What is CRO, and where should a growing shop start?
Getting more of the people already on your site, or in your inbox, to buy. It's less about button colours than finding out why people didn't.
- 022CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation)
- The process of increasing the percentage of website visitors who take a desired action through various strategies and testing. In email , the process of increasing the percentage of email recipients who take a desired action, such as clicking a link or making a purchase, through strategies like A/B testing and content optimisation.
- Measured as
- Orders divided by sessions, multiplied by a hundred
- Starts with
- Research: analytics, recordings, heatmaps, surveys and your customer service inbox
- Testing needs
- Enough orders on each version to trust the result
- In email
- More recipients clicking, then buying, from the same send
Most CRO is finding out why people didn't buy
The caricature is button colours. The real work starts with research: analytics to find where people drop out, recordings and heatmaps to see how, and surveys, reviews and customer service emails to hear why. Tests come after, once you know what you're testing.
Skip the research and you end up testing opinions. That's slow, and a losing test built on a hunch teaches you nothing about the next page.
Where a growing shop should look first
| Page | The question it has to answer | Where the answer usually is |
|---|---|---|
| Product page | Is it worth the money? | Photos, reviews, and the objection customer service hears most |
| Collection page | Can I find the right one? | Filters, sorting and names customers would use |
| Cart | Any surprises? | Delivery cost and delivery date, shown before checkout |
| Checkout | Can I pay the way I want? | Express payments, guest checkout, no forced account |
| Landing page | Is this what the ad promised? | The same offer, in the same words, on one page |
Start with the product page that gets the most traffic and the most exits. A fix there pays across everything that sends people to it, emails included.
When an A/B test is worth running, and when it isn't
A test needs enough orders on each version to tell a real difference from luck. Plenty of pages never get there, and a test left running for months gets muddied by sales, seasons and stock.
Below that line, fix the obvious friction, measure before and after over matching weeks, and save tests for pages with the traffic to settle them. The same maths applies to A/B tests in Klaviyo, where winners often get crowned far too early.
CRO inside the inbox works the same way
The definition covers email as well, and it's the same idea. An email converts twice: once on the click, and again on the page the click lands on. So judge emails on clicks and orders, not on open rate, which Apple's privacy feature inflates.
Then follow the click. The product page behind browse abandonment and the cart behind the cart flow get visited again and again by people who already showed interest. Fix those pages and the site and the emails both earn more from the same traffic.
Related terms
FAQs
What's the difference between CRO and UX?
UX is how easy the shop is to use. CRO is the habit of finding what stops people buying, fixing it and measuring whether the fix worked. Good UX is usually what CRO ends up shipping, but CRO only counts it as done when the orders move.
How long before CRO shows up in revenue?
Fixing obvious friction can show within weeks, because you're removing a reason people leave. Tests take longer, since each one needs enough orders to settle. We won't put a number on it, and you should be wary of anyone who does before they've seen your analytics.
Does CRO apply to emails as well as websites?
Yes, and the method doesn't change: find where people drop out, find out why, fix it, then measure. In email there are two places to lose people, the click and the page after it. The page is often the bigger leak, so fix it before you rewrite the email for the third time.
Rather we explained it on your own account?
Bring your Klaviyo account to a growth consultation. We'll walk through what this means for your numbers, in plain English, and what we'd fix first.
Half an hour with Theo, our founder.
We're all about relationships built on trust, mutual respect and a shared vision for success. If that sounds like your vibe, let's make some waves together 🌊
