The Complete DIY Guide

To Improving Conversions
IN 60 DAYS
Table of Contents

02 Introduction
22 Week 5
Constructing Educated Hypotheses And Prioritizing Them

03 Week 1
Getting Ready For Conversion Rate Optimization
25 Week 6
Choosing The Right Test And Setting It Up

11 Week 2
Conducting A Conversion Rate Audit
30 Week 7
What To Do While Your Experiment Is Still Running

15 Week 3
Identifying Areas Of Improvement In
33 Week 8
Analyzing And Learning From Your A/B Test Results
Your Website’s Conversion Funnel

19 Week 4
Understanding Why Users
36 Wrapping Up

Do What They Do On Your Website

37 About VWO and HubSpot

Introduction
Let’s get straight to why we’re here: to help you In our experience of working with 5000+ clients, we’ve seen that the
improve your website conversion rates in a matter journey from start to first few home runs in optimizing conversions
of 60 days (or 8 weeks). usually takes 8 weeks. Hence, this guide will take you on a 8 week journey
on how you can lift your conversion rates in a methodical manner.
For the uninitiated, this can be achieved through Conversion Rate
Optimization (CRO), the process of optimizing a website experience After you’ve followed this guide, you won’t just know how to boost
to get more visitors to take a specific action. your conversion rates one time. Instead, you’ll be equipped with the
know-hows to increase conversion rates time and time again.
At VWO and HubSpot, we believe that Conversion Rate Optimization is an art
and a science. And just as with any form of art or science, all it requires is Even if your company is young or on a shoestring budget, your team
the willingness to learn, be patient, and work hard. If you’re ready to would be able to effectively practice conversion optimization in-house.
commit, these are the only prerequisites you need to get started.

Let’s get started!

Over past decade, savvy online businesses have been growing by not only
investing in traffic acquisition strategies, but also by ensuring that visitors
to their site are converting into customers.

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 2

 Getting Ready For
Conversion Rate Optimization
In week 1, we’re just getting warmed up.
For this week and the next one, we’re focused on helping you understand the
fundamentals of CRO so you’re well equipped for your future as an expert
for your team.

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 3

Let’s Start by Learning Some of
the Basic Principles of CRO

CRO isn’t a magic fix. Assumptions don’t matter.

CRO focuses on improving the website experience of your visitors. It’s CRO is all about data, and that is the only information you should rely on. No matter
not a magic formula to getting more customers. Even if your website how many years of experience your web developer or UI designer might have, they
experience is stellar, you still have to work on showing the value of your can’t always know what’s going to work with your audience. CRO is all about using
product/service in order to get customers. data-backed insights to make improvements.

Best practices and hacks CRO is a continuous process

don’t always work
At a strategic level, CRO is an ongoing practice of learning and optimizing. To
You may find a lot of advice or quick tips to boost conversions online. Keep achieve sustainable growth, make sure you continue to practice CRO regardless
in mind: what might work for one website in a certain scenario might not of initial results. One positive change this month might not ensure optimal
work for your business and vice versa. The best conversion rate optimizers conversion practices overtime.
take best practices with a grain of salt and use their own data and insights
to make decisions.

Now, let’s get to the steps you need to take for the first week of your conversion optimization program.

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 4

 STEP ONE

Identifying and Gathering

the Resources Required
Setting Up Your CRO Team

Since Conversion Rate Optimization is cross-functional, it involves a team of professionals from different
departments and functions to coordinate effectively and make the most out of available resources.

At any given time, a CRO team needs to collectively possess talent with all of the following skills:

Conversion Rate Data Analyst Web Graphic Designer Copywriter Web Developer
Optimization Manager Monitors your website data Will help you design web creates copy that will In charge of actually
In charge of developing an and user behavior using pages with a focus on reduce customers’ anxieties, developing variations of
end-to-end plan for your CRO relevant tools to uncover increasing conversions. ease friction, and persuade webpages for A/B tests
program—enumerating and actionable insights. visitors to take the desired using optimized code.
prioritizing essential activities. action.

This week, focus on determining who will take care of which responsibilities for your CRO needs. Based on the bandwidth and budget
at your disposal, you can either onboard key hires for these roles or identify talent from within your organisation and rope them in.

An ideal case would be a dedicated professional possessing one of each skill. However, not every organization has the resources
to dedicate five employees for CRO. For many small businesses, a single team member can also take care of multiple functions.

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 5

Setting Up Your
CRO Infrastructure
Setting Up Your CRO Team Have Your Website Analytics in Place

While you build your CRO team, you need to set up the technology Before you start your optimization program, you need to have
stack requisite to run your CRO program. Here’s what youneed to do: an analytics engine in place. Website analytics can help you in
two ways specifically:
Choose a Testing Platform
• Track the current conversion rate across your website.
A testing platform will help you run qualitative analysis, set up A/B tests, and • Highlight the problem areas on your website, like
track results in one dashboard. It’s hard to distinguish between the different where visitors drop-off the most.
platforms and their technologies, but you should take the time to understand
how it affects your general website performance. The pitfalls of not having analytics in place are that your optimization
efforts will be akin to throwing darts in the dark, randomly hoping for
• Here are some of the questions you should be asking: some darts to stick. Having analytics integrated with your testing
• How does the platform affect the performance of my website? engine is important for post-test analysis and learning as well.
• Does the platform offer more value beyond just A/B testing?
• Will the platform help me plan my optimization program? Need a website analytics solution? Here are a few we recommend:
• What is the level of customer support provided? Google Analytics
• Can I alter the pricing plans to match my ever-changing business needs? Kissmetrics
Mixpanel
We recommend you try demos of different solutions to zero in on the one Adobe Analytics
most suitable for your business. If you’d like to give VWO a try, sign up for
a 30-day free trial.

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 6

 STEP TWO

Get an Understanding of Your

Website’s Conversion Funnel
The Conversion Funnel is a term marketers use to describe the path Here’s an example of a conversion funnel
visitors take between initially visiting your website and ultimately becoming with specific actions tied to each stage:

a customer. Understanding the way visitors browse your website tells you what
improvements can be made by optimizing each different stage in the funnel.
STAGES

Awareness Subscribers Subscribe to newsletter

What do you do?
Leads Sign up for free product

Consideration
Why should I care?
Qualified Sign up for free trial

How do I believe you? Customers

Decision Upgrade to paid plan

Where do we begin? NEW CUSTOMERS

If you don’t have a map of your conversion funnel prepared,

The Conversion Funnel you may need to sit down with your team to sketch one out.
Try to visualize the ideal steps a prospect might take on
your website to convert into a customer.

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 7

EXAMPLE
Conversion steps a prospect takes in becoming a VWO customer

1 2 3 4

Discovery Through Engagement Via Brand Connect Free Trial Sign-Up

PPC Campaign VWO Resources Via Social Media
Prospect keeps exploring VWO
Prospect first learns about VWO Prospect then comes to VWO.com, Then, the prospect follows VWO until they finally sign-up for a
when researching about A/B testing downloads a couple of resources on social media channels. free trial and convert to a lead.
solutions via a PPC ad campaign. or reads a few articles.

5 Keep in Mind
Sale
The conversion funnel maps ideal steps.
After finding value in the Not every customer will start in the exact same stage
free trial, they become a or convert in the same way. However, mapping out
paying customer. what routes a visitor might take to become a customer
is key to figuring out which stages need to be optimized.

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 8

 STEP THREE

Know What Metrics

to Improve Examples Of Conversion Goals By Industry

After you’ve mapped out the conversion funnel, you need to align
your business’s success metrics with the steps of the conversion
funnel. The charts shared below will help you align your conversion
goals with different funnel stages for the visitor:

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 9

Micro Conversions
and Macro Conversions
Not all visitors to your site are at the same buying decision stage. Some
are just looking to learn things, some are actively prospecting, and some
others are ready to buy today. The fact that visitors will be at all different

Micro
stages is why you need to track and optimize for conversions at all stages
for every user.

Are you looking for more free trial sign-ups, more average revenue
per visitor, or top-of-the-funnel ebook downloads?

Enter micro conversions and macro conversions.

• Micro conversions are low-involvement commitments

from a visitor, like an ebook download or a newsletter subscription.

• Macro conversions, on the other hand, are actual sales conversions,

like a checkout for an eCommerce business or making a call to your
Sales team.
Macro
It may seem like macro conversions are all that matter. However, micro
conversions are the baby steps that visitors start with to get to know your
brand, eventually leading them to become customers.

Good CRO requires tracking both.

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 10

 Conducting a
Conversion Rate Audit
Week 1 was all about understanding your website’s conversion funnel,
which is just one of the prerequisites you need in order to streamline
your conversion optimization efforts.

In week 2, we’ll be conducting a basic conversion rate audit for your

website, setting baseline conversion rates for your business, and going
after some low-hanging fruit to get things in place.

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 STEP ONE

Research Industry
Benchmarks
When you’re just starting out with CRO, it’s important to know what
your current conversion rates mean. Are they bad? Good? Average?
How do your conversion points compare to your competitors’ or
other businesses in your industry? Start off the week by doing
a little digging into how your industry behaves.

Gather all the relevant data that is available to get answers to

these questions. Then, derive insights to conduct benchmarking
for your business.

If you need a reference on what all KPIs or success metrics you

should focus on, refer to the tables you would have made in Week 1.

For example, if you run an eCommerce store and are conducting

research to benchmark how conversion rates differ across
various devices and platforms, then you need to be looking
at the data shared to the right: (Source)

Conversion Rates by Device or Platform are just one of the many KPIs. Similarly, you
need to identify the industry benchmarks for all of your KPIs you’d want to monitor.

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 12

 STEP TWO

Set Your Baseline

Conversion Rates
The baseline is your the current conversion rate and other
What to Consider How to Find out Industry Your Baseline
website metrics. For example, you may have a baseline of Benchmark
30% checkouts on your checkout page.

Pingdom or
Having this number is important, because your benchmark Page load time Google Page Speed
analysis and current baseline tells you what kind of improvement
you can expect and should drive toward.

The table below is just an example of some of the major KPIs. Bounce rate Google Analytics
You can follow this example to create one relevant to your business.

Cross-device and
cross-browser CrossBrowserTesting
functionality by Smartbear

VWO or Google
Conversion rate
Analytics

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 13

 STEP THREE

Go for Low-Hanging
Fruits and Quick Fixes
While conversion rate optimization is a long-term process, for this week, it is advisable to
look for low-hanging fruits and some quick fixes that might just give you an initial boost.

What all can you try?

Make your web Adjust your calls Make your web Clarify your company’s
copy more concise— to action (CTAs)— forms shorter— value proposition
take what you have, edit it in make it easier to understand a lengthy sign-up process can so that the benefit you provide
half, and edit it in half again. and more prominent for annoy customers. is clearly comprehensible.
your visitors

Boost the incentives— Create step-by-step Improve trust—­ Optimize your blog—
offer up a promotion or give- instructions— implement trust signals match the most relevant,
away to encourage prospects find opportunities to guide through social media details, current offers you have
to engage with your brand. your customers through membership stats, testimonials, with your highest performing
the sales process. or client logo. blog posts.

There are many ways to boost your conversion rates, but starting with the easiest wins will help you build momentum to start off.

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 Identifying Areas Of Improvement
In Your Website’s Conversion Funnel
One in every seven A/B tests fail. But, this ratio Conversion research for a website begins with
decreases considerably when optimization testing closely monitoring website performance and
is done by experienced CRO practitioners. identifying areas of improvement to generate
quantitative data. This task is best done using
Why? Research. a web analytics tool.
CRO practitioners fare better at optimization,
because optimization is their main focus. They In this week, as part 1 of your conversion research,
put in the effort to understand the specifics of a you’ll be getting familiar with your analytics tool
business and take actions based on research. to track and monitor key visitor journeys on your
website.
For the next two weeks, we’ll be focusing on
Conversion Research. Conversion research Next week, we’ll conduct research using
is the activity which helps you get actionable capabilities such as Behavior Analytics tools,
insights into how you can improve your website. Surveys, and more to generate qualitative data
Consequently, you’ll be able to test out different on your website visitors.
versions of your website based on hypotheses
you generate from your learnings. Let’s begin.

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 15

 STEP ONE

Get Familiar Website Audience Traffic Channels

With Your
You can find the following metrics in Google You can find traffic for your website in Google
Analytics here: Audience > Overview. Analytics here: Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels.

Analytics Tool Sessions: Sessions are the number of times users

have stayed on a website (for a specific amount of
Organic Traffic: Organic traffic refers to users that
land on a website through a search engine results
time). Usually, the more the number of sessions page (SERP). Growing organic traffic reflects im-
your site has, the better. proved
Although there are innumerable web analytics tools
visibility of a website across search engines.
available, Google Analytics (GA) is the most widely
Users: The number of unique visitors to your
used tool across all websites. We’ll be referring to it
website. Paid Search Traffic: This channel includes users
for all relevant purposes in this guide.
that visit a website by clicking on its ad on a search
Returning Visitors: Returning visitors are the engine. The landing page of your search ads should
Google Analytics offers a ton of metrics and
number of users who have visited a website more be optimized so that it’s able push users deeper into
dimensions you can use to evaluate your website
than once, in a selected date range. A growing the conversion funnel.
(and its individual pages). This section will help
number of returning visitors normally indicates
you know the key Google Analytics metrics and di-
that more users are liking the content of a website Referral Traffic: When users arrive on a website by
mensions better and offers you actionable tips
and are returning to browse again. clicking on hyperlinks from other websites, they are
to effectively use them in your CRO strategy.
counted as referral traffic. With referral traffic, you
can know if backlinks are contributing to your
audience or not. Further, you can find the top
sources that direct traffic to your website.

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Website Performance Audience Segments
Pageviews: Pageviews tell you which web pages are visited most Mobile: The dimension gives you the number of users that visit your website
by your audience. And with this information at hand, you can know through desktops, mobile devices and tablets. When the data shows that a signif-
where to put up content on your website to grab the maximum eyes. icant portion of your audience is mobile, you can consider investing more on the
mobile version of your website.
Average Time on Page: You can find the average time users spend
on the popular web pages (based on high pageviews) of your website. Screen Resolution: By selecting the secondary metric Screen Resolution, you can
By doing so, you can find pages that have a large audience but where find the different screen sizes that your visitors use.
users don’t spend much time. Such web pages can be optimized to
make the users stay a little longer. Location: Location tells you the number of website visitors from different geo-
graphic locations across the world. You can identify locations having the highest
Bounce Rate: When a user arrives on a website and leaves without level of engagement — based on sessions, time spent on page, bounce rate, etc.,
going through other pages of the website, it is counted as a bounce. and target your next ad campaigns or email marketing campaign accordingly.
All single-page visits for a website are considered bounces.
Here are a few resources which will help you get familiar with Google Analytics:

Interpreting Google Analytics For Conversion Optimization

The Google Analytics Conversion Funnel Survival Guide

Google Analytics 101: How To Configure Google Analytics To Get Actionable Data

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 17

 STEP TWO

Monitor Key Visitor

Journeys On Your
Website
Once you’ve gained a thorough understanding of how your
website analytics works, you can start tracking key business
metrics and visitor journeys on your website.

The question you want to be able to answer is this:

What are visitors doing?

With your analytics data, you can zero in on pages

that are leaking visitors.
Source: VWO

How’s the exit rate on each of the pages in the funnel? Is the
bounce rate on your home page too high? Finding such By setting up event tracking using Google Tag Manager, you can segment your
symptoms on your pages can help you zero in on where audience and see how different features on a page influence user behavior.
to focus your optimization efforts.
For instance, you might find out that users who use a sorting tool on your
Watch this video to learn how you can set up a conversion funnel eCommerce website’s category page are more likely to become paying customers
in Google Analytics. Next, you have to figure out How page features than users who don’t. Getting such insights help you weed out unwanted features
and pages of the funnel shape your user’s behavior? and concentrate on the features that convert users better.

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 18

 Understanding Why Users Do
What They Do On Your Website
While website analytics tools tell you Here’s an example:
“where the problem is” on your website, Data analytics can tell you that visitors are
user behavior analysis tools tell you exiting your product page at an alarmingly
“what the problem is”. high rate. Visitor recordings go a step
further to actually show recorded sessions
For cases where you want to know of your visitors on the product page, helping
“what users do”, you need to dig deeper you visualize where the users spend most of
into know how users behave. Qualitative the time on the page, areas they get stuck
research means employing tools like on, information they don’t seem to locate,
heatmaps, visitor recordings, scroll maps, and so on.
and form analyses to give you insights.
In this week, we’ll dive deeper generating
qualitative data by learning how visitors
behave on your website.

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 19

What Tools to Use
for Qualitative Research:

Heatmaps Element List Heatmaps Scroll Maps

Heatmaps are a graphical representation of the Element List Heatmaps is a kind of heatmap that Scroll maps show you what percentage of a
most-clicked elements on a web page which help lets you view all the clicked elements on a page full-length web page your visitors scroll to.
you quickly identify the page properties (buttons, as a list. For example, how many of your visitors made it
elements, and so on) that attract the most attention. all the way to the bottom of our page vs. the first
These are especially helpful when your web 25% of the page?
You can find answers to questions such as, pages contain hidden elements such as drop-
“Is the primary CTA button getting enough down menus, hidden submenus, and elements Scroll maps can help you find out if critical
attention?” or “Are there too many distracting that load only after a log-on. elements on your page are ignored because
elements on the page?” they are located too deep below the fold.
Here is an example (notice that you can find
For example, here is a heatmap of the VWO clicks on both visible and hidden elements): For example, below is a scroll map of the
home page, highlighting elements that are VWO home page.
clicked the most:

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 20

Visitor Recordings Form Analysis Website Surveys

Visitor Recordings let you create a playback of Form Analysis let you analyze your web forms The above-mentioned tools do a great job of
visitor sessions on your website. Looking at the and identify points of friction for your visitors. analyzing user behavior on a website, but what
actual interactions that visitors have with your these tools cannot replace is user feedback.
website, you can find out more about their After you have identified a form that is converting
behavior. poorly, you can run form analysis to know exactly Website surveys help you do exactly that—
which form-field is proving to be the biggest pain collect user feedback. For example, here is a
Below is a screenshot from a visitor recording point for visitors. Here is an example: website survey from VWO in action:
(notice how the mouse movement and clicks are
tracked for a visitor):

Now that you know what kinds of qualitative tools are available for you, do some research to find out what it’ll take to implement.
From there, start running qualitative tests across your highest-traffic pages and start writing down insights.

You’ll be surprised how much you’ll learn and how many ideas you’ll generate to generate hypotheses for improving conversions.

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 21

 Constructing Educated
Hypotheses And Prioritizing
In the last two weeks, you must have made a number of observations per
your conversion research. Now, it is time to turn those observations into
data-backed hypotheses you can test on your website.

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 22

 STEP ONE

Build A Strong
Hypothesis
In Science, a hypothesis is an educated prediction that can Here’s an example of a good hypothesis.
be tested. Scientists use the word when they propose a new
theory. So while doing CRO, we call our theories of how a website I believe moving customer logos closer to the billing form will result in
can be improved as hypothesis. Just like scientific theories, these 5% more checkouts because it instills confidence in the payment gateway.
hypotheses could turn out to be true or false, and that’s exactly
what we will do later when we A/B test them. Based on the hypothesis, you make some changes to the original page. This new
page(s) is/are the variation(s). The objective of the test will be to find out which of
At its core, a hypothesis is a statement that consists of 3 parts. these two (or more) pages converts visitors better.

You believe: A structured hypothesis sets the base for better results through optimization.

.. a particular change.. Even if your result fails, you can retrace your steps and correct the path. Without this
based on insights gleaned from structured process, optimization efforts may go astray and lose their purpose.
quantitative and qualitative data
Here’s what an unstructured, unscientific hypothesis looks like.
..will have a particular effect..the goal;
the conversion metric that you want to improve “Let’s just try changing that button color because it worked out for companies A, B, and C.”

..due to a particular reason. That’s the kind of hypothesis you don’t want to end up with. Instead, use this formula to
the rationale behind why you believe the build successful hypotheses:
change will have the desired effect
“I believe ___________ will result in _______ because __________. “

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 23

 STEP TWO

Prioritize Your Hypotheses

Building a strong hypothesis is crucial for testing—no doubt. Several frameworks exist to help us out here. One of the most popular
But what should you do when you have a backlog of potential is the P.I.E. framework formulated by Chris Goward at WiderFunnel:
hypotheses to test? How should you go about deciding which one
to test first? Potential: Find out the pages that are performing worst and can improve greatly.
Importance: Then narrow down by selecting the ones that have the most valuable
Often, organizations do not have a structured approach to CRO and traffic. Traffic is valuable when it’s either costly (paid) or super relevant to your
arbitrarily pick out a hypothesis from the pool of options they have. product offering.

Ease: Even when you have a final list of pages, it’s important to realize that not all
However, some others who follow a structured approach to CRO
pages are easily optimized. A page, such as an eCommerce product listings page,
realize the need for a robust prioritization framework.
may be technically complicated to start optimizing while another, such as your
homepage, may have too many stakeholders to please. It’s important to go for the
Why?
one that is easily optimized first and then move up the list.
Because a prioritization framework provides a clear direction
to your optimization program and prevents you from running
You need to rate your hypotheses on each of these parameters from a scale of 1
aimless tests. Instead, choose a framework that will enable you
to 5 (where 1 is the lowest and 5 being the highest), and then calculate a final score
to maintain a dedicated CRO testing schedule.
by dividing their sum by 3. Follow this for all the hypotheses you’ve created to get
clarity on which one to test first.

Michal Parizek, Senior eCommerce & Optimization Specialist at

Avast, in his interview with VWO, points out the importance of
keeping a testing calendar: “A test calendar helps to keep focus on
important tests being launched on time. It is also vital for resource
planning and for bringing all stakeholders in a loop. We usually
do a quarterly overview of what tests we’d like to run and then we
specify and add details on a monthly basis.”

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 Choosing The Right
Test And Setting It Up
During Week 5, you created a number of hypotheses and came up
with a testing calendar. It is now time to get started with your first test.
Sound scary? Don’t worry. We’ll walk you through it.

All you have to do is break it down to simple aspects and ease

into the testing process. Before you run a test, there are a couple
of things to understand.

• What is bayesian statistics, and why it matters?

• How long do you need to run a test?
• What should I use—A/B, Split, or Multivariate test?
• How not to run an optimization test

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What Are Bayesian Statistics,
and Why It Matters?
Note: When it comes to the math behind A/B Testing, there are different schools The Bayesian approach is better suited to today’s reality as it answers the hard
of thought including Bayesian, and Frequentist. In case you’re interested in questions easily. The results speak your language and you don’t have to wrangle
learning more about the difference between these two, check out this link. with esoteric terms like significance and p value. With Bayesian, your results are
valid whenever you look at them, so it completely solves the peeking problem.
The reason we run tests is to understand if a particular change(s) can yield higher
conversions. Let’s say you’ve started a test, and it runs on the first 10 visitors. In our opinion, you should use a testing platform which runs on a Bayesian
You see that 2 of those visitors converted on the variation, compared to 1 on powered statistics engine as it precisely answers the question of ‘what is the
the original page. probability of variation beating the control’ and reduces your testing time
considerably, helping you make smarter business decision.
That’s a commendable 20% conversion rate against a paltry 10% on the original.
That means you’ve found a winner, right?

Actually, probably not. While you might be seeing double the conversion rate at
first, those 10 visitors might not be a good representation of your total website
visitors. Your goal is to get an accurate representation.

The question you want answered is ‘what is the probability that variation A
beat control?’
B
This question can be answered more precisely with Bayesian Statistics. Most
other methods, including Frequentist Statistics answer this question: ‘what is
the probability of seeing a result at least this extreme if the Control and
Variation were identical?’

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 26

How Long Do You
Need To Run a Test?
You need to decide a test duration before you start running a test.
When you run a test, visitors are constantly included in the test and the
numbers keep changing. Conversion rates may rise, dip, and stagnate
at different times through the test.

For the sake of simplicity, we’re advocating two methods for you to
calculate the required test duration, one using VWO and one without.
Calculating test duration is dependent on the following factors:

• Average number of daily visitors

• Your current conversion rate for control
• The lift in conversion rate you expect

With VWO, all you need to do is enter these values in VWO’s SmartStats
(Statistics engine based on Bayesian method) as shown below and out
comes the estimated duration for which you should run the test.

However, if you decide to do it using some other tool, you can use this
free test duration calculator to find the period for which you should
run your tests.

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Types Of Tests — A/B,
Split and Multivariate
There are two major test types marketers use for CRO:
A/B test (or split test) and Multivariate test.
Multivariate Test
With multivariate testing, you identify a few key areas/sections of a page and then
create variations for those sections specifically (as opposed to creating variations of
Let us look at the difference before you decide which to use.
whole page in an A/B split test). So for example, in multivariate test you can choose
to create different variations for 2 different sections: headline and image.
A/B Test or Split Test
A/B testing (sometimes called split testing) is compares two versions
A multivariate testing software will combine all these section specific variations to
of a web page to see which one performs better.
generate unique versions of page to be tested and then simply split traffic amongst
those versions.
You compare two web pages by showing the two variants (let’s call them
A and B) to similar visitors at the same time. The one that gives a better
conversion rate, wins.
Multivariate
Testing
(Source)

Multivariate testing is used when there are multiple changes proposed to a single page,
and you want to test each combination of these changes. If you’d like to learn more,
read this blog post.

Based on your hypothesis, you need to finalize the type of test you’re going to use. You
must understand that A/B/Split, and Multivariate are not alternatives. Each is a method
to perform different tasks, and the decision to use one should depend entirely on the
task at hand.

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Mistakes to Avoid While
Running An A/B Test
While website testing sounds pretty simple in theory, there are a few key mistakes
every marketer should avoid, whether they’re first starting out or are a seasoned
conversion rate optimizer:

1. Testing once, and never testing again. Running multiple tests at the
same time with overlapping traffic leading to skewed results.

2. Not running a test for a full business cycle, leading to unreliable results.

As a general rule of thumb, keep the following best practices in mind:

1. A negative result to your hypothesis is not a failure, it’s just another learning.

2. Always be testing. Your results from one test should lead you to another
hypothesis, and then another. Never stop testing, or you’ll risk getting
stagnant conversion rates.

3. Test one variable at a time. Let’s say you wanted to test new CTA designs,
change the tone of your blog titles, and launch a whole blog redesign all at
once. All the sudden, your conversion rates dropped by 10%. What happened?
Unfortunately, when you’re testing too many variables at once, it’s impossible
to know what causes increases or decreases to your conversion rates.
Instead, regulate your tests and make sure you’re not running multiple efforts
that impact the other tests by accident.

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 29

 What To Do While
Your Test Is Running

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 30

Build On Your Conversion
Optimization Knowledge
Once you’ve setup your first test, there is Individuals Peep Laja (@peeplaja) Hotjar (@hotjar)
at least a week’s wait before you can get Founder of ConversionXL All-in-one Analytics &
statistically significant results. Depending Oli Gardner (@oligardner) and CXL Institute. Conversion Feedback Tool
on your traffic levels on the pages where Co-founder of Unbounce—opinionated optimization champion, speaker, www.hotjar.com
you’re running the test, you may need to writer on conversion optimization, author and optimizer.
wait longer than that. Although this wait landing pages & social media. www.conversionxl.com Qualaroo (@qualaroo)
might entice you to sit back and relax, www.unbounce.com Customer Decision
Analysis Tool
we recommend making the most of it by Organizations
growing your knowledge of CRO and the Joanna Wiebe (@copyhackers) www.qualaroo.com
industry. Co-founder of CopyHackers. VWO (@vwo)
Hubspot (@hubspot twitter)
com & Page99Test.com The world’s leading A/B Testing &
All-In-One Marketing Software
One of the easiest ways to keep up-to- www.copyhackers.com Conversion Optimization Platform
www.hubspot.com
date in an industry is to closely follow www.vwo.com
those who are its thought leaders-- Brian Massey (@bmassey)
people and organizations who produce Founder of Conversion Sciences KISSmetrics (@kissmetrics)
excellent content and also curate and author of Your Customer Customer Engagement
content created by others. Creation Equation. Automation Platform
www.conversionsciences.com www.kissmetrics.com
Here’s a list of the top experts and
companies associated with CRO you Michael Aagaard (@ContentVerve) Monetate (@monetate)
should definitely follow: Freelance CRO consultant, international Optimization and
keynote speaker and former Senior Personalization Tool
Conversion Optimizer at Unbounce. www.monetate.com
www.michaelaagaard.com

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 31

Work Towards Planning
Your Next Set Of Test(s)
By now you must have realized that the success of your CRO efforts is
contingent upon how consistently you work toward it. While you wait for
the results of your previous test(s) to arrive, you should kick start the work
on your next set of tests.

There are primarily two ways you can plan your next set of tests:

1. Pick up tests from your testing calendar

If you already have a few testing ideas finalized and scheduled, you can
work toward getting the requirements to conduct it in place. Doing so
will also give you a headstart and make the whole process more efficient.

2. Go back and brainstorm new testing ideas

In case you’re out of ideas for the next iteration, or have already set
up the ones you had, you should go back and repeat the entire process
from scratch. Remember, by this point you have a lot more context about
what’s not working with your website. Just couple this with the learnings
you’ve had so far, and you’re good to go.

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 32

 Analyzing And Learning
From Your Test Results
It is the analysis phase of an optimization When you run a test until you’ve reached
plan that helps you close the loop for significance you have to do post-test analysis
conversion optimization and fuel further to decide on the way forward.
optimization efforts.
Your test can really only end in 3 ways:
Unfortunately, optimizers often look at
a test result only to see if there was a • Winning Variation is Found
winning variation. However, optimizers • No difference Between Control And Variation
need to look deeper than that. • Losing Variation is Found

A/B testing tools make testing easy, and

that’s about it. They’re tools to run tests,
and not exactly designed for post-test
analysis.

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 33

What to Do With Your
A/B Test Results

When a Winning Variation is Found When a Losing Variation is Found

Great! What you should do now is answer these questions, and proceed as follows: When the variation loses, make sure you:
• Look at the research; ensure that the hypothesis isn’t faulty.
• What is the cost of deploying the change (engineering hours, design hours)?
• Does the expected increase in the revenue justify the cost involved? • Analyze the test data; do segmentation to reveal further insights.

• Validate research data with surveys and visual analytics.

• Talk to your engineering and design teams to get the change implemented.
• Analyze the test data to see if there are further opportunities to optimize.
• Go through relevant case studies! It could reveal new perspectives.
Yes • Use these learning outcomes to fuel further optimization efforts.

• Reconstruct the hypothesis to accommodate new insights

that were missed in the initial research.

• Hold on to deployment.
• Go back to following the CRO process.
• Use post-test segmentation: can the hypothesis be refined for more impact?

No • Reconstruct the hypothesis

• Use these learnings to fuel further optimization efforts

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 34

No Difference Between
Test Variations. Now What?
Let’s say the overall outcome is ‘no significant difference’ between variations. Look at the test results at least across these segments (make sure each segment
Move on to something else? Not so fast. Keep these 2 things in mind: has adequate sample size):

1. Your test hypothesis might have been right, but the implementation 1. Desktop vs Tablet/Mobile
was poor. 2. New vs Returning
3. Traffic that lands directly on the page you’re testing vs came via internal link
Let’s say your qualitative research says that concern about security is an issue. 4. If your treatment performed well for a specific segment, it’s time to
How many ways do we have to beef up the perception of security? Unlimited. consider a personalized approach for that particular segment.

You might be onto something – but the implementation didn’t work. If you have
data that supports your hypothesis, try a few more iterations to confirm your There’s no difference, but you like B better than A
hypotheses.
We’re human beings, and we have personal preferences. So if your test says
2. Just because there was no difference overall, the treatment might have that there’s no significant difference between variations, but you like B better –
beat control in a segment or two. there’s really no reason not to go with B.

If you got a lift in returning visitors and mobile visitors, but a drop for new visitors If B is a usability improvement or represents your brand image better, go for it.
and desktop users – those segments might cancel each other out, and it seems like But those are not good reasons to go with B if B performs worse in a test.
it’s a case of “no difference.” Analyze your test across key segments to see this.

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 35

 Wrapping Up
We’ve come to the end of our 8-weeks, and by this point, you might
know infinitely more about CRO than when you started at the beginning.
Remember, CRO is a process of improving your conversion rates
based on data, not assumptions.

If we haven’t repeated it enough, we’ll say it one more time: CRO is a

process, not a one-time fix. Over time, you’ll get faster at CRO and your
tests will get more advanced.

Now that you’ve become well-versed with the know-hows of CRO, make
sure you continue to explore it even further and impact your bottom line
repeatedly. Just don’t forget the main tenants we talked about in this ebook.

Before you leave, be sure to pay this guide forward. Share it with your friends,
colleagues, or anyone who you might think could gain value from it. What’s
more, bookmark it for your own reference, and be sure to download a copy.

Good luck, and happy optimizing!

The Complete DIY Guide To Improving Conversions In 60 Days 36

 About VWO
VWO is the world’s leading web testing and conversion optimization platform that
enables growing businesses to conduct qualitative and quantitative visitor research, build
an experimentation roadmap, and run continuous experiments on their digital properties.

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