6 Actionable Insights From the Best CRO Case Studies Online

Improve your strategies by taking inspiration from these conversion rate optimization (CRO) case studies.

More than just proof of concepts, conversion rate optimization (CRO) case studies also provide you with useful insights and practices you can begin your optimization journey with. The thing is, if you don't have a grasp of even the basics, it can be hard to extract the insights amid all the jargons.

RELATED READ: What is Conversion Optimization: A Primer for Online Marketers

After all, the digital marketing world is a busy and fast-paced one. Who really has the time to be sifting through technical terms, all to be told at the end that "you should tweak your CTAs." Especially when you're already stumbling to keep up with update after update on marketing technologies.

Thankfully, that’s what digital marketing agency expert conversion optimizers are for; to distill and translate into action findings from market research and testing so your business can focus on moving towards your goals.

Practicing CRO, according to case studies

Rigorous as the process may be, the goal of CRO is to always simplify things for your customers, because their bottomline directly affects yours.

Achieve that, and you can see tremendous lifts in your conversions, even with just the smallest effort. And that is, in essence, the main job of any conversion optimizer; to discover the truth behind what makes your consumers start, stop, pause, or glide through to a conversion.

Uncover those reasons, and how you get there will be pretty easy to figure out and they are often one or all of these:

1. Iterate as many times as you can, before executing.

They say that marketing campaigns are somewhat of a fun gamble. You come up with an idea, run it, and celebrate if you win, cry if you lose. That is an old, ideas-first way of thinking that won't keep you afloat in today's landscape.

And while there is some wisdom to it, marketing technologies are now sophisticated enough to allow you not to waste too much resources on high-risk, one-off bets. An improved approach would be to test every idea with tools and in settings in your control to identify a champion that brings in the best results.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCE: List of 14 Best A/B Testing Tools for Conversion Optimization Pros

That's what CXL proves in this case study for TruckersReport published in 2013 where they iterated and tested multiple ideas to achieve two important outcomes:

1. To identify a winning execution that rakes in results, and;
2. Pool and bank data that will inform future tests and executions.

This, in turn, not only help you avoid major losses with current campaigns but with future ones, as well.

2. Videos improve conversions.

All the hype over video content isn't limited in the realm of social media where it proves to be an effective format for boosting engagements and awareness.

From the business side, on the landing pages of products and/or services, videos also have a lot of power in terms of pushing conversions. And, in fact, the CRO community takes video content on pages seriously, as case study after case study on videos boosting conversions prove the potency of video content.

Does this mean your brand should put videos on all your landing pages for products? The answer will ultimately depend on two major pre-requisites:

1. Your website's ability to host videos without bogging down page experience, and;
2. The media consumption patterns of your audiences in terms of videos.

If those items are checked off, then it helps to ask yourself the following questions to get to a clearer answer in terms of your direction with video content:

• Are your products and/or services better demonstrated through video?
• Will explaining the features, advantages, and benefits of your services and products be too lengthy to present as text?
• What video format should you follow for production? Will it be a how-to, explainer, or user-generated reviews?

3. Customer-centric copies convert.

That's just conversion copywriting basics you should practice consistently. Be it for landing pages or social media posts.

Because audiences are more likely to convert when they feel that your messaging resonates with them. Or, at the very least, they can relate to it or feel like you understand their problems.

Smart Insights discovered this for themselves in an assessment of their landing pages for business memberships. In their case study, they identified their repetitive copies as the main problem causing the sluggish conversions.

What they did to remedy this was to coordinate with their sales team to uncover real pain points of their ideal customers, and worked these into the landing page copies.

For retail and consumer goods brands, this is something easily at your disposal. Through social listening, product reviews, and customer inquiries alone, you could uncover a lot of data you can potentially insert in your messaging.

Doing so will allow your products and/or services' unique value propositions really stand out and, more importantly, connect with your customers. This, in turn, will encourage them to convert.

4. Usher your customers by providing directive, visual cues.

User experience or UX design is another critical pillar of conversion rate optimization. And although it takes much more work than tweaking copies, improving user experience is almost always guaranteed to help improve your conversions.

This is true as well for Blue Bungalow and Site Tuners' work on their ecommerce site. Specifically, their UX design improvements focused on improving visual cues that direct customer attention. An improvement that was found to be critical to boosting their conversions.

This is thanks mainly to the fact that, all things considered, customer attention spans are shorter than ever. If you've succeded in catching the attention of online audiences, it is imperative that you keep it. Better, in fact, if you can direct it.

On websites, you accomplish this in the simplest ways, like:

• changing the background colors of call-to-action (CTA) buttons to make them standout;
• highlight in strong text copies that you would like to assert to your readers;
• strategically placing search bars where customers hover and linger, or even;
• by just cutting down walls of text into smaller texts (or bullets like this).

The big idea: Make experiences convenient and sensible by removing as much friction as possible so that your audiences don't turn away from your sites.

5. Tell people you're authentic by telling your story.

Authenticity is greatly rewarded by today's online audience. Particularly, Gen Z wants brands to be authentic before they decide on supporting them.

But apart from Gen Z, storytelling is a time-old technique to communicate brand value in subtle, yet meaningful ways. Much like HandicappedPets.com, you can boost your conversions through storytelling not just for the short-term and long-term.

FURTHER READING: 8 Conversion Rate Optimization Tips That Leverage Storytelling

People online love a good story. So think back to your brand story, and seek the aid of a copywriter to transpose them into web copies.

Tell it clearly, and make your values cut across and pique the interest of your audience, and they'll reward you with conversions.

6. Actively challenge your best practices.

Digital marketing professionals will shudder at the thought of massive website or page refurbishings. This means copy revisions, fresh new layouts, and removing or adding elements that can visually appeal to audiences.

Laborious as they may be, the payoffs are tremendous. And, in most cases like that of OSP International LLC's, the results are seen in leaps.

The lesson to be gained and practiced here is to always challenge your current best practices. For OSP, this teardown of their pages revealed a need to:

• Revise the copies to feature the customer's voice and conversion-focused cues;
• Update UX design to feature eye-catching and distinguishing elements that help capture the attention of visitors, and;
• Featuring social proof to boost credibility and signal trustworthiness for their product and brand.

Key takeaways

Being rooted in experimentation and rigorous testing, it's quite understandable if you find yourself intimidated by conversion rate optimization. However, given what's at stake, you can't put off learning about and practicing them any longer.

In endeavoring to understand this practice, you must keep these key principles at the top of your mind:

• Conversion rate optimization is about the customer. Understanding them and matching your capabilities offerings to their needs. Make their engagement with you worth it, and they'll reward any effort, no matter how small or big.
• Challenge your biases. Because these can often go outdated in a fast-paced digital landscape. In the coming years – or even months – more technologies used by consumers will change, along with so-called 'best practices'.
• Take stock of your implementations and results. So you can use them to continually inform and improve your future executions.

Looking to explore conversion rate optimization for your online marketing efforts? Don't hesitate to give us a call. We'd be happy to help guide your first steps into it.

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