5 Steps to Increase CRO in Enterprise eCommerce

Conversion Rate Optimization in Enterprise eCommerce

Improving conversion rate optimization, or CRO, ranks as one of the best strategies for generating ecommerce revenue. The basics of ecommerce CRO in B2B markets rely on treating the process as a journey instead of as a destination--it's an ongoing process that requires gathering data, testing platform features and analyzing the results. Each visitor to a B2B platform generates valuable data, and it's critical not to waste this resource because it costs far less to increase CRO rates than it does to target and land new clients. Following B2B best practices for conversions involves setting up automatic intelligence gathering, testing the results to maximize conversion rates and feeding the improvement process so that it evolves continuously as trends and customer habits change.

about 73 percent of online stores don't understand why customers abandon their websites and shopping carts.[1] Businesses only spend an average of about $1 out of each $92 converting customers while using the rest to acquire new business.[2] However, the top-performing companies spend more than 5 percent of their budgets on improving conversion rate optimization. In business-to-business sales, inbound marketing conversions are even more critical due to the longer sales and approval process. Best practices for B2B organizations include integrating intelligence-gathering from multiple data sources, testing conversion triggers, analyzing the results and continually upgrading platform features to optimize conversions.

Five ecommerce CRO Steps Optimized Through Automation

Inbound marketing and CRO leverage the most dollars out of existing traffic at the lowest cost when compared with other marketing initiatives. The process involves learning what customers want, testing what's been learned and refining the process continually as buying habits change, trends evolve and customer profiles develop. The CRO process includes five basic steps that have been independently validated by multiple conversion experts.[3] These steps include:

Collecting data from as many sources as possible
Researching strategies to use the data to achieve business goals
Creating multivariate, split-tests (A/B tests), to measure CRO rates
Analyzing the results and applying the insights into platform features
Refining and repeating the process

Collecting Data

Collecting data helps marketers understand their customer better and identifies ways to help them complete their tasks faster. Data includes both quantitative and qualitative information. Analysts can use Google Analytics and other tools to find out which areas of their websites trigger the most clicks. The data can come from Web pages, third-party integrations, social media and other external sources. Qualitative data can come from customer testimonials, reviews, customer service departments, CRM software and surveys. When everything is fully integrated, collecting data becomes automatic.

Researching Strategies

Before choosing the types of experiments that make the most practical sense, designers need to go back to their data. Possibilities for research include business trends, Google Analytics, customer surveys, buying histories, and personal queries of real-world customers. Find out what drives conversions so that tests can be devised to see if the assumptions are correct.

Creating Tests

There are two primary types of tests: A/B, which is often called split-testing, and multivariate testing. The former is used to test one version of a page or page element against another version. Multivariate testing examines multiple variations on different platform pages to determine the best combinations. This method is useful when it's important to understanding complex relationships and decision-making triggers. For example, using multivariate testing is important when you have multiple decision-makers or buying committees to satisfy.

Analyzing Results

It's important to develop benchmarks that reflect whether marketing guesses are correct. Surveys can provide the most critical information, but these work best with open-ended questions, and customers won't answer too many of these types of questions. Careful analysis might reveal that customers frequently visit a page or product but don't convert. A pop-up survey might be the best way to find out why people aren't converting. Another option is personal contact. Some sites ask visitors to leave recorded feedback.

Refining and Repeating Tests

The information gathered can be refined and implemented in permanent B2B platform features when the tests result in high conversion rates. Refining the options includes identifying multivariate conversion triggers and comparing different options with split-tests to determine which option is the better CRO trigger. If the assumptions and tests deliver poor results, it's back to step number one because the data could be incomplete or faulty. It's also important to monitor results regularly because customer behavior evolves over time.

Testing Types and Strategies

The actual steps that each business takes depend on many factors, and there are astonishing variations in ways to test a given site. These include optimizing calls-to-action, providing platform-specific messages for each social media market, encouraging customers to share their own messages and getting customers to share predefined messages. The checkout process, of course, is the most critical area for testing and refinement because it's where most conversions die. One retailer was able to increase its conversion rate by 45 percent just by changing the verbiage from "checkout" to "continue."[3] This change was reinforced with a message explaining that it wasn't necessary to create an account to buy products, but that customers had the option of creating an account during checkout for even faster service in the future.

Click Triggers

Testing different headlines, data points, star-rating information, free shipping offers, security guarantees and other click triggers can increase orders. Even increases as small as hundredths-of-a-percent can generate $1 million or more in large B2B orders. Savvy marketers can devise, test and use click triggers to delight customers, reduce objections, troubleshoot problems and boost conversion rates.

Usability Testing

Today's burgeoning technologies result in multiple computing devices, mobile phone models and operating systems. Each piece of website code, customer feature and proprietary app must perform well across a variety of devices, browsers and operating systems. Usability becomes a critical concern, and the only way to know for sure is to test usability on different devices.

Capturing Leads

Each business operates differently, and what works for some companies might not work for others. If everyone else seems to be using a tactic--such as posting multiple social sharing buttons--that doesn't mean the tactic is sacrosanct. That's why an ongoing testing program is so critical for achieving various business goals. In B2B sales, developing leads for long-term sales might be more important than converting customers for one-time sales. Capturing and nurturing leads for split-testing emails might deliver better results that convincing someone to place a single order.

Understanding the Conversion Optimization Imperatives for B2B Platforms

In the B2B sphere, functionality usually trumps style, but that doesn't mean that aesthetics won't improve conversion rates. Understanding and supporting customers is vital to success, and each stage of the buying journey can be tested and refined continually. Surveys show that 89 percent of companies now understand that the customer experience is the gold standard for competing in business while only 36 percent of marketers held this opinion 4 years ago.[4] 86 percent of marketers at the highest decision-making levels look at the whole customer journey and the user experiences that site visitors encounter along the way instead of just studying quantitative results. about 97 percent of website visitors don't convert, so CRO still has far to go.[5] That's why maximizing conversions for motivated buyers is so vital. In B2B sales, a prolonged sales process means that the journey and customer experiences are even more important for nurturing clients along the sales funnel.

Breakthroughs for Gathering Intelligence, Testing Page Elements and Implementing Results

Understanding how important CRO is in the B2B marketplace is the first step in optimizing your platform, but the practical details depend on integration and automation. Finding the right development partner simplifies every process from gathering data to increasing leads and conversion rates. An experienced ecommerce developer understands the processes and can involve your IT staff in the coding and integrating processes so that you can achieve your platform-specific business and conversion goals. Along the way, you'll be creating the kinds of user experiences that fulfill stakeholder needs based on each site visitor's role in the decision-making process. References: