CXL Institute CRO Minidegree Review Part 12
Evangelize for Optimization, Building an Optimization Technology Stack, Optimize your Optimization Program, and CRO Agency Masterclass
This is part 12/12 in my series reviewing the CXL Institute CRO Minidegree. I will be posting a new part every week!
CXL Institute offers some of the best online courses and industry-recognized certifications for those seeking to learn new technical marketing skills and tools highly useful to growth professionals, product managers, UX/UI experts, and any other marketing profile looking to become more customer-centric.
I was given an amazing opportunity to access and review one of their online course tracks, the Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) Minidegree. For the next few weeks, I’ll be discussing the content of the course as well as what I think of it as I go through it. Here is the last part!
Evangelizing for Optimization in Enterprise
Merrit Aho is back with a course that offers advice on how to spread the knowledge and enthusiasm of CRO to others in your company.
There are several challenges when it comes to sharing the value of CRO with others. One of these hurdles is getting others to make a habit out of the proper optimization process. You will need constant communication for a long time until the CRO mentality becomes a habit for others working with you. You might have to challenge the status quo in some cases. Take your time when showing them the value of doing things properly.
Promote CRO as consistently and in a simple way as frequently as possible. There are many ways to get other stakeholders or departments involved. For instance, you can offer workshops, bring people on board to use similar methods (such as the ICE/PIE prioritization framework), or you can create company-wide “testathons”, where multiple departments can get involved in finding new testing ideas.
Building your Optimization Technology Stack
Merrit Aho continues with the following course on how to choose the right tools for optimization while making sure they generate an ROI.
The first step is to define your goals and budgeting and the tools you choose should always be chosen to fill a specific need. Optimization teams should opt for an 80/20 split between investing in people and tools. CRO tools are often quite expensive, but they also typically have a high ROI. The advantage of testing and analytics tools is that they can be shared with other departments, such as UX, design, and marketing teams.
Especially in larger companies, it is sometimes the case that multiple departments are paying for similar contracts, even though the tool can be shared. This is mostly due to the fact that some areas of a company can become siloed from others. Make that you communicate these plans to other teams as well, as you might be losing a lot of money by paying for the same subscription multiple times.
In the first stage of your CRO program, you will need a quantitative data collection tools (GA), a qualitative data tool (such as UsabilityHub), a tag manager (GTM), and a testing tool (Optimize, VWO, Optimizely, etc.). In later stages, you will see value in tools that offer more detailed insight, such as heatmap/session replay tools (Hotjar), personalization tools, visualization tools (Tableau), and many more examples.
Optimize your Optimization Program
Next up is a course by Clair Vo, an experienced optimizer and an expert in high-velocity testing program management. While it is alright to run one test at a time at the start of your optimization program, understanding how you can improve the speed and efficiency of your testing will yield huge improvements in the long run.
You will need to measure more than just the output of test results as you mature your testing program. When you reach the stage of running multiple tests a month (in the beginning the ideal number is 4), improving results will be less about test-to-test results, and more about how you can use the resources you have more efficiently.
Higher levels of metrics will be able to tell you how efficient your optimization program is. Test results are outputs, so you also need to consider inputs, because they can be controlled. The number of tests you can run can be increased, as well as their quality. Start by setting goals, measure the performance consistently, and iterate from there.
Measuring testing velocity should go beyond reporting the number of tests in a month. Tracking weekly or even daily performance against goals will show you a better picture of what can be improved.
Understanding your testing capacity (how much can you test give your traffic and structure) will also tell you how many tests you can actually run in a year. This number is established by dividing your test duration (in weeks) by the total number of weeks in the year and then multiplying that number of funnels you can test at the same time. You should also establish your testing coverage. This is the percentage of testable days during the year. A good way to motivate people to run more tests is to count up and display the days since a test hasn’t been run.
The quality of your testing program is typically measured through a win rate (win/lose/inconclusive). Tracking it over time will show if it increases or decreases as you optimize your program. Normally, you will see your win rate growing quickly early-on as you deal with low-hanging fruit. The rate will typically go down as you reach a steady testing velocity. A good baseline win rate is 10%.
CRO Agency Masterclass
Peep Laja returns for the very last course in the CRO Minidegree! Building a CRO agency or adding CRO to your agency the right way is crucial for its success and growth.
You first need to productize your services in order to be clear about what you sell. The disadvantage of using an hourly rate is that your interest is to maximizer the number of hours, and your client will want the cheapest options possible. In this case, your interests and those of your clients do not align. It can also become confusing because not everyone is able to do the same work in the same amount of time.
The focus of your agency should be to sell retainers. The ideal package that you should is a full-service “done for you” model which includes landing page optimization, conversion redesigning, and conversion research. However, remember to be specific about exactly what you are offering without leaving room for interpretation. One CRO specialist can handle as many as 4–5 clients simultaneously (this will depend on exactly what you offer). Ideally, you will want to deliver a 3–5x ROI based on how much your client is paying.
In order to build your brand, start by creating content such as videos and blog posts. Use your personal brand to boost your agency’s brand, since people can connect with the human aspect of the business much more easily. Create insightful content that sets itself apart in some way, and post it on your own blog and other platforms.
Here are a few final tips from Laja:
- Highlight how you are different from other agencies. Offer detailed case studies about how you worked with similar businesses and delivered value.
- The standard expected conversion rate increase is 10–15% per month. Make sure to be specific about what your client should expect, but do not over-promise on things you are not sure about.
- The client is expected to pay for the CRO-related tools, especially since these tools are often priced based on traffic. You can integrate the more versatile (and cheaper) user testing and research tools into your offer.
- Avoid realtime chat for consistent communication as it will mess with your time management. Ideally, you should schedule face time with clients weekly. It is important to maintain a relationship with the customer.
- Be clear that results will not come immediately, and that it is likely that the first tests will fail. Your clients should understand that there is a learning process.
Key takeaways:
- Convincing the rest of your company about the value of CRO is an important and often overlooked aspect of successfully managing an optimization program in an enterprise setting. Communicate consistently and clearly and motivate all stakeholders to be involved.
- Make sure you choose tools based on the specific needs that you have. Look closely at opportunities to share tools across departments, and only purchase exactly what you need. Don’t be afraid of freeware.
- Optimizing your optimization efforts is just as important as optimizing the websites you work on. Plan targets and make efforts to increase the speed and quality of the optimization program.
- Be specific about how you are different and what you are selling as an agency, and don’t ignore the human aspects of interacting with existing and potential clients. Promote your personal brand alongside your company brand.
Thoughts:
And here we are. After 12 weeks of courses, we are finally at the end of the CRO Minidegree. I can honestly say that my perspective about data-driven marketing is vastly different, and this entire combination of courses has given me insight and several frameworks and tools I can start to use immediately in my work.
I can certainly recommend this set of courses to anyone interested in investing in them. They will definitely yield a significant ROI! I have earned a total of 12 certificates and the CRO Minidegree, next to completing 34 courses in total.
I would like to thank CXL Insitute, Peep Laja, and all of the course instructors (some who have also been supportive on LinkedIn) for sharing this wide spectrum of CRO knowledge through their scholarship program, and I can advise anyone considering applying for it to go ahead and do it today.
And finally, I would like to thank you for reading this series! You can check out all of the 12 parts below.
This is part 12/12 in my series reviewing the CXL Institute CRO Minidegree.
Other Parts:
Part 1: CRO Foundations, Best Practices, and Psychology
Part 2: Conversion Copywriting, Product Messaging, and Social Proof
Part 3: Neuromarketing, Developing an Emotional Content Strategy, and Influence and Interactive Design
Part 4: Google Analytics for Beginners, Using Analytics to Find Conversion Opportunities, and Google Analytics Audit
Part 5: Google Tag Manager for Beginners and Conversion Research
Part 6: Fast and Rigorous User Personas and Heuristic Analysis Frameworks for Conversion Optimization Audits
Part 7: 8 Common Testing Mistakes, How to Run Tests, and Testing Strategies
Part 8: Statistics Fundamentals and Statistics for A/B Testing
Part 9: A/B Testing Mastery, Advanced Experimentation Analysis, Optimizing for B2B
Part 10: Customer Value Optimization, Creating a Segmentation Strategy, and Digital Psychology and Behavioural Design
Part 11: Applied Neuromarketing and How to Design and Roll Out an Optimization Program
Part 12: Evangelize for Optimization, Building an Optimization Technology Stack, Optimize your Optimization Program, and CRO Agency Masterclass
