Do you want to feed driven, creative ideas into your CRO plan – but aren’t sure where to start?
Richard Joe shares his unique journey that led him to CRO, his actionable insights that can help all marketers take a step toward increased conversions, and his predictions for CRO and experimentation in the near future.
Currently working as an Experiment Lead at Yoghurt Digital, Richard Joe is passionate about CRO and deeply intrigued by the different ways to feed driven, creative ideas that have a tangible impact on business success. Richard is also the host of the podcast Experiment Nation. With more than 10,000 subscribers on YouTube, it has grown into a global community of CROs sharing fresh, innovative perspectives in the field. He has also spent several years gaining experience across a wide range of industries, including e-commerce, real estate, and healthcare. His background across SEO, paid search, and web development shaped the well-rounded CRO expertise he has today.
Richard spoke with AB Tasty’s Head of Marketing and the host of The 1000 Experiments podcast, John Hughes, about his vast experience in CRO across various marketplaces, the future of CRO, and how experimentation can be humanized and approachable for all.
Here are the main points from their conversation to remember.
Anyone Can Get Started in CRO
Even if you’ve never heard of Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) before, Richard Joe reveals how it’s more than possible to embark on this experimentation journey with no previous experience.
Having not even heard of the term “CRO” until 2016, Richard came across this word for the first time when someone he knew working in affiliate marketing in the e-commerce space was posting on social media.
Without even knowing what A/B testing was, despite having worked in marketing and web development, Richard was fascinated to learn more – as he was already working in an industry where clients were doing split testing.
After this, Richard joined a team in general marketing and continued to pursue this interest by playing around with simple things while working in roles for SEO or paid ads – such as changing the font on a CTA button, headlines, and images. This sparked further curiosity and made him interested in CRO not from a business angle, but the creative aspect in taking an idea and eliciting tangible change.
Bringing out the more inquisitive, psychological aspects of his mind – Richard was interested in how creative ideas can turn into multimodal moments that are capable of delivering new analytics, statistics, and actionable insights.
5 Principles Every Marketer Should Apply to Improve Conversions.
In our conversation with Richard, we discovered some of the best ways to feed driven, creative ideas to create effective CRO methods across all industries.
Here are 5 principles we learned in our discussion with Richard that every marketing professional should dare to explore:
1. Keep Testing, Trying, and Learning
During our podcast, Richard stressed the importance of not giving up after first few failures.
Real teams, real growth, and real results can often be achieved following the most unexpected experiments.
By taking the plunge in trying and testing new optimization ideas, you can take your brand one step further to bold steps that lead to smarter wins.
2. Digital Marketing is Beneficial for CRO
Having worked several years in marketing himself, Richard shared how CRO can leverage a marketing team’s power in making progress.
Having a CRO manager serves as a dedicated position to improving your website’s performance. This can help your marketing team to be taken more seriously.
Often inspired by already existing, successful webpages – CROs can identify innovative ways to bring in great traffic. This can help develop new ways to strengthen audience interest.
3. Don’t Fear AI
AI is continuing to take the optimization community by storm. This means it’s more important than ever to be brave in experimenting with AI platforms.
The use of Artificial Intelligence in Experience Optimization Platforms (EOPs) can prove extremely beneficial. Tools such as Evi AI can help to map customers based on their emotional needs and personalize their shopping experience accordingly.
Your brand can achieve new growth and ambitious goals when you take AI into account.
4. Find Fun Ways to Build Awareness
Despite his individual interest in CRO, Richard realized that not everyone might be as excited about boosting conversion rates.
To combat this, Richard explained some of the dynamic ideas he used to get people involved in the testing community. This included engaging events such as by sending out a vote on which test won.
This helped people to feel a more personal connection and investment to CRO strategies. It also created new opportunities for potential partnerships by engaging everyone in new tests and experiments.
Additional ways you can showcase how CRO and experimentation benefits a company includes:
Host half-hour chats
Opportunity to explore new things happening in your world, what’s worked and what’s been less successful but maybe spurred a new idea.
Test games
Share with people the control and variation and create a poll to get people engaged to see which one won.
Raise Awareness with Playfulness
Any other ways to make people more invested with fun activities or discussions can help to make CRO feel less analytical and more like a creative brainstorming session.
5. View Failure as a Step Toward Growth
Having a healthy sense of realism when testing can help to put things in perspective.
Due to the nature of testing, there’s a high chance that it may not always go as planned. This is similar to when taking a test or exam. Even if you’re well prepared, you don’t know how you did until you receive the final results.
Recognizing that some tests are simply a trial run can give you the confidence to be more courageous for your next test.
Not all tests are a success. But they are always allowing you to take one step closer to your next brave, breakthrough idea.
The Future of CRO: Experimentation with AI
The future of experimentation is subject to change. This is especially true as technology continues to advance with the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Everyone can, and should, take a dive into the world of AI. Even if you’re not an expert, playing around with simple platforms could open your eyes to new possibilities. Failing to be broad-minded, it could come at the cost of your brand’s competitive advantage.
The hype surrounding AI may have passed in the experimentation community. However, it’s still important to find personal ways to make AI work in favor of your brand’s progress.
Conclusion: The Reality of Becoming a CRO
Becoming a successful CRO isn’t always going to happen in a straight line. But if you aim to fail forward – it’s possible to feed driven, creative ideas.
Together, we can fledge a new path of phenomenal improvement you could’ve never imagined before.
FAQs
What is a CRO?
A CRO, or a Conversion Rate Optimization Manager, is a specialist responsible for improving a company’s online presence – often with a goal in mind to boost conversion rates and long-term brand loyalty. This includes working to analyze and adjust websites, landing pages, email campaigns, and more.
How Can I Get Started in CRO?
Anyone can get started in CRO, even with minimal previous experience. As long as you’re interested in getting to know your customers and diving into the world of A/B testing, you can be a very successful CRO manager.
Small steps to take while dipping your toes in the water with CRO management is to analyze your conversion funnel, understand how heatmaps work, use session replays, learn to understand website analytics, and troubleshoot your call-to-actions (CTAs).
How is a CRO manager different from an SEO manager?
While search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of boosting your site’s organic traffic by trying to fulfill user search intent, conversion rate optimization (CRO) refers to reviewing your website’s performance metrics and leveraging this useful information to boost sales and conversion rates.
