Are you leaving money on the table? What table are we talking about and whose money?’
If your website is not performing optimally, have you ever thought that the problem may not be with your product or audience but in the fact that it’s not well optimized and your conversion processes are falling through the cracks?
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) in digital marketing is not just simply about traffic, numbers, signups, or purchases. It is about making your visitors comfortable with your brand, website, and page; enough to make them take action.
But how do you do this? And what’s the difference between CRO in digital marketing and SEO? Don’t worry, in this blog, we answer all your questions related to CRO and more.
Why wait, let’s start right away.
🕰️ Key Takeaways
CRO in digital marketing is simply optimizing your website in a way that pushes your visitor to take action
CRO benefits you through personalization and optimizing your UI/UX better
There is no point to CRO without SEO and vice-versa. It’s important to optimize both for SEO and CRO to generate quality leads
The most common metrics used to measure conversion success are conversion rates, bounce rates, cost per conversion ROI on ad spend, average user session, and click-through rates
To optimize your website and landing page, always ensure a clear headline, well-placed CTAs and social proof, fast loading, and well-designed content and images
Fibr AI’s CRO agents are here to help you completely optimize and automate your CRO processes. No more manual interventions and months of waiting to see results. Optimize instantly and see results quickly.
What is CRO in digital marketing?
Experts in digital marketing describe CRO or Conversion Rate Optimization as the ‘art’ and ‘science’ of improving your website or landing pages to ‘convert’ more visitors into customers. In simpler terms, think of it as redesigning and optimizing elements of your digital assets–whether an app, website, or page in a way that entices users to take action.
Instead of just driving more traffic, CRO focuses on getting better results from the traffic you already have. Imagine you have a website with 1000 visitors of which 10-15 convert. CRO focuses on taking this conversion number higher–20, 50, or 100. Because, CRO understands that ultimately, your conversion numbers are going to draw in the revenue, not traffic numbers.
The next question in your mind could be–how does CRO make this happen? CRO simply works on optimizing what you have–making a headline better, placing the right CTA at the right place, and relying on pure data to drive decisions.
Remember that the end goal of any CRO process is to nudge your visitors into taking action–whether it is purchasing a product, signing up for a newsletter, booking a demo, and more.
Personalization and behavioral targeting for CRO
Personalization is about making your visitors feel like the website was designed just for them. Think for yourself: Would you make a purchase call from a generic website or a page that understands your likes and needs and personalizes for you? You know the answer.
Let’s take an example to understand this concept better. Imagine you run an eCommerce store and a user frequents your website for running shoes often. By showing them personalized ads or banners with running gears and integrating AI to display dynamic content, your website has a chance of converting this particular visitor.
Behavioral targeting takes it further through past purchases, location, browsing history, and more. In the above example, if through behavioral analysis you understand that the user is also looking for protein supplements, then by displaying content related to the same, you can further cement your conversion.
CRO for paid advertising, maximizing PPC & social ad performance
When you spend so much on paid advertising, you want every click to count, right? CRO helps you get the maximum value out of your PPC (pay-per-click) and/or social ads by optimizing both–your social ads and the landing pages they lead to. For example, if you’re running a Google ad campaign for ‘winter coats’, CRO ensures your ad copy highlights the unique selling point like ‘20% off on one purchase and 50% off on two purchases.’
But the work just does not stop here.
When the user clicks on the ad, they should land on a page that matches the ad’s promise. If the ad has mentioned the discount, the landing page should mirror it exactly. A mismatch of ad promise and landing page claims can create mistrust and increase bounce rates. CRO works on building this trust which is an absolutely super crucial conversion factor.
Do you see how the whole networking of PPC, ad, and landing page work together? CRO in digital marketing ensures this network is always intact, well-oiled, and works in sync.
The role of UX & UI in driving better conversions
UI and UX are the backbone of any CRO process. Even a small UX/UI change can have a big impact on conversion rates. For instance, changing the color of your CTA button can have an impact on user action.
You may have used Amazon’s ‘1-click ordering’ feature at some point, aimed at making online shopping effortless and super easy. That’s good UX/UI in play.
In the same context, ensuring that your website is mobile-friendly is crucial as more than half of your website traffic could be coming from mobile devices. The button must be big and easy to click/tap, forms should be short and simple, and pages should load quickly–all these are small changes but they can drastically impact conversions.
Now, CRO in digital marketing accounts for all small and large UX/UI changes by leveraging A/B testing. By testing different ad campaigns, copy, headlines, content, CTA, images, and more, it ensures your audience sees what they want to see.
Traffic is not your problem. Conversion is.
Let Fibr AI bring you the solution. Book a demo today and change your conversion rates forever!
Why is CRO essential for online growth?
Before we proceed further, it is important to reiterate that CRO in digital marketing is primarily about drawing out more conversions from existing traffic. And, that it is more revenue-focused than anything else.
You could have a great marketing campaign or an excellent product at hand. But, if your processes are not optimized for conversions, you risk losing business and revenue. CRO is essential for online growth as it helps understand what your audience wants and how they behave. We have already discussed its benefits in terms of social ads, PPC, UI/UX, and more.
Here’s another quick thing you must note: CRO can save you money. You don’t have to employ costly tactics to get conversions. CRO works with your existing traffic and assets to extra the maximum value.
For serious businesses operating in the now very digital world, CRO is nonnegotiable for online growth.
How SEO and CRO work together to drive qualified leads
SEO and CRO are different sides of the same coin. Search Engine Optimization or SEO’s sole purpose is to bring more traffic to your website, whereas CRO’s focus is conversions.
If you think deeply, one cannot exist with the other. There is no point of traffic if there are no conversions. And conversions cannot happen if there is no traffic! Do you see the point we are making here?
Did you know? Google receives an impressive 8.5 billion searches per day, globally. That’s roughly 99,000 searches per second!
Your brand needs both SEO and CRO because when combined, these two powerful strategies create an environment where the users are not just easily able to locate you, but are also eager to engage with you.
SEO is all about enhancing website visibility on search engines, ranking for relevant keywords, optimizing content, and working on building quality backlinks.
CRO’s aim is to extra the maximum value after SEO has done its magic through refined website content and design, better loading times, CTA placements, and more.
Think of SEO as the first step and CRO as the next. Let’s understand why both SEO and CRO require equal attention from businesses when it comes to lead generation.
Imagine you run a kitchen appliances eCommerce store. Through SEO, you target and start ranking for keywords like ‘stainless steel kitchen appliance’ or ‘BPA-free grinder.’ Once users find you through ‘SEO’, the CRO process kicks in. Clean navigation, relevant product information, and bold and finely placed CTA are all tactics you use to convert the user.
Now, do you think the CRO process could begin if the user had not found the website? Or, do you think you can build revenue just because a user found your website?
You will agree that SEO did 50% of the job by positioning and presenting your website as an option and CRO completes the other 50%.
So, it is fair to conclude that SEO and CRO are not standalone strategies but deeply interconnected activities that derive value only when both components function together.
Let’s now get into understanding how SEO fits into CRO funnels and what ultimately brings in conversions.
Understanding the CRO funnel: Awareness to conversion
Understanding how a CRO funnel operates, can help you further refine your marketing strategies and attract visitors who have the intent to take action.
Here are the 5 steps that a typical CRO process has:
1.Awareness
How would a potential customer know that your brand/product exists? Or how would visitors be made ‘aware’ of the offers and discounts you are offering? The answer is generating awareness which can come through ads, social media campaigns, and SEO visibility (as discussed above).
Did you know? Roughly 8% of all search queries are questions!
For instance, if you’re a beauty brand offering a ‘Black Friday 50% sale’, social media campaigns alongside ads would be your best bet to build online awareness.
2.Interest
Let’s take the same beauty product example from above and also assume you have successfully managed to create awareness for your brand. Now, comes the next step–Interest.
Why should a visitor engage with your brand? What is your unique selling point (USP)? Can they find the same products at any other brand? If yes, how are you differentiating? If you’re unable to answer the above questions, you risk leaking visitors to your competitors.
Generate interest in your brands and products through unique positioning, good offers and discounts, well-thought-out content, ad copy, testimonials, and more.
3.Consideration
Arguably this is the most important stage, where the visitor can be considered both aware and interested. It’s crucial that your positioning stands out to the visitor and that their pain points are addressed in a manner that pushes them to take action.
4.Conversions
At this stage, your visitor is going to take action, based on how you created awareness, generated interest, and enticed them to take action. Your processes here, right from navigation to search bar to checkout must be absolutely smooth and friction-free. Remember that visitors can drop off right before checkout too, so every step from start to end must be thoroughly optimized.
5.Retention
You’d be surprised at how many brands and companies think that the ‘job is done’ once a conversion takes place. This is further from the truth. To build long-lasting customer relationships, have repeated engagement, and excellent Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) you will have to work on your retention strategies.
This could be through one-time offers, separate loyalty programs, and/or having extremely smooth checkout systems, UI/UX that pushes the visitor for re-engagement.
Key metrics to measure conversion rate success
You can measure how successful your CRO processes are through metrics widely used by industry veterans and top CRO experts. Some are listed below:
1.Conversion rate
Arguably the most important metric, Conversion rate (CR) is the percentage of visitors who take action on your website or landing page.
Conversion rate = Total visitors who take action / Total traffic *100
For instance, if you’ve got traffic of 100,000 and 5000 visitors take action, then you’re conversion rate is 5%
Note: Different industries have different average conversion rates and CR is a subjective metric. 5% may be considered very high in certain industries, mediocre in some, and low in others.
Cost per conversion
If you want to understand how much ROI you are deriving through your marketing activities, this is the metric. CPC or cost per conversion how much you are spending to acquire one user.
CPC = Total ad or marketing spend/ Total conversions
If you’ve spent say $1000 to acquire 10 conversions, then your CPC is $10 (is always expressed in currency terms).
2.Click through rate
A super popular metric, the CTR or click-through rate shows how well your ad, email, keywords, and more are performing. In simpler terms, it shows how many people clicked compared to how many saw it.
CTR = Clicks/ Total impressions *100
So, if you had 100 clicks for 1500 impressions (people who say the ad or keyword), then your CTR would be ~6.7.
A low CTR could indicate that your marketing campaign is misaligned or is not resonating with the target audience.
3.Bounce rate
Bounce rate is a simple metric that shows how many visitors ‘bounced’ off your page after visiting.
For instance, if 200 people bounced off your page out of a total of 500 visitors, then the page’s bounce rate is 40%.
Bounce rates could be high due to several reasons–misplaced internal links, irrelevant content, slow loading time, and more. Do note that high bounce rates can negatively impact conversion rates.
4.Card abandonment rate (for eCommerce)
As per the name, this metric shows how many users have abandoned a cart created or did not complete their orders up until payment.
Card abandonment rate = Abandoned carts / Total carts created *100
So if 80 carts out of a total of 300 carts were abandoned, then the card abandonment rate comes to around ~26-27%, meaning every 4th user on the site did not complete the desired action. A high card abandonment rate could be due to complex checkouts, cluttered navigation, lack of payment options, and more.
5.Return on ad spend
This metric shows how much revenue your ads bring in. It’s a simple metric to test if your ad spend brings in the desired ROI.
Return on ad spend (ROAS) = Revenue from ads/ Total ad spend
If you have a revenue of $10,000 from ads and spend $2000 on ads, you’re ROAS in percentage terms is 500%. In ratio terms, it’s 5:1 ($5 revenue for every $1 spent)
6.Average user session duration
This describes how long a user stays on your page or website. Generally, longer sessions are considered positive for conversions, depicting that the user has an interest and is engaging with your digital assets deeply.
But, it’s important to compare and view this metric in line with other CRO metrics for a more comprehensive understanding of user behavior.
Analyzing these metrics together can help you understand what’s working right for your business and where is more optimization required.
We now move to the best web and landing page optimization practices you can deploy to increase your conversions naturally.
CRO processes can be hard but not with Fibr AI We work to optimize every element of your website so you never have a visitor leak. Book a demo now!
Best practices for landing page and website optimization for higher conversions
Want the best out of your website and landing pages to boost conversions? You’re not alone. Here’s a crisp list of best practices you can deploy to entice your users to action:
Fun Fact: Almost 97% of websites receive 0 traffic from Google!
1.A clear and persuasive headline
Your headline is the first thing a visitor sees. It is thus super important that your headlines are short, to the point, and clear. Instead of having a never-ending salad of words, aim to keep your headlines simple and choose wording in a way that clearly explains what the product does. Avoid jargon at all costs.
2.Strong CTA
Arguably the most important element of your page, a CTA shows users how they can engage with your brand immediately. Using phrases like ‘Hurry, only 2 seats left; or ‘ 10% off on signup’ can create a sense of urgency and push conversion.
3.Mobile friendly design
If more than 80-90% of your traffic comes from mobile, it is a no-brainer that you must ensure that your website or page is user-friendly. The page must load quickly, not have many redirects, and should look good on all devices, regardless of the location, design, or content.
4.Fast loading time
Slow loading time can drive users away. Try to compress your images, minimize code, and redirect to improve load time. Aim to load under 3 seconds.
Pro-Tip: Ensure you use ‘alt text’ for all your images to describe their content and make it easier for search engines to scroll past them.
5.Responsive content
Your content must be relevant, well-edited, and devoid of AI spam. Design your content to be helpful and responsive. Invest in building proper content funnels for your social media, websites, ad copy, and more to ensure better user interaction.
6.Well-placed social proof
Social proof can build trust. Ensure your testimonials, ratings, and more are strategically placed to remove any doubts or fear your users may have.
7.Simplified forms
Long forms are boring and can deter your users from interacting with your page. Ensure your forms are simple and short. Have an option for autofill; this creates a win-win situation for both your brand and the user.
How Fibr AI can help strategize your CRO process
It’s not easy to build a CRO process that is automated and equipped with the best technology in the world. But Fibr AI is changing that.
By integrating AI in all CRO processes, Fibr AI is completely changing how traditional CRO processes work.
The platforms achieve this through
1.Max
Max is your A/B testing best friend. Want to test hypotheses? Done. Want to test multiple website elements? Easy. And just not that, Max offers 24/7 testing (yes, that’s right) and continuous optimization; meaning? You get a good ROI for every dollar you spend!
2.Liv
Liv is here to ensure that every user who visits your page thinks that the page was specially crafted just for them a.k.a 1:1 personalization. Whether it’s your Google and Meta ads, or dynamically adapting and changing CTA, content and more depending on the user interaction, Liv does it all!
3.Aya
Think of Aya when you think about website optimization. Aya specializes when it comes to detecting issues in your website, spotting and fixing bottlenecks and continuously optimizing your website without breaking a sweat.
Fibr AI’s CRO agent and team have shown fantastic results for clients, don’t believe us? See the number below:
100X more experiments
10x faster optimization
1/10th the cost
Avg. Return on Investment (RoI): 28%
Landing page bounce rates: 10% down
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): 30% down
Why waste the traffic potential of your website? Book a demo with Fibr AI today and watch the conversion needle move up!
FAQs
1.What is CRO in digital marketing, and how does it differ from SEO?
Optimization (CRO) in digital marketing focuses on improving your website or landing pages to increase the number of visitors who take actions like buying or signing up. While SEO (Search Engine Optimization) aims to bring more traffic to your site by ranking higher on search engines, CRO works on getting better results from the traffic you already have. Together, they ensure you attract and convert visitors effectively.
2.How can CRO improve my paid advertising results?
CRO enhances paid advertising by optimizing both your ads and landing pages to work seamlessly. For example, if your PPC ad offers "20% off," CRO ensures the landing page reflects that deal clearly, reducing mistrust and bounce rates. This makes every ad click more valuable, improving your return on investment from campaigns like Google Ads or social media promotions.
3.Why should I use Fibr AI for my CRO process?
Fibr AI uses advanced AI tools—Max for A/B testing, Liv for personalization, and Aya for website fixes—to streamline and automate your CRO efforts. It delivers faster results (10x quicker optimization), higher ROI (averaging 28%), and cuts costs significantly. With proven outcomes like reduced bounce rates and lower acquisition costs, Fibr AI is a game-changer for boosting conversions.
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