this made many of our ecom clients tons of money. I particularly like to upsell/merchandise as someone goes from a PDP to a cart (so they want to buy a single item and we upsell the bundle). But bundle-specific LPs are good too of course.

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🗣️: Maybe you have some recommendations of tools that can help me with my questions above?

💬 Ben: Yeah for 1) it's Optimal Workshop, for 2) it's whatever email service provider you use, e.g., Klaviyo, and 3) this is tested through a tool like convert.com, but its developed and implemented on your site, like Shopify etc. Check out Nativecos.com for how its set up there.

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🗣️: I'm currently providing a service where I analyze the client’s website to identify problems and opportunities. I then create and share with the client a Google sheet with all my recommendations for his website, prioritized by highest impact (a kind of CRO roadmap). My question is: How can I measure the success of this service, given that: 1) Most websites do not have enough traffic to run proper a/b tests; 2) Conversion Rate can be affected by external factors (e.g seasonality, changes in store inventory, change of pricing etc); 3) Waiting for the result of all the changes proposed would take months. Furthermore, I dont have control of the execution.

💬 Ben: Need to do this analysis on a quarterly basis, and track

• input metrics - how many ideas on that list, who and how many people contributing etc. 
• output metrics - what gets actioned, how many, whats the punch list per area of site or data/ops (prob your focus/priority here)
• outcome metrics - quarterly look at objective measures of the metrics as best you can, hard as you say, but can look at CVR in certain channels like organic etc, CS tickets, chats, NPS, etc... hard but this is where the story telling is. 

🗣️: If you were to start over as a CRO freelancer, how would you sell yourself and your service? What are your thoughts about joining agencies?

💬 Ben: Niche then super niche. I'd probably go subscription PDP focus for D2C, or PLG B2B focusing on pricing pages. :) The point is to focus. And you can never learn so fast as when joining up with an agency. try to partner with one that allows you to freelance at the same time, we do that at Speero, we have our strategists running accounts and they have their own gigs too sometimes.

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🗣️: Recently saw these type of questions in other communities and thought it's something I need to ask you as well: What role does website design play in conversion rate optimization and how I can improve design to increase it? 

💬 Ben: There's lots of behavioral psychology in design. Affordance, color pyschology, visual cues, etc.  And that's on top of general branding. Its a tricky one to tie to CRO explicitly tho. Generally CRO is a bit more on the UI/UX design side of house and less on the brand design, so saying that, 

• user flows, UX design strategy here is important, design can influence information accessibility for example
• UI element design and interact-ability, affordance of action etc. we do a lot of primary vs secondary action thinking.

🗣️: How can we optimize our product pages for better conversions? 

💬 Ben: PDPs are a great focus area, lots to do there. What to prioritize depends greatly on the type of product (e.g., convenience or shopping) and what your product strategy is (loss leader, subscription, etc).

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🗣️: What are some common user experience issues that can negatively impact conversion rates?

💬 Ben: Common issues I see are around friction, too many choices etc. Simplicity and Clarity are ALWAYS winners for the most part. But that's not to say to remove steps... e.g., a simplified step by step wizard might be MORE clicks/steps overall, but because its spaced out it works better.

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🗣️: How can we improve our website design to increase conversions? Like, what are the essential sections that contribute to better conversion and what arent. (example, social proofs-reviews, info about the product, info about the business,etc).

💬 Ben: Design is not necessarily messaging or content, see my message below to Daria for a bit more on this, but if you want a heuristic here, I'd prioritize clarity of benefits from a 'fear of loss' perspective... but again, thats not design, rather messaging. The design would just help in visual awareness or support. 

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🗣️: Curious about one part, what's your take on Product pages in these 2 scenarios.  1) From a Home/Landing page, when the user clicks on a product, it takes them to a different page--a dedicated product page, with product info and add to cart and Checkout CTA. 2)From a Home/Landing page, when the user clicks on a product, a modal/quickpage opens instead with the product info and add to cart and Checkout CTA.
I'm not entirely sure if this affects conversion directly, but they are 2 different experiences. And maybe affects Cart value instead?

💬 Ben: Yeah definitely worth a test. my gut: scenario 1 would work better for a 'shopping' (long consideration time, e.g., a couch) product, and scenario 2 would work better for a 'convenience' product (short consideration time, e.g., flowers). 

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🗣️: Could/should brands be creating microsites for niche audiences? Example: pet food and accessories seller, creates a supermarket site, a cat-only store, a dog-only store, and a birds-only store. Customized experiences on each site, would that potentially raise conversion rates?

💬 Ben: Yup, but what you mention here is a strategic thing I think (if i understand you correctly). So a house of brands vs branded house tradeoff thing. 

Can work, but it's all in the execution. E.g., maintaining those experiences has tradeoffs....but this is easier and easier with today's tech.