Uncovering Hidden Revenue: The Importance of CRO Audits for E-commerce and SaaS Projects

Previously, we have already written about what is Conversion Rate Optimization and what role it plays in ecommerce projects. If you have an online store (for example, on Shopify), we recommend reading our article "What is CRO". There you will learn about our CRO Agency's approach and the different steps of the optimization process.

Recall that CRO services include the process of finding the "bottlenecks" on the site, the analysis of the funnel and the ways to increase the percentage of key metrics (purchases, leads, applications, etc.).

In the example below, we describe the activities and reports we do as part of a UX audit aka CRO audit, for an e-commerce project.

For SaaS and content projects, the work is almost the same, only the potential loss is not measured usually in leads or other metrics.

‍

So, here we go:

1. Checking Google Analytics Universal settings.

What you do:

• Check the correctness of the settings and data collection at the property level, view level and other reports.

The top 3 reasons why you may be losing money:

• Not all pages trigger the analytics code;
• Duplicated analytics code;
• Invalid attribution model. For example, all transactions are recorded on the "referral" channel (Liqpay or Paypal) and you don't see the real picture of which channel conversions are made.

‍

2. Review the site's audience.

What we do:

• Analyze the user portrait.

The top 3 reasons why you can lose money:

• Invalid targeting in advertising;
• Invalid communication strategy;
• Drop off in conversions in metrics like geography, gender, age, time of visit and time of conversions.

‍

3. Cross-browser analysis and device analysis.

What we do:

• Analyze qualitative metrics on different devices, browsers, and screen resolutions and the impact of these parameters on conversions.

Top 3 reasons why you might be losing money:

• Layout issues on different devices;
• The scripts don't work on specific devices and browser versions, so the user can't complete the purchase;
• Lack of adaptive version of the site.

‍

4. Analysis of site load speed and conversion pages.

What we do:

• Analyze the loading speed of the site as a whole and individual pages;
• Look at the bounce rate on the frequently visited pages.

The top 3 reasons why you can lose money:

• Slow performance of the site as a whole (desktop and mobile);
• Slow loading of the frequently visited pages;
• High bounce rate for a variety of reasons.

‍

5. Analysis of the sales funnel and communication points.

What we do:

• Analyze/build the sales funnel.

Top 3 reasons why you might be losing money:

• Funnel analysis reveals bottlenecks on the site;
• Initially incorrect or no funnel;
• The user does not get to the key stages of the funnel.

6. Analyze and review the effectiveness of marketing channels.

What we do:

• Analyze the performance of traffic acquisition channels and their effectiveness.

Top 3 reasons why you may be losing money:

• Conversions are not being tracked. For example, there is no connection between analytics and Google ads and you don't know which keywords and ads are generating more revenue.
• Budgets are allocated to channels that aren't working;
• Channels that are working don't get budgeted. More often than not, it's email marketing – eCommerce focuses on customer acquisition but forgets about customer retention. We talked in detail about marketing automation in this article.

‍

7. Analyze Heatmaps and screen scroll maps.

What we do:

• Analyze the user's behavior on the site and how they interact with it.

Top 3 reasons why you can lose money:

• The user is not clicking on the CTAs we think are important;
• Uncomfortable navigation and the users can't find what they're looking for;
• Low scrolling depth on the page, while important items are below the average fold line. For example, a promotional offer or other offer is on the third screen of the main page, and 75% of users leave before the second screen.

‍

You can double your sales
without increasing the budget on ads

Send Request

‍

8. Analysis of user behavior on the site (based on recorded video sessions or heatmaps).

What we do:

• Analyze user behavior on the site and how they interact with it in addition to the previous point.

Top 3 reasons why you can lose money:

• There are many reasons. Notably, Google Analytics can answer the question, "What is the user doing on the site". Heatmaps and video views will give the answer to the question, "Why is the user doing exactly that on the site".

‍

9. Heuristic analysis of the site.

What we do:

• Analyze the site from a usability perspective. Going through the funnel from different devices and make a list of comments, what can distract the user from conversion, what can be an obstacle.

Top 3 reasons why you might be losing money:

• Inconvenient navigation;
• Lack of a clear USP and CTA, the description of the essence of the site or business;
• Layout with errors.

‍

10. Conducting customer surveys (through a form on the website or through an existing email database).

What we do:

• Surveying existing customers or site users. For example, at the stage of visiting the "Cart" when leaving the site without making a transaction, we can ask the user about the reasons for leaving.

The top 3 reasons why you can lose money:

• There are many reasons: price, shipping, quality, navigation, product description, trust in the site, etc. The main one is that customers don't perceive the site/business the way the owner sees it.

‍

11. User testing.

What we do:

• We set up user testing. In a special program, users (we set the geo, interest, and additional requirements) come to the site and in video mode, comment on their actions and go over the script we’ve prepared.

Top 3 reasons why you can lose money:

• There are many reasons, but often these tests show problems with navigation, layout. They show how a new user perceives the site in general, what they can say about it if they visit it for only 3 seconds, how easy it is to make a purchase, etc.

‍

12. Team interviews.

What we do:

• Interview the team. For some projects, employees can provide more information than analytics and customer surveys.

Top 3 reasons why you can lose money:

• The owner's and the team's different visions of the business;
• A number of other insights about customers and the business as a whole.

13. Preparation of a list of hypotheses and recommendations.

What we do:

• Prepare a list of observations, hypotheses, and recommendations based on previously collected data.

‍

14. Conclusions and recommendations for the next steps.

What we do:

• The overall conclusion of the UX audit and a prioritized list of next steps are in the form of a table. The task at this stage is to make an action plan to increase the website's conversion.

Top 3 reasons why you can lose money:

• The main reason – is an unwillingness to implement/change something on the site;
• Implementation of changes is not the priority;
• Not wanting to do A/B testing.

You can do this research and it definitely will help you to understand your users better, find ‘money-leaking’ places on the website and increase the conversion rate. However, as a CRO ecommerce agency, we can take all these works on our shoulders and execute the CRO research (audit) for you. Please, use this link to book a free strategy call with our team and we’ll make a list of the ways to improve your conversion rate.

‍