A Quick Lesson on Conversion Funnels and How They Work
In a nutshell, the conversion funnel is a visual representation of the customer journey on your site. It illustrates the steps users take to make a desired action, from the initial engagement with your brand (subscribing, filling out forms, etc.) to the final conversion (purchasing a product or service).
A well-optimized conversion funnel leads users effortlessly to the final goal, boosting the likelihood of converting leads into sales. This translates to fewer obstacles for customers and a higher conversion rate.
A conversion follows four stages:
- Awareness: This is the first stage of the conversion funnel, where potential customers become aware of your brand and products/services.
- Interest: At this stage, potential customers have shown interest in your brand and are actively seeking more information.
- Consideration: Potential customers consider purchasing from your brand but may still be hesitant or unsure.
- Action: This is where the actual conversion occurs, whether it’s making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter or filling out a contact form.
How do you identify bottlenecks in your funnel?
At some point along this funnel, users may drop off and not complete the desired action – hence, what we refer to as a conversion bottleneck.
By understanding which stage(s) in the funnel have a high drop-off rate, you can identify optimization opportunities and improve the customer journey.
This is where a CRO website audit comes into play.
Resolve Conversion Bottlenecks With a Comprehensive CRO Audit
When you conduct a CRO audit, you’re essentially taking a magnifying glass to your website, identifying weak points where potential customers abandon the process and then proposing data-driven solutions to overcome these barriers.
Some common issues that a CRO audit can help identify and resolve include:
- Poor website navigation or design
- Complicated checkout process
- Lack of compelling calls to action (CTAs)
- Slow loading times
- Unresponsive design for mobile devices
- Content that does not resonate with the target audience
With these identified issues, businesses can make targeted changes to their site for better user experience and increased conversions.
At Thrive, we take a hands-on approach to CRO audits. Our conversion rate optimization experts dive deep into your site and data, utilizing heat maps, usability tests, A/B testing and other advanced tools to uncover insights and provide actionable solutions for optimization.
Why Your Business Needs CRO Audits
Unlock Growth Opportunities and Improve Your Revenue Streams
Regularly revisiting and adapting your conversion rate optimization strategy is crucial for keeping up with changing market trends and consumer behavior.
A conversion rate optimization audit helps businesses stay ahead of the game by providing valuable insights into what works and what doesn’t in their website design, content and overall customer experience.
With a well-designed CRO audit, businesses can benefit from:
Improved Customer Experience
A detailed CRO audit identifies friction points, allowing you to optimize your website for a smoother, more enjoyable user experience. This could mean simplifying your checkout process, improving navigation or optimizing for mobile devices.
Lower Acquisition Costs
With an eCommerce CRO audit, you can identify inefficiencies in your marketing and sales funnel that unnecessarily drive up acquisition costs. Find out what customers want in your marketing campaigns with a website conversion analysis.
Greater Customer Lifetime Value
Customer lifetime value (CLV) is the amount customers are expected to spend on your brand during the entire relationship. Conducting an eCommerce CRO audit can uncover opportunities for cross-selling and upselling, resulting in increased CLV.
Enhanced Brand Reputation
A well-optimized website reflects positively on your brand’s reputation. A conversion rate optimization audit helps identify and solve pain points, resulting in an improved customer experience. This leads to positive reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations.
Data-Driven Decision Making
Conversion rate optimization relies heavily on data and statistics. CRO audits provide valuable insights into metrics such as bounce rates, conversion rates and click-through rates (CTR) – all of which help inform business decisions moving forward.
Retargeting Potential Customers
Since a CRO conversion rate optimization audit reveals where potential customers are dropping off in the conversion funnel, brands can retarget these individuals with personalized messaging and offers to increase the chances of conversion down the line and deeper into the funnel.
A CRO Agency That Delivers Measurable Outcomes
Achieve Real Results With Our Turnkey Solutions
Thrive Internet Marketing Agency is an industry-recognized CRO agency with hundreds of successful CRO campaigns under our belt. We work with any size business to optimize their website from various industries to drive brand awareness that converts leads into sales.
DNA TESTING CENTER
+21%
Conversion Rate (Homepage Messaging)
+186%
Conversion Rate (Homepage Buttons)
Thrive conducted CRO audits and A/B testing on the DNA testing center’s homepage messaging and buttons to determine versions that would generate higher conversion rates. Optimizing these elements resulted in increased conversion rates compared to the original version, with an 85% confidence level across your audience.
PLASMA DONATION CENTER
+29K
Link Clicks
+448
Conversions
Since taking over the marketing campaign in August 2021, we have helped the client achieve its highest monthly donors with 459 checkouts and 448 donor form conversions. Thrive’s CRO audit identified opportunities to enhance the user experience, resulting in a 53% average goal conversion rate improvement overall.
FULL-SERVICE RV REPAIR SHOP
+30%
Conversion Rate
(Year-Over-Year)
+27%
Site Clicks
Before redesigning the site, Thrive conducted a comprehensive CRO audit for the client. The website conversion analysis identified multiple issues, such as excessive and unclear CTAs, confusing form fields and poor navigation. Armed with this data, Thrive strategically redesigned the site, resulting in a 26.62% increase in site clicks and a 10.42% increase in phone actions.
Let your website be the main driver of your online sales and leads. Partner with Thrive Internet Marketing Agency to conduct a CRO audit for better insights into improving conversions.
Thrive’s Conversion Rate Optimization Audit Packages
Your Roadmap to Better Website Performance and Improved Sales
Basic CRO Audit
Utilizing the guiding principles of CRO, we conduct a surface-level analysis of key pages and your overall user experience. This means our team will focus on identifying basic issues hindering conversions, such as broken links, slow loading times and poor design.
Full CRO Audit
Building on the basic audit, we provide a more in-depth analysis that includes a site-wide heat map analysis and live traffic recordings. This allows us to gather specific information on user behavior and engagement/interaction patterns.
Ongoing CRO Audits
This operates the same way as the full audit but acts as an ongoing analysis of your website and user journey. We expand the analysis beyond the core conversion process to include specific segments such as landing pages, educational content and other softer conversion points.
What’s Next? All CRO audits are followed with an A/B testing phase to test different design and content variations.
A/B testing enables us to compare our proposed CRO improvements to the original design by splitting traffic between the new and old pages or journeys. This allows us to make final, statistically-driven decisions on implementing changes before making permanent modifications to the website.
Thrive’s CRO Website Audit Implementation Process
Conversion rate optimization is designed to make your website a more effective conversion tool, highlighting areas that disrupt the conversion process. This enables us to design and develop a more effective user journey to generate more leads, sales or inquiries.
How we design and build websites changes and evolves, constantly striving to meet the needs and intent of the user. This change is sometimes due to new technology, such as the introduction of mobile devices, or shifts in preferences, like the growing lack of tolerance for more invasive features, such as unwelcome pop-ups or disruptive overlays, on a page.
Our CRO audit process allows us to review your website against the current trends for user interface and user experience design, the underlying, more evergreen principles of CRO based on broader marketing principles. This process involves:
Step 1: CRO Campaign Setup
A dedicated team will be assigned to your CRO campaign, including a project manager, data analysts and UX/UI designers. We will also set up access to your Google Analytics and Tag Manager accounts if you don’t already have them.
Step 2: Access to Analytics and Tag Manager
Should you already have access to Google Analytics and Tag Manager, we will review your current setup and make any necessary adjustments to ensure accurate tracking of user behavior. Access to this data is essential in identifying improvement areas and accurately measuring the success of our CRO efforts.
Step 3: Heatmap Tracking
Heatmaps provide valuable insights into how users interact with your website, allowing us to identify areas causing friction or confusion. We will install tracking scripts for heatmaps on your key pages, such as landing and conversion pages.
Step 4: Data Review Dates
To ensure continuous improvement, we schedule regular data review dates to analyze the collected data and identify any changes in user behavior. This allows us to adapt our CRO strategy accordingly for optimal results.
Step 5: Initial Audit
Our CRO professionals will conduct an initial audit of your website using over 30 factors to identify areas hindering conversions. This audit includes reviewing your website’s design, content, messaging and conversion process.
Step 6: Review Against Data
The findings from the initial audit are then reviewed against the data collected from Google Analytics and heatmaps. This helps us validate our observations and prioritize areas for improvement.
Step 7: Reporting
Based on our analysis, we create a comprehensive report highlighting problem areas, outline key opportunities and make recommendations for improvement. Our report also includes an outline of suggested changes that align with your design brief requirements.
Ultimately, our goal is to ensure that every visit to your site becomes an opportunity to convert and build long-term relationships with your customers.
Essential CRO Tools in Our Arsenal
Thrive uses various tools and techniques to identify the minutest details that could impact your conversion rates. Here’s what you can expect when you choose Thrive as your conversion rate optimization agency:
Heatmap Analysis
Heatmaps track how users interact with different elements on your site, such as CTAs, forms and buttons. Using heatmap tools, our CRO conversion rate optimization experts visualize how users interact with your website, identifying areas where users click the most and areas they ignore. Tapping into this data, we optimize your content and site design to keep visitors engaged.
Funnel Analysis
A conversion funnel is a journey a user takes from initially landing on your website to completing a desired action, such as purchasing. Funnel analysis lets us identify where and why users drop out of the conversion process. This enables our CRO experts to recommend improvements at each funnel stage, from landing page optimization to checkout process streamlining.
User Behavior Analytics
A crucial part of conversion rate optimization is understanding user behavior. With the help of advanced analytics tools, Thrive’s CRO experts track and analyze how users interact with your website, including their navigation patterns, time spent on each page and where they drop off in the conversion process. This data allows us to make evidence-based decisions for optimizing your web page.
A/B Testing
A/B testing compares two versions of a web page to determine which one performs better in terms of conversion rate. Thrive’s CRO team conducts A/B tests by creating two versions of a page and then splitting traffic between the two to determine which version leads to higher conversions. This data can be used to optimize elements like forms, landing page content and site structure.
Website Usability Testing
Usability testing involves having real people navigate through your website, providing feedback on their experience and identifying pain points during their journey. This allows us to uncover what elements frustrate, confuse or prevent users from converting. Gaining a fresh perspective from unbiased users reveals issues like broken links, vague navigation and other elements that create roadblocks for site visitors and customers.
Google Analytics (GA) offers a wealth of data for conversion optimization. Our CRO audit experts dig deep into your data to uncover valuable insights, such as top-performing pages, customer demographics and popular search terms that can inform your conversion optimization strategy. Laying the groundwork with GA, we build data-driven strategies that fuel conversions and revenue growth.
Conversion Marketing Research
Conversion research is systematically understanding your customers’ needs, motivations and behaviors to optimize your digital marketing strategies. Thrive’s CRO agency thoroughly researches your target audience to uncover insights that inform our campaigns. This includes surveying and analyzing customer feedback, studying competitor tactics and conducting comprehensive keyword research.
Once we have the data from our conversion rate optimization audit data, our CRO experts will optimize your website content. This includes creating engaging copy and visuals, rewriting web copy for better search engine visibility and developing landing page designs that encourage sales. We aim to boost customer lifetime value by retaining existing customers while attracting new ones.
The CRO audit process includes reviewing the technical aspects of your website to remove any obstacles that could inhibit conversions. We thoroughly analyze your site’s performance, speed and usability, addressing issues like broken links, slow load times and mobile responsiveness. Poised for optimal site performance, your brand can expect increased conversions.
Key Conversion Rate Optimization Metrics We Track
Conversion rate optimization metrics play a vital role in gauging your website’s performance and identifying areas for improvement. As a data-driven agency, our conversion rate optimization experts leverage various metrics to meet your conversion goals.
Bounce Rate
The percentage of visitors who navigate away from your site after viewing only one page. A high bounce rate indicates a poor user experience or lack of relevant content. As such, understanding and improving bounce rates is crucial for optimizing conversions.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Measures how often potential customers click on a specific link or call to action. A higher CTR indicates a more compelling offer, better keyword targeting and more effective CRO marketing.
Entrance
An entrance occurs when a visitor lands on your site for the first time. Understanding how many potential customers enter your site is essential in identifying which pages attract and convert the most leads.
Exit Rate
The percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing a particular page. High exit rates on specific pages can indicate issues with content, navigation or the overall user experience.
Cost Per Conversion (CPC)
This key metric calculates the average money you spend on each conversion. A lower CPC is generally more desirable as you gain more conversions for less ad spend.
Leads Generated
Leads are users interested in your brand and are ready to progress through the conversion funnel. Successful conversion optimization involves generating and converting more leads to boost revenue.
Pages Per Visit (PPV)
Measures the average number of pages a user views during a single visit to your website. A higher PPV indicates that users find your content engaging and will explore your site further.
Page Load Time
The amount of time it takes for a page to load. A slow loading time can lead to higher bounce rates and poor user experience. Increase conversion rate by optimizing your site’s load time for improved user engagement.
Return on Investment (ROI)
The percentage businesses earn from their initial investment. A positive ROI indicates a successful conversion rate optimization strategy as it means you are generating more revenue than what you are spending on CRO efforts.
Website Traffic
This CRO conversion rate optimization audit metric refers to the number of visitors to your site. More website traffic means more potential customers and conversion opportunities.
Have more questions about CRO audits and how Thrive can help improve your conversion rates? Get in touch with our conversion rate optimization agency and let’s chat about your specific needs.
Why Choose Thrive for Your eCommerce CRO Audit
Reap Incredible ROI Using Proven Methodologies
Thrive Internet Marketing Agency is an industry-leading conversion rate optimization agency with over 15 years of digital marketing experience. Since 2005, our CRO experts have been helping small businesses, enterprises and multi-location companies enhance their brand reputation and become industry leaders.
Thrive sets the bar high as the top CRO company in the market through:
We don’t just perform a 360-degree website conversion analysis. As a full-service digital marketing agency, we offer a wide range of web services to help you optimize your entire online presence, including search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, pay-per-click (PPC), web design and social media marketing (SMM).
Niche Analysis
Understanding your business niche is crucial in the increasingly competitive digital marketing landscape. At Thrive, we conduct an in-depth niche analysis as a part of our comprehensive CRO audit process. This involves understanding your target audience, their preferences and behavior and how your product or service fits their needs.
Full Suite of CRO Tools
Advanced CRO tools like Google Analytics are used to gather data and find insights into your website’s user behavior. Trust that our conversion rate optimization agency has access to the latest and most advanced tools to ensure your CRO audit is accurate and thorough. Data, not guesswork, drives every campaign we launch.
Proven Track Record of Success
Thrive is a trusted CRO agency with numerous awards and accolades to back up our expertise. We have helped hundreds of businesses to increase their profits through customer-centric conversion rate optimization strategies. Packed with innovative ideas and techniques, we can deliver amazing ROI on your CRO audit investment.
Continuous CRO Audits
A one-time audit may provide a useful snapshot of your site’s current conversion rate, but continuous audits allow for ongoing monitoring and optimization. At Thrive, we implement a strategy of constant analysis and improvement to ensure your conversions are always at their peak. Achieve sustainable success with our CRO services.
Transparent Reporting
Our conversion rate optimization strategy includes regular reporting on the progress of your CRO audit. Our clients can access real-time data and insights into their website’s performance, enabling informed decisions and continuous optimization. You’ll receive a comprehensive report at the end of your CRO audit, outlining the improvements made and future recommendations.