Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) for E-commerce
Conversion Rate Optimisation is the systematic process of increasing the percentage of website visitors who complete a purchase. Small improvements to conversion rates compound: a 0.5% improvement in conversion on £5M revenue adds £250K without any additional acquisition cost. CRO is high-ROI because it increases the value of traffic already being acquired.
The CRO Process
- Measurement: Establish baseline conversion rate by device, channel, and key segments. Set up funnel tracking to identify where users drop off.
- Research: Quantitative (analytics — where do users drop off?), qualitative (session recordings, heatmaps, user testing — why do they drop off?), customer feedback
- Hypothesis: Formulate specific, testable hypotheses: "Showing delivery date on product pages will increase add-to-cart rate because users want to know when they'll receive their order"
- Test: A/B or multivariate test the hypothesis with sufficient sample size for statistical significance
- Learn and iterate: Whether the test wins or loses, extract the learning and apply it to the next hypothesis
High-Impact CRO Areas
- Product page: photography, descriptions, social proof, size guides, delivery messaging
- Checkout: guest checkout, payment methods, clear error handling, trust signals
- Navigation: findability, filtering, category page merchandising
- Search: relevance, zero-results handling, merchandising