Dave Sims, Senior FrontEnd Developer at HUB, argues that CRO shouldn’t be an afterthought when growing business revenue – it should be the foundation of your entire customer journey,
Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is often only seen as the final push to convince shoppers to make the leap from browser to customer. In reality, it’s so much more than an end-of-funnel jab in the right direction – it’s a promise to your customers that you’re a reputable and trustworthy company throughout the entire sales journey. And it’s reputable and trustworthy companies who win the race when it comes to revenue growth.
By leveraging analytics and user feedback, businesses can uncover pain points, drop-off areas and opportunities for improvement. Staying current and competitive is essential, especially in today’s saturated and cutthroat markets. User behaviours and experience trends evolve over time and CRO plays a vital role in trying to keep ahead of the competition, and converting all of those leads the rest of the marketing mix has nurtured down the funnel.
CRO is about more than just website conversions. It touches every part of a business, from marketing budgets to product presentation and content storytelling. This means that CRO should be a no-brainer, essentially being a self-funding set of projects that get complete buy-in across a business.
When CRO is effective, it should generate increased ROI that can be reinvested into ongoing optimisation. This data-driven approach removes guesswork and personal opinion, ensuring decisions are based on solid insights. Ultimately, a better conversion rate means a healthier bottom line – something every business owner and marketer can appreciate.
Top tips for effective conversion rate optimisation
I wholeheartedly believe that CRO is both an art and a science. To make the most of your efforts, it’s essential to follow best practices and keep testing intelligently. Here are some top tips to guide your CRO strategy:
1. Understand your user journeys and goals
Before you start, clearly define the key user journeys and the ultimate goal of your website. Knowing what success looks like allows you to pinpoint exactly where improvements will have the biggest impact.
2. Balance design and user experience (UX)
Sometimes there’s a trade-off between a visually stunning design and what actually converts best. Focus on the user experience but always prioritise what drives conversion.
3. No such thing as a bad test
Even if a test doesn’t produce the results you hoped for, it’s still valuable. Every test reveals insights about what works and what doesn’t. Ultimately, this helps you refine your approach.
4. Don’t be afraid to go bold
If a bold test doesn’t perform, you can always work backwards and revert or tweak it. Testing all areas of your site will uncover hidden opportunities.
5. Measure everything
Without measurement, you can’t understand the success or failure of your tests and the whole exercise ultimately becomes a bit pointless. Clear data points and defined metrics are essential to track the user journeys you’re optimising.
6. Work from clear hypotheses
It’s common sense but it can often be forgotten in a fast-paced and often reactive environment – agree on a set of hypotheses before testing. This creates a steady, structured workflow and ensures tests are purposeful and focused.
Simple changes can make a big difference
Use the right tracking and testing tools
- Moving the “Add to Basket” button above the fold makes it easier to find, increasing click rates.
- Making showroom or contact links clickable in the header drives more calls and visits.
- Featuring product videos or 360-degree views as the first media element boosts engagement by showing products in lifestyle settings.
- Testing lifestyle imagery on product listing pages can increase conversion by helping customers visualise products in real life.
- Adding comparable product information on listing pages improves click-through rates by clarifying differences between similar items.
It’s crucial to choose software that’s suited to your needs, not simply the one your agency recommends because they’re familiar with it. This can range from A/B testing tools to user journey analysis tools such as screen recordings, heatmaps, and surveys. Some popular options include:
Survey Tools: SurveyMonkey, VWO, Typeform
A/B Testing Tools: VWO, Optimizely, Adobe Target
Screen Recording: Hotjar, Microsoft Clarity, CrazyEgg
Heatmapping: Microsoft Clarity, Hotjar, VWO
CRO in Practice
Example 1: Cookie consent banner placement
As part of the recent Microsoft-driven changes to cookie consent policies, we were tasked with revisiting the design and placement of cookie banners to ensure compliance with the new requirement for explicit opt-in. Previously, the banner was a subtle strip along the bottom of the page – a format that yielded low engagement. While that had been acceptable under implicit consent, the new regulations demanded a more prominent and user-friendly solution.
To identify the most effective option, we tested two alternative placements:
- A small popup positioned in the bottom-left corner
- A full-screen overlay that blocked content until the user interacted
The results were clear. The full-page overlay significantly outperformed the corner popup in terms of interaction rate, expected conversion rate and expected improvement. Based on this data, we implemented the overlay version as the new default across the site.
This is a great example of how CRO isn’t just about increasing sales, it’s also about user trust, accessibility, and adapting to changing standards through data-led decisions.
Example 2: Testing pricing formats on product listing pages
On another recent project, we explored how different ways of displaying pricing on product listing pages (PLPs) affected clickthrough rates to product detail pages (PDPs).
We ran a multi-variant test with four versions:
- Control: Displayed only the final sale price, with no indication of savings.
- Variant 1 (V1): Included the full pricing breakdown – RRP, saving amount, and final sale price.
- Variant 2 (V2): Displayed just the saving and final price for products within the sale.
- Variant 3 (V3): Used a simplified pricing template across all discounted products showing only the saving and final price.
Each variation was tested across a significant number of sessions to ensure statistically meaningful results.
From the results of the experiment, we found that Variant 2 had the largest positive effect on conversion rate. Interestingly, Variants 1 and 3 both saw a decrease in conversion rate from the control version.
Example 3: Adding “View Product” buttons to increase clickthrough
During a review of user behaviour on product listing pages, we identified a lower-than-expected clickthrough rate to product detail pages. One hypothesis was that users simply didn’t realise the product tiles were clickable as there were no “View Product” buttons or obvious calls to action.
To test this, we introduced a variation that included a clear “View Product” button on each product tile. This small UX change was aimed at making the next step in the journey more intuitive and accessible.
The results show that adding the ‘View Product’ button saw a marked increase in the expected conversion rate – proving that adding this button helped to improve the user experience and encourage movement down the funnel.
Feeding CRO Insights Back into the Customer Journey
Effective conversion rate optimisation doesn’t stop at identifying issues. It’s about feeding insights back into the wider business. Regular reporting to teams and business owners is vital to showcase the progress and impact of your CRO efforts.
When working on a whole funnel, such as the purchase journey, it’s important to work with your agency to pinpoint the main weaknesses and break them down into manageable sections. If no obvious drop-off points emerge, I’ve found it best to start at the top of the funnel and ensure you’re pushing the maximum number of users through each subsequent stage.
Once you’ve gathered meaningful data, integrate these findings into the broader workstream. This can influence areas beyond the website itself, including product photography, content creation, on-page SEO, and PPC campaigns. By doing so, CRO becomes a holistic process that continuously improves the entire customer experience – and who doesn’t want that?
Dave Sims is a Senior FrontEnd Developer at HUB with 15 years’ experience building ecommerce websites that manage multi-million-pound transactions. He works closely with HUB’s performance marketing and creative teams to create integrated funnels that convert and retain high-value customers.
