Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)
The Way We Do Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)
At Endless Gain, we do Conversion Rate Optimisation, but we do it differently from everybody else. Our way is revolutionary. Our way is groundbreaking. Our way is pure common sense. Our way uses Biometrics to understand human emotions and behaviour, and Psychology to optimise human emotions and behaviour.
Ultimately the way that we approach CRO helps our clients convert more customers, keep them for longer, and have them spending more.
Our Conversion Rate Optimisation Research
To fully understand the CRO possibilities of a website the research that we do at Endless Gain breaks down into two broad types. The first is Conventional Research:
- Heuristic analysis
- Functionality analysis
- Accessibility analysis
- Usability analysis
- Web analytics analysis
- Mouse tracking analysis
- Session recordings
- Google survey
- Customer surveys
- Visitor surveys
- Live chat transcripts
- User testing
- Customer support insights
- Longitudinal study
The second, and much more exciting is cutting-edge Biometric Research we apply to conversion rate optimisation, comprising of:
But what really sets us apart from other CRO agencies is the way that we bring together the findings from our own conventional and biometric research with findings from decades of academic psychology to make CRO changes to your site that increase both revenue and conversions.
How Biometrics can Revolutionise Conversion Rate Optimisation
In the past, we have been reliant on feedback from users, whether that is in the form of one-on-one interviews, surveys or focus groups.
As insightful as these formats can be, we also know they can be heavily influenced by human factors such as biases and post-rationalisation.
Participants will do their best to be as helpful as they can, and sometimes this can include giving you the answers they think you want to hear.
That is why we rely on Biometrics to give us the answers. Our tools interpret how participants feel in the moment and give us the answers we need, so participants can relax and not worry so much about our questions and focus more on completing the tasks in front of them.
Our tools allow us to collect data on:
- Eye-tracking – to tell you which parts of your site customers are looking at and when
- Facial-Expression Recognition – to tell you how they’re feeling when they’re doing so
- Galvanic Skin Response – to measure the strength of these emotions
- EEG – to measure their engagement with your site
- Pupil Dilation – to measure their arousal
Any one of these technologies gives you valuable insights into a customer’s experience on your website, but the real conversion rate optimisation magic comes when we bring them all together to map your customers’ psychological and emotional journey from landing onsite to checkout.
How Eye-tracking Can Help CRO
Using state-of-the-art eye-trackers to monitor what your customers are looking at and when, with millimetre-to-millimetre and millisecond-to-millisecond precision we can answer the questions you might have asked yourself;
- What’s the first thing a customer looks at when they visit your page?
- Will they notice the special offer banner at the top?
- Will they struggle to find the checkout button?
- Does it make a difference what device they’re viewing your site on?
It’s not just about picking holes in a site, it’s about fixing them. When changes are made – whether it’s something simple like moving the call-to-action button or something more complex and psychological like bringing in decoy options – eye-tracking technology tells us whether this change has had the desired effect:
- Is your customer finding the call-to-action button quicker?
- Are they spending longer looking at the product you want them to look at?
Eyetracking can answer this and improve both the customer experience and conversions.
Facial Expression Analysis – Measuring Customers emotions in CRO
The trick of telling what other people are thinking by looking at their facial expressions is one of our most fundamental and deep-seated human abilities. Because we just can’t help showing our expressions in our faces, monitoring your customers’ facial expressions as they move through your site is a great way of discovering which emotions they’re feeling.
Facial recognition in conversion rate optimisation recognises no less than fifteen distinct expressions and when it’s paired-up with eye tracking, facial expression recognition software allows us to find out which parts of your site are causing which emotions:
- Are your customers feeling bored or fatigued as they pass through the checkout or navigate a bewildering range of options?
- Are they feeling excited or elated as they finally find the exact product they’ve been looking for?
- Are they feeling relaxed and calm as they browse smoothly through the product listings?
If it does turn out that your customers are experiencing anger at the checkout or surprise at your website’s navigation system, that’s where facial expression analysis in CRO can get your customers smiling.
GSR – Tracking Emotional Responses to Improve CRO
Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) – or, as it’s sometimes known, Skin Conductance (SC) or Electrodermal Activity (EDA), is a measure of intensity of emotional arousal. When you get worked up, you sweat, and this makes your skin conduct electricity better. GSR works by measuring how easily an electric current passes through the skin. The higher your skin conductance, the sweatier you are, and therefore the more emotionally aroused you are.
So, in conversion rate optimisation why should we use GSR to measure customers’ emotional responses to your website?
- They might lie – particularly if they find their responses embarrassing, or think they’d be telling you something you don’t want to hear.
- They might not know – GSR can pick up on unconscious emotional responses that people can’t control and may even be unaware of.
So, while facial expression recognition in CRO can tell us which emotion your customers are feeling, galvanic skin response can tell us how strongly they’re feeling it.
- Do they like this product, or do they love it?
- Is the checkout process smooth, or sending your customers into fits of rage?
- Do they leave your site relaxed, or stressed out?
Once we have discovered the answers to these questions, we can optimise your website accordingly.
EEG & CRO – Measuring your Customers’ Engagement & Motivation
EEG, in conversion rate optimisation, is a technique for measuring electrical activity in different parts of the brain. Brain cells communicate using electrical signals, and when a thousand or so of these cells are “firing” at once, they create an electric field that’s powerful enough to be picked up and analysed.
This conversion rate optimisation principle has two important advantages over other methods.
- It’s very fast – which is crucial when you’re measuring brain processes that are over in a just a few tenths of a second.
- It’s precise – EEG doesn’t just tell you how hard the brain’s working as a whole, but what patterns of cell-firing are happening in particular parts of the brain.
Allowing you to quickly and accurately measure your customers’ engagement and motivation when on your site and improving CRO.
Pupil Dilation – Monitoring Arousal in CRO
Pupil dilation is a measure of arousal. The pupils are like a pair of speedometers for your brain;
- When you’re hyped up, your pupils get bigger – this is pupil dilation.
- When you calm down, they get smaller again – pupil constriction.
How does this help conversion rate optimisation?
- Suppose that your customers are finding your checkout form hard work – their pupils will get bigger as a result.
- Suppose your landing page shows a big picture of a product you think your customers will love, but it’s actually leaving them cold. Their pupils won’t grow at all.
Once the problem has been identified, it can be fixed and conversions improve.
Optimising Consumer Behaviour for CRO
Biometrics, combined with psychology has the greatest impact in optimising consumer behaviour. So, what’s it all about?
- It’s about creating the appropriate personalised experience for each customer.
- It’s about delivering the right content to the right user, at the right time, and on the right device.
- It’s about creating the right emotions to achieve the right behaviour.
- It’s about iterating. It’s about learning.
- It’s about increasing revenue for our clients.
Psychology of Persuasion in CRO
Psychology in conversion rate optimisation investigates all aspects of human thinking and human behaviour, particularly those in the fields of consumer psychology and behavioural economics which have obvious applications in eCommerce.
But what are less obviously relevant are those findings that relate to patterns of human thinking and behaviour in general:
- What makes us tick?
- What do we find persuasive?
- How are our decisions affected by our emotions?
- What are our mental blind-spots?
Lots of conversion rate optimisation agencies claim to use psychological research, but can they prove it?
Personalisation – tailor your site to each customer and increase CRO
Consumer research shows that customers are more likely to buy from retailers who understand them, who know their likes and dislikes, what makes them tick. It’s called Personalisation, and it’s all about providing a better, more relevant experience.
So, what should you do?
- Should you display your cheaper products at the top of the list and more expensive products later, or vice versa? The answer is that it depends on the personality type of the customer, which you can figure out from their click behaviour and purchase history.
- Should you include a sidebar showing “People who liked this also like?” For some types of customer, this drives sales. Others get so distracted that you risk losing the original sale.
Personalisation in conversion rate optimisation will help you get the right segmented data on your customers and put the right process in place to increase revenue.
Experimentation – Testing Theories in CRO
In conversion rate optimisation, once a problem has been diagnosed, we come up with a hypothesis about what experiments to implement, based on extensive knowledge of findings and theory from psychology – and test this hypothesis. It is important to set criteria in advance for figuring out whether or not the experiment has been a success.
This involves creating wireframes and/or high-fidelity designs that will run on the website’s testing platform. Every single experiment goes through 26 checkpoints in total from conception, through development to live deployment. After deployment, it’s subjected to a further 10 checks whilst running through to completion. This way, we ensure consistency for each experiment.
Just like in any experiment, you can’t be guaranteed of a particular result, but in CRO no experimentation is a failure, you will always learn something that will help you to improve and grow, to iterate, to evolve.
Development – Putting CRO Knowledge into Practice
We can come up with all kinds of great ideas for conversion rate optimisation experiments based upon the insights from the research conducted, but it’s all for nothing until they are put into practice. That’s why it’s important to have a team of developers who can quickly get your tests up and running on your platform.
We are rigorous with the quality of our development and our experiments, each of which goes through 36 different checkpoints as a broken experiment is a waste of time and a waste of knowledge. That’s why every experiment is QA’d by a second developer across a minimum of;
- 5 desktop browsers
- 4 mobile devices
- 2 tablets
Only then are they ready for scrutiny.
Quality Assurance in CRO
Finally, you can have the best business and the flashiest website in the world, but it will all go to waste if the site has basic functionality issues. Quality Assurance in conversion rate optimisation is not the most glamorous task but it is imperative that every website through a full QA audit – across the relevant range of devices, browsers, resolutions and operating systems – both before and after the optimisation process.
QA testing in CRO can find you money you didn’t even know you were losing. Quality should be assured every time.
CRO is not a quick fix. It’s an ongoing iterative process that constantly improves your customers experience to get you more sales and your customer’s loyalty.
Conversion Rate Optimisation when done correctly delivers a higher rate of return than most, if not all paid channels.
Optimise your site well and you automatically improve your Acquisition and Retention conversion rates as well, as you will now be sending traffic to a site that is converting better.
